TWO MOVIES ABOUT SLAVERY: LINCOLN and DJANGO UNCHAINED

When I was a child, my mother told me the only reason my brother kept calling me names was because he could get a rise out of me. “If you ignore him,” she said, “he’ll stop.” She was right. So I learned it’s what I answer to that matters more than what you call me.

            I may not have seen Django Unchained if the movie had not generated such controversy. There was angry talk about the number of times “nigger” was used--somebody counted and said it was more than a hundred. Spike Lee said he wouldn’t see it because it would offend his ancestors. Others were outraged that Brunhilde (Kerry Washington’s character) was a “helpless female” needing rescue. (If she had been the proverbial “strong black woman” fighting to get her husband back, we would have complained about that as well.)

            I thought Django Unchained  was fun and funny.

            When I heard the contemporary music playing, I knew it was not a serious movie, so I relaxed. I’ve seen a couple of Quentin Tarantino movies and I was more disturbed by the prospect of his signature mayhem than I was about how many times “nigger” would be uttered.

            This movie is an ironic spoof of slavery. Beloved (1998) was a serious film treatment of slavery and nobody saw it. Tarantino knows what kind of movie puts butts in the seats: lots of big blasting guns, explosions, blood flowing freely, a damsel in distress, an invincible hero who has close calls, but whom we know will triumph in the end; and, with tongue firmly in cheek, anachronisms all over the place. In other words, Tarantino made a typical Hollywood adventure film. What was atypical is that it was set within slavery and the last man standing was black.              

          Yes, Tarantino mocked the travesty that was slavery, but he also showed the cruelty and absurdity of it. I much prefer that to having slavery being denied or lied about. And there were several moments of hilarity. The night riders who couldn’t see through their ineptly made hoods was a scream. The sadistic slaver who “owned” Brunhilde called his plantation “Candyland;” a silly parody of the pastoral names given to the estates of traders in human flesh. I hooted when, after all the whites around him were dead, Samuel Jackson’s character dropped his cane, straightened his back and stopped acting servile. I also laughed when Tarantino’s own character wound up as a hole in the ground, victim of one of the explosions. It was escapist, cathartic entertainment.

            The film Lincoln, on the other hand, is serious and can be faulted for ignoring important aspects of history pertinent to the story. I believe the movie has resonated with so many, as it did with me, because nearly 150 years ago the U.S. Congress was as sharply polarized as it is today, and along nearly the same lines. This is a movie for those who love the gamesmanship of politics. Unfortunately, by focusing solely on the white male elected officials who finally managed to make traffic in human lives illegal in the United States, Spielberg has denied agency to the many others who forced this political battle. This is particularly obvious and painful because those who are ignored, not even given the courtesy of a line of conversation, are those who are historically marginalized in this society that reserves power for wealthy white males.

            Briefly, these people are Quakers who were resisting slavery in the seventeenth century; abolitionists who labored for decades to change public opinion from acceptance of slavery to abhorrence for it. One of the most eloquent abolitionists, Frederick Douglass, met with President Lincoln to convince him to allow blacks to fight in the Union Army. Eric Foner, professor of history at Columbia University, said, “The 13th Amendment originated not with Lincoln but with a petition campaign early in 1864 organized by the Women’s National Loyal League, an organization of abolitionist feminists headed by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.” To not even mention Douglass or the Women’s National Loyal League in this movie is inexcusable.

            However, I am pleased to see a serious, major American movie admit that the Civil War, this country’s most pivotal event, was fought over whether or not the U.S. would continue to hold other humans in bondage. For a very long time the country has been in denial about that.

           The capture, enslavement of, and commerce in the bodies of people of African descent went on for hundreds of years, and the fallout from that trauma continues to the present day. It will hound us and haunt us until we face it, talk about it and accept it as a tragic part of our history. Despite their flaws, these two popular movies, the latest of several Hollywood attempts to present that brutal experience on film, at least have the country talking about an enormous and critical subject that we usually avoid.

LEGITMATE RAPE

Last night's episode of Totally Biased with (my son) W. Kamau Bell, opened with a wry comment on Todd Akin's faux paus about the inability of women to get  pregnant when they are "legitimately raped." Bell said if that were true, "Why are there so many light-skinned folk in Alabama?" And he could have added, "Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana, Virginia, North Carolina, the U.S. of A."

Then it hit me: RAPE WAS LEGITIMATE DURING SLAVERY! That's why we have such a large number of light-skinned folk in this country. In order to increase the number of slaves, and his net worth, the progeny born of the white master's  rape of an enslaved woman, was always black, another slave, never counted as white or bi-racial. THIS RAPE WAS LEGITIMATE! 

There wasn't a court in the country that would have prosecuted any white man for forcing any woman to have sex. The custom (and it may as well have been the law) was that white men could do as they pleased with any woman—black, white, married, or single. With a powerful white male protector some women were immune from being considered fair game, but any black man who objected to the exploitation or abuse of a woman could be killed with impunity. RAPE WAS LEGITIMATE!

W.E.B. Du Bois, the scholar, historian, and activist who was a founder of the NAACP put it this way. “To the ordinary American or Englishman, the race question at bottom is simply a matter of ownership of women; white men want the right to use all women, colored and white.” 

The ownership of women. This is what the Republican War on Women is all about: returning to the days when powerful men could do as they wished with women; to the days when RAPE WAS LEGITIMATE. Todd Akin's casual remark merely referred to what they've been doing for some time now with their attacks on Planned Parenthood, trying to criminalize abortion, forcing pregnant women to have unnecessary procedures. Todd Akin did not step out of line; he merely reiterated Republican policy. This is nothing new. It's a significant plank in their platform for the 2012 election. Todd Akin simply made it crystal clear that the Republicans want to return to the days when RAPE WAS LEGITIMATE.

WHAT IS THE LEGAL DEFINITION OF MAN? OF WOMAN?

This was posted on Face Book and is worth sharing widely

written by

 Donna Simone Plamondon

One problem with defining marriage as a union between one man and one woman is that there is NO LEGAL DEFINITION of male or female. Go ahead - try to find one.

My testimony to the Maryland State Legislature;

"As a Transexual/Intersex person and a registered voter I urge you to consider another perspective in the debate over Same Sex Marriage. If Marriage is to remain being defined as a legal union between a man and a woman it would then require legislation on the legal definition of a man and a woman.

As someone that has been affected by and studied sex/gender issues, it became evident that not all women are chromosomally xx nor all men xy. There are also xo, xxy, xyy and mosaic chromosomal karyotypes. Kleinfelters, Turners and Androgen Insensitivity Syndromes as well as Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia and 5-Alpha–reductase deficiency are but a few naturally occurring phenomena that result in female bodied males and male bodied females. Toxicologists are also recognizing the fact that prenatal exposure to certain environmental chemicals with hormonal properties as well as many commonly used medications for male pattern baldness, prostate and heart diseases can result in incongruent sex/genital development as well as ambiguent genitalia, intersex conditions (hermaphroditism) and transsexuality. For over 40 years now many babies born with ambiguous genitals are surgically corrected (?) to female during infancy no matter what their sex karyotype.

Scientists agree that 1.73% (1 in 58) of all babies born in the United States have some degree of intersex condition. The number of subclinical cases could at minimum double that percentage. Many of those conditions are not realized until patients present to their doctors in puberty or later with fertility issues. The medical community is reluctant to tell patients due to the potential of destroying that persons relationships and resulting in depression, anxiety and possible suicide. Instead they pursue fertility treatments, invitro fertilization, egg and sperm donors, or surrogate motherhood. If marriages were to be challenged in a court of law and DNA used as evidence many now legal marriages would need to be annulled.

Everyone is born with the innate ability to recognize their own gender no matter what genetic, medical or environmental factors they have been exposed to. None of these conditions are a choice for those affected. To exclude these people from protections granted all other citizens is in direct opposition to everything this country stands for. All citizens are entitled to the pursuit of the "American Dream". .

The original concept of the marriage license was to ensure that the union was voluntary and as societies blessing to those who choose to commit their lives to each other. The real threat to our society is the rate at which babies are being born outside of a committed, loving relationship. There are many same sex couples that are totally capable of raising happy, healthy, well adjusted children that will ultimately become productive members of our society.

Marriage licenses are given to convicted murderers, child molesters and rapists. Are they more worthy of having their relationships honored while denying the commitment and responsible actions of same sex couples? If marriage is about procreation, why are marriage licenses granted to infertile couples or those having no intentions of having children?

Let us not forget the dream of the Pilgrims – those that originally risked all to travel to and settle this country. They left their native lands due to religious rule and intolerance. They had a vision of freedom for each individual to express their religious beliefs and worship their GOD without interfering in or being interfered by the beliefs of others - Freedom OF and Freedom FROM religion.

Let us not forget the basic principles shared by all religions. PEACE, LOVE, GRACE and RESPECT for all that share this planet we call home.

If “marriage” has its roots in religion, I believe, it is up to each individual church to decide who they will and will not marry. It is NOT the governments business to legislate religious policy. It IS the right of every human being to have their love and commitment recognized by civil law as equal in all respect to that of a religious marriage."

WHICH DO WE PREFER: GUNS OR VOTES?

In several states in this country, the question posed above has been answered. In those states, it is easier to purchase and use a gun than it is to exercise your right to vote. In these states, guns may be purchased WITHOUT government-issued photo identification. In some places no identification of any kind is required to purchase a gun. In addition, it is lawful to carry these guns anywhere you go, including schools and movie theaters.

However, in many states, if you want to vote, you must have a copy of your birth certificate, social security card, marriage license and whatever other items the state requires to issue you a photo ID. In other words, obtaining a voter ID is inconvenient, costly and time consuming, but buying a gun is simple and easy. That includes assault rifles with clips carrying multiple rounds so you can kill and maim lots of people quickly without having to re-load.

What do such laws say about the "land of the free and the home of the brave"?