Tuesday, February 5

Django, Lincoln, and the Abolitionists?

Nation of Islam leader, Minister Louis Farrakhan said he thinks “Django Unchained” true purpose is prepping, and or inciting whites for a race-war. I respect the Minister, but that ain’t the main reason why Hollywood released "Django". Hollywood is in the business to make lots of money by pushing certain images, illusions, and propaganda. So why was Quentin Tarantino picked to make Hollywood’s most significant movie on slavery since at-least 'Amistad' if not 'Roots'? Why not Spike Lee, John Singleton (what ever happened to him), the Hughes Bros, or Bill Duke? Tarantino was picked because Hollywood knew he would turn slavery into a real Tarantino film; very real graphic violence, Tarantino style humor, in combination with using the word NIGGER a gazillion times! They knew Tarantino would get his buddy Samuel Jackson on board, which would then help draw other Black actors to ensure that Black folks would be standing in line, meaning validation for this movie. Then he needed a well-known white actor (Leonardo DiCaprio) for cross-over appeal (it turned out that the white German Dude, Chris Waltz) is 'Django's" real star, cause he’s the only one that got an Oscar nomination. But beyond economics, demographic, and logistic issues, I’m gonna base this piece on what I saw, reports, and reviews. I've read 'Django' represented a revenge fantasy for Black folks and even had a so-called liberating effect for some white people, and that’s really an improper response, that a serious movie about slavery should feel liberating for white folks. They should feel appalled, ashamed, remorseful, obligated, etc. How many Nazi’s who've seen 'Shindlers List' said that it made them feel liberated? As for us Black folks feeling therapeutic by watching this on-screen revenge fantasy of seeing a Black dude gettin some pay-back for slavery (except he didn’t do it for the fight against slavery, but to get his wife back), bullshit! At this point, the power elites are ok with Black folks feelin liberating by watching an historical film set 155 years ago as a money makin distraction from the on-going struggle against white-supremacy, systemic racism, US-NATO military imperialism, Wall St Banksterism, and the Global Neo-Liberal Disaster Capitalism we're faced with every day! 'Django' can't be separated from the fact that it was timed to come out with Spielberg's 'Lincoln' and PBS' 'The 'Abolitionists'. This movie was timed for the 150th anniversary of the so-called 'Emancipation Proclamation' and perpetuates the myth that Lincoln was our great emancipator, and saw us Black folk as equals, and the Civil War as a moral fight against slavery! More bullshit! But just as crazy, are Spielberg and his buddies pickin a white-washed script for 'Lincoln' that scrubbed my hero Fredrick Douglass, as well as all other Black abolitionist, and freedom fighters of that era from his so-called historical epic! This gives the false impression that Black folks just sat around waiting for some white Jesus savior type politicians like Lincoln and Thaddeus Stevens to give our ancestors freedom like some kind of Goddamn Christmas gift. White socialist web-sites praise 'Lincoln' and then disses Michelle Alexander's book 'The New Jim Crow' as Black bourgeois 'liberalism'. PBS so-called 'historical' documentary 'The Abolitionists' reinforces this fucked up myth. Though it does speak about Fredrick Douglass and his impact on the movement, he is too big and well known to completely ignore! Its main focus is on white abolitionists: William Lloyd Garrison, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Angelina Grimke, and John Brown. But folks should know that Douglass had several important Black colleagues in the fight against slavery: Harriett Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Martin Delaney, Robert Smalls, etc. And unlike most white abolitionists (except Brown) Tubman, Delaney, and Smalls literally risked their lives freeing slaves! Tubman was THE Face of the 'Under-Ground Rail-Road, and served as a Union Army spy during the Civil War, while Delaney and Smalls were actually Union officers! Unlike John Brown's failed Harpers Ferry raid, Robert Smalls actually succeeded in the hijacking of a Confederate gun-boat and sailed it to Union lines. Wow! Thus, the lame ass message that so-called liberal Hollywood is projecting is clear, that Blacks should give all praise to the so-called white savior, Ol (dis)Honest Abe for our freedom, as they erase Black freedom fighters from history, or give us a historical big money makin spoof as a distraction!

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