Commemoration and The Two Americas on Parlez Vous Monday

 

The Other America - Rev Dr Martin Luther King, Jr

Center for Nonviolent Change and Social Justice 

 

What we might need to ask ourselves is why, as a country, after 60 years  - after 160 – after 400 – “we” remain in the same place

And it’s not a rhetorical question

Also since today is supposed to be a day of scholarship, learning and reflection, I have a few thoughts about culture  

(you all know I tend to wax like this during award season, but over the years the point has just become more sharp and more clear)

 

These Academy Awards are just the ones I remember off the top of my head

 

Hattie McDaniel got her Oscar for playing a very specific type of maid in a Confederate plantation household (the Mammy)

Denzel got his first (supporting) Oscar for playing a Black man who wasn’t free

Lupita Nyongo got hers for playing a slave

Mahershala Ali got one of his for playing a Magical Negro

Halle Berry got hers for playing a very specific stereotype (the Jezebel)

Denzel got his second one for playing a corrupt thug (even though he did a very good job)

 

But what I think I know is

-      Hollywood rewards stereotypes

-      Politics follows culture

-      What people believe affects what they then think is acceptable to do

 

We’re in a propaganda war, not a policy war, and I bet you all are tired of having heard me say that for a decade – so I’m going to adapt Professor Nikole Hannah Jones’ phrase, which she used this weekend on NLP –

We are in a NARRATIVE war

 

And it might behoove us all to

-      upgrade our tactics

-      take Professor Snyder’s advice (which was also mine, but again, nobody has to believe me but it might behoove all who want to live in a democracy to believe him) and “play” less on defense and more on offense

"Welcome, Professor" from should-ve-been-governor Andrew Gillum is giving me life, lol

 

That is also why I don’t think Sinners will win any more Oscars even though it ought to – they might give one to Ludwig Goransson (he’s White), another one to Ms Ruth Carter (she has three already,lol), and possibly some for camerawork and cinematography 

Beloved Community Commemoration Service – Ebenezer Baptist