The documentary "I Am Not Your Negro" was completed in 2016, and the narrative is drawn from an unfinished work by the black novelist, essayist, playwright and poet James Baldwin. works. Black actor Samuel Jackson read aloud, sounding the tone of voice that matched the persuasiveness, insight and grace of the text itself. The footage, mostly drawn from historical sources in the 1960s, is interspersed with racial strife that continued after Baldwin's death in 1987, such as the 2014 street riots in Ferguson, Missouri. Several streaming platforms in the United States have recently highlighted the Oscar-nominated work at the right time, and it wouldn't be a good idea to cut footage of the George Floyd incident more than a month ago and the social unrest that followed into the documentary. any sense of astonishment. There has been no fundamental change in race relations in the United States over the decades.
Baldwin dismantles the essence of the long-standing ideal, whether in Hollywood movies or in the mainstream narrative of the mass media, the narrative angle of race relations is dominated by white people. Baldwin, who grew up in Harlem, New York, chose to leave the United States in 1948 and float to other places, including Hong Kong, and finally settled in Paris, mainly because he needed more security. In contrast, for whites, a strong, wealthy, peaceful, and opportunity-filled America is their only choice. During the turbulent 1960s in race relations, when three of Baldwin's black friends, including civil rights leaders Martin Luther King Jr., Malcom X and Medgar Evers were murdered, the white optimist, President John F. Kennedy's Brother Robert Kennedy predicted that the United States would have the first black president in 40 years. Robert Kennedy's predictions did come true, but Obama failed to significantly improve race relations, and American society was further polarized.
It is a very different America from different angles. The white people I have met in my direct life experience are not far from the films "Guess Who's Coming to the Dinner Party" and "Raisins in the Sun" criticized by Baldwin. Most of them are simple, warm, friendly, and hard-working. The crowds that emerged under the lynched black body hanging from the tree were mostly white. For Chinese children, as long as they learn mathematics, physics and chemistry well, they can go to university and find middle-class jobs without hearing anything. But for a black child, if he is born in a city like Baltimore or Cleveland, he has only a very low chance of finishing high school, and a very high chance of struggling on the poverty line, going to prison repeatedly, and falling into a life plagued by drug and alcohol addiction. . There is no institutional discrimination in American society. Examples of harmonious racial integration are readily available and unique. At the same time, there are obviously systemic problems.
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