Gripping but soft, poetic but directive, intense but forgiving. I expected an angry manifesto and instead I was met with a stunning and heartbreaking reflection of the United States’ darkest moral stain: “the Negro problem.” This is why you need to read I am Not Your Negro.
“The story of a negro in America is the story of America.”
I am not your Negro – James baldwin
Finishing what was started
Filmmaker, Raoul Peck decided to finish what author and civil rights activist James Baldwin started— a reflection on America through the lens of three important men: Malcom X, Martin Luther King Jr. and Medgar Evers. Baldwin died before finishing his project leaving only 30 pages of notes. So, with the deliberateness of a filmmaker, the fume of an activist and the faithfulness of an historian—Peck takes these 30 pages and compiles a work that commemorates the prophetic and revolutionary mind of James Baldwin.
“I could, simply, no longer sit in Paris discussing the Algerian and the black American problem. Everybody else was paying their dues, and it was time I went home and paid mine.”
I am not your Negro – James baldwin
A Cinematic Experience
I Am Not Your Negro feels like watching a film… in pages. The book is an engaging compilation of lyrics; poetry; interviews and lectures taken from Peck’s documentary (click to watch trailer) and it still preserves its gripping cinematic quality. Each page seeps into the next pulling you from movie scenes from the 30s, TV adverts from the 60s to interviews with Malcom X, Baldwin’s university lectures and more. Everything is placed with intention, and I read it knowing that each fragment that comes before and after is linked. I felt like I was eating from a cultural buffet where every rich and decadent bite would transport me to the blistering heat of racial segregation in America.
“…we must realize this, that no other country in the world has been so fat and so sleek, and so safe, and so happy, and so irresponsible, and so dead.”
I am not your Negro – James baldwin
Racism is America’s sleeping giant
And we have seen how often it wakes up. I Am Not Your Negro is a personal account of the ongoing racial war happening in the US. It’s a cultural collage that urges us to ask ourselves how far America has come since the abolition of slavery. Are black not pawns in suits, puppets in parliament, mental prisoners in banks who only further a racial agenda? And yet we’re still expected to be grateful that now “black people are everywhere.” What are they complaining about? They have so many rights now? (I am a guilty party) James Baldwin answers these questions with a humble but inarguable intellectual prowess.
Where do black Americans stand?
He sheds light on the tortured sense of identity that black Americans face—citizens of a country whose wars they fought in—and yet are still treated like the dark “other” living freely thanks to the gracious charity of the white man. He sheds light on the subconscious racism by people who wouldn’t for a day imagine themselves a racist: “Oh, I don’t see colour,” and yet clutch their purse as soon as a black man passes them; “Oh, why does everything have to be about race. Doesn’t that just intensify division?” as if completely ignoring race is what will move people forward; “Leave the past in the past,” as if the history doesn’t exist in the present.
“Heroes as far as I could see, were white, and not merely because of the movies but because of the land in which I lived, of which moves were simple a reflection.”
I am not your Negro – James baldwin
Are we blind to racial propaganda?
Guns. Sex. Violence. Drugs. Angry black woman. Absent black dad. Illiterate. Passive. If not passive, then aggressive. Unconsciously this is what American media feeds us about the black image. It’s who it says we are. And we subconsciously slip into this mould because it’s easier to listen to the loud propaganda than the silent and liberating truth (click for more on this topic) .But what about the voices drowned out by all the other noise? The voices of Aretha Franklin, Nina Simone, Richard Wright, Edward P. Jones, W.E. B. Du Bois. Why are these voices not celebrated as world heroes but black heroes? Why is there that demarcation? I Am Not Your Negro is an autopsy of the American conscious which spills a culture and history I now see with fresh and appreciative eyes.
Conclusion
Everyone should read this book. Why? This is a book to understand the truth about how black people are perceived by the world. This is a book to understand how the world – film, books, media has indoctrinated black people to be perceived. As Bob Dylan says, “He’s only a pawn in their game.” However more than anything, this is a book that interrogates how we as black people perceive ourselves.
History is not the past. It is the present. We carry our history with us. We are our history. If we pretend otherwise, we literally are criminals.
Discussion Questions
Where have you seen progress in the cultural perception of African people?
Which civil rights activist do you identify with? Matin Luther King Jr. or Malcom X or both? Why?
Are there any books on black consciousness that you recommend?
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