June 7th Asynchronous Work

The False Comfort of Black and White Photos 

For many Americans, when we think of the Civil Rights Movement in America, we draw up old black and white images of marches and police brutality. We see black and white images of White people seething with hatred as young Black children enter newly desegregated schools. 

Watching the documentary, I Am Not Your Negro, these same black and white images flash across the screen as Samuel L. Jackson, the narrator, gives voice to the brilliant work done by James Baldwin. In the documentary we hear from Baldwin's own words the toll and the conflict he experienced as a Black man in America during the 1960s as he examines the death and interconnectedness of three prominent Civil Rights leaders. 

However, every once and awhile, you see a photo in color and are immediately reminded that the seething White people and young Black children in those photos are now our parents and grandparents. The people in those black and white images are not so far removed from our history that we can forget; they are, instead, the ones who write the textbooks we learn our history from.

In this shining, new 21st century world, full of technology and access to knowledge, we are held back by the manipulation of the retelling of events in our history books. We are prevented from learning from our past and thus doomed to repeat it. 

Baldwin wrote in the 1960s that " [he] is terrified of the moral apathy in this country." Now, in 2021 it seems as if apathy spreads like a plague. Students in school are fed the same story of 'racial healing' from the 'long past' Civil Rights movement and become blind to the regression that is happening in this country. The black and white images that fill our textbooks enable this apathy to take root. 

During the course of the documentary, Baldwin hints at and directly addresses the problem that bias in the telling retelling of history can have. Upon reflecting on his childhood, Baldwin recalls watching western films in which the White cowboys are cast as the heros and not vicious murderers of indigenous and native peoples.  When watching the movies as a child, Baldwin remembers relating to the country western 'heroes,' but as he grew up he learned that his identity in America was one that aligned with the exploited and murdered indigenous tribes. Baldwin states, "It comes as a great shock to discover the country which is your birthplace and to which you owe your life and identity has not in its whole system of reality evolved a place for you." 

It is this same over glorification of past atrocities that has lead to the spot America is in now: part of the country living with the harsh realities and consequences of an ineffective and deeply biased "solution" to racial inequities, and the other part of the country  willfully and ignorantly ignoring them. 

This inequity in portrayal exists beyond the cinema-  Baldwin notes, "When any White man in the world [picks up a gun] and says 'give me liberty or give me death,' the entire White world applauds. When a Black man says the exact same thing word for word he is judged a criminal and treated like one and everything possible is done to make an example... so there won't be any more like him." 

We as a nation, saw this clearly in the handling of peaceful Black Lives Matter protests versus the violent capital insurrection that occured only 6 months apart. 

It is my job as an educator to see through the single-story narratives and teach my students the truth. This country is founded on and perpetuates structural racism. There are resources out there that I and other educators can call upon, such as Lies My Teacher Told Me  by James W. Loewen and the 1619 Project from The New York Times.