Birth of Miscegenation
This past weekend marks the opening of Birth of a Nation, the cinematic story of Nat Turner starring Nate Parker. Nate Parker co-wrote and directed this big-screen depiction of one of the more mythical and celebrated figures in black history. There is undoubtedly controversy surrounding any picture detailing American enslavement of Africans and their descendants. Parker, however, ratcheted additional controversy when his 1999 rape allegation resurfaced during the film's pre-release publicity. A wrestler for Penn State, Parker was accused of raping an intoxicated college co-ed at his off-campus apartment. Additionally, Parker's best-friend and co-writer of 'Birth of a Nation", Jean Celestin, was also implicated in the sexual assault charge, allegedly accepting Parker's invitation to engage in sexual activity with Parker's then girlfriend. Even more, court documents reveal that Parker invited a third man to participate in this unseemly debauchery. Celestin, also a wrestler for Penn State at the time of the incident, was convicted of sexual assault. The conviction was subsequently overturned on appeal and the victim settled out of court with Penn State for the sum of $17, 000. After reading the transcript of the sexual assault proceedings, it is hard to conclude anything other than Parker is a rapist, along with his best friend and co-writer. Parker repeatedly stated that he does not view his actions at the time as wrong, although he has expressed remorse for the subsequent torment and eventual suicide of his one-time girlfriend.
The racial overtones of this case and Parker's present-day life will not be overlooked. More than a detail, they are the exact main ideas behind Parker's inability to portray a character with the depth and commitment of Nat Turner. There are heated debates throughout the black community as to whether we should support this film given Parker's rape charge. The debate is regrettably split down gender lines. Black men, understandably eager to see a strong black male character successfully organize a death strike against "The Man", too easily dismiss Parker's sexual past and personal taste in women. Black women, sensitive to their race and gender intersectionality support the legacy of Nat Turner, yet crave to see their men finally prioritize their safety and security. Sexual assault is by far one of the more taboo topics within the black community. So much attention is given to the predictable portrayal of black people, particularly black men, as victims of American racism. Too little attention is given to the plights of black women who unfortunately suffer from one of the highest rates of rape, sexual assault and domestic violence of any female group in this country. But Parker's alleged victim was not a black woman. She was white, as is Parker's current wife. Parker's affinity for white women does not sweep the experiences of black women under the rug. Rather, it intensifies the focus on the unfortunate plights of beautiful black women and their relationships with black men. On the one hand, black women, living within black communities grow up as visible targets for the lusts and power of men. Society, family members and nearly everyone else cooperate to dismiss the trauma of black women and our sisters are left knowing they are invisible, unprotected, neglected, undesirable and trampled upon. Moreover, as black women mature into suitable mates, they are also met with the disappointing tendency of eligible black men eschewing them for women of other races, particularly white women.
It is difficult to assign criminality to Parker given the power disparity exerted against the alleged victim at the time. Not only incapacitated due to alcohol, she would have also had to fight off two college wrestlers and a University guilty of more sexual abuse than the Catholic church in order to protect herself. But what Parker is clearly guilty of is extending the seemingly never-ending pattern of "black history" films being written and produced from the minds of black men married to white women. Is that a crime? No it is not. But black people consume white film, after white film, after white film, after white film that detail all-white love stories as a central thematic element. Very rarely are those white leading men ever married to black women in real life. I do not think I can name one movie where such is the case. Actors and directors lend credibility to roles they play based on who they are in real life. Therefore, it seems disingenuous for so-called "black films" to originate from minds who chose to love and live with white people. At the very least, it seems to be an interesting phenomenon for why interracial blacks are the ones constructing "critically-acclaimed" stories of supposed black solidarity and pride. What is the process by which a black man, irrevocably attracted to white women, constructs a story of black resistance to white oppression?
One of the strongest critiques against Emancipation, integration, the Civil Rights movement, the NAACP and all other mainstream American attempts for black liberation are their crippling inability to address the crucial fact that black people were coerced into accepting white identities as our own. Seemingly unaware that black people are conditioned to value whiteness over blackness, mainstream or integrationist black liberation movements made the fatal assumption that black people are protected from racism by securing political rights alone. Quite the opposite is true however. Very little mainstream attention has been paid to the self-image, cultural appropriations, gender constructions and spiritual awareness of black Americans. Although politically "emancipated" for a century and a half, the present-day names, religion and language for nearly every black American continue to be direct holdovers from American enslavement and oppression. All of the past black institutions and leaders who attempted to bring up the identities of black Americans as part of our oppression were opposed not only by mainstream white people and organizations, but also mainstream black people and organizations. The Nation of Islam, the Universal Negro Improvement Association, the Black Panthers, and the Philadelphia-based MOVE typically undertook underground or grassroots community efforts for recruitment and operation. No mainstream American society has the stomach to appreciate, learn from or even tolerate the existence of "malcontents" exercising the gall in teaching black people that to heal from centuries of oppression and hatred begins by reclaiming our image, our names, our culture, our very bodies.
In effect, by preventing the knowledge and appreciation of ourselves, by ourselves, for ourselves, black communities are easier to exploit, control and define. Black people, in turn, will continue to look to white sources for truth, validation and even love. Even the mainstream telling of our own history in theaters emanates from men who are literally "in love" with white Americans. Much of present black America remains dependent on the white power structure for employment, education, commerce and recreation. Such colonization has a major impact on who black people, namely black men, marry. Marriage, by definition, is one of the essential indicators of how one views him or herself. A person's "other half" is many times their direct projection of themselves to the outside world. That becomes an interesting perspective in viewing the near epidemic of black men in Hollywood gravitating towards interracial relationships. These black men who live white lives privately, turn around and produce a public black persona through film.
Steve McQueen's 12 Years A Slave is the most apropos precursor to Nate Parker's Birth of A Nation. Both Steve McQueen and his protagonist, Chiwetel Ejiofor are black men married to white women yet direct and star in a "slave movie". Not surprisingly, their depiction of Solomon Northrup was a disconnected and disheveled depiction of one of the more incredible abolitionists of all-time. Rather than exposing enslavement as the dehumanizing practice of enriching America at the expense of black bodies, families, wealth and pride, McQueen's underlying message seems to be that slavery is wrong because it unjustly snares a unique and talented individual who happened to be black. McQueen's depiction of Northrup seems to isolate him from the experiences of every other enslaved black American in the movie. Rather than using his unique gifts to educate or commiserate with other blacks, McQueen portrays a brooding an isolated character more insistent on rectifying his individual predicament.
In one of the opening scenes, Ejiofor's character, a free black man living in New York, is seen shopping in a store by a young enslaved brother. The enslaved man looks at Ejiofor's character almost as if he were an alien--a black man dressed in quality and independently selecting items of his own choosing is a rare sight indeed in the 1840's. Here is a great moment for solidarity between two black men in antebellum American society. Instead, what the movie depicts is Ejiofor's character reciprocating an equally quizzical gaze as to say, "Why would you be looking at me?". It seems obvious why and it also stands to reason that a black director should understand why as well. Moreover, McQueen's account goes on to show Solomon Northrup beating "Patsey" for acquiring soap from a neighboring plantation. At the behest of their enslaver, McQueen's "Platt" delivers a 4-minute on-screen beating of a black woman for audiences to enjoy. Additionally, when another black woman wails in mourning for her lost children, McQueen's Northrup chastises her for her "despair". Why a black man, who was egregiously separated from his own children, refuses to console a weeping black mother over the loss of her's due to the same racist institution that robbed him is a question without an answer. I do know that I saw this movie on my birthday and I must say that if I ever meet Steve McQueen, he will repay me my $14 for watching that abomination. Reparations indeed, albeit on a tiny scale.
Despite zero portrayals of black solidarity from the main character in McQueen's movie, Solomon Northrup was an ardent abolitionist, delivering over two-dozen lectures in favor of liberation and participating in the Underground Railroad. Why a black director like McQueen is more willing to depict beatings by his enslaved protagonist than activism or solidarity is a question deserving of answers. Why, also, would a director choose to isolate a character such as Northrup rather than connect him to the people whose plights he shared and fought to improve is another point of contention. Yes, the movie is not a docudrama of Northrup's entire life. But this movie takes plenty of cinematic license to highlight specific themes and moods, as all movies do. So why not any license that serves the point of gloriously highlighting the connections, empathy and love enslaved blacks showed one to another? It becomes self-defeating and counter-productive that these themes remain absent in 'race movies" directed and starred by black men.
There are not many unambiguous symbolic figures of black pride and solidarity. Nat Turner is the foremost example of such, or closer to it than most. And hallowed figures of black history deserve to be immortalized by credible artists who at least, on the surface, do not lead lives in opposition to the character they play. It is difficult to suspend disbelief in the film knowing who Nate Parker really is. Spike Lee's cinematic portrayal of Malcolm X would be perceived quite differently if its' leading actor, Denzel Washington, were married to and accused of raping white women. The story of Nat Turner is one of the greatest instances of black solidarity and collective action to enforce the humanity and morality of black people in recorded history. The major obligation of the black filmmaker is not just to accurately portray the major historical occurrences. I am more interested in the details, the smaller interactions between characters, particularly black characters. How are they portrayed? Are they the grunting, monolithic stereotypes portrayed in the original Birth of A Nation? Or does the director understand the nuance of communicating solidarity and togetherness to black film goers through the scenes that do not appear in the trailers?
Too often the story of Nat Turner is told and understood as a function of revenge. But the legacy of Nat Turner is much more than that. Christianity, one of the chief culprits in the colonization and oppression of black Americans, is used by Nat Turner as the empowerment tool that it should remain. It is the God-given obligation of black Americans to free themselves from degradation. Furthermore, the concept of violence has been so alienated from the toolkits of the mainstream black liberation fighter, yet Nat Turner masterfully wields violence as a show of humanity and belief in freedom. Robbing black freedom fighters of violence is tragically ironic given that violence has been the chief tool used by white enslavers, racists, governmental officials and corporate leaders to establish and enforce the doctrine of white supremacy. Self-defense and self-assertion communicates your willingness to enforce your humanity in a moment of need. Enslavement and the accompanying century of racial apartheid better known as Jim Crow evidences no other greater time of need for black Americans. Furthermore, it is difficult to quantify the amount of black bodies Hollywood has shot, beheaded, impaled, burned and blown up to create the image of the tough-guy, no nonsense, white protagonist. White men, women and even children so often gain the credibility of being fearless, pious and relatable by how many black bodies they can violently destroy. Despite this reality, and despite successful resistance by the white community to make any real restitution, so many black people continue to gravitate towards white Americans for partnership and intimacy. What is the psychological process in the mind of black Americans that divorces racist legacies from the particular whites they choose as mates? Furthermore, what then becomes the process by which blacks in Hollywood can portray figures of black history that lived in opposition to their perplexing choices? We must question if they put any study or appreciation into their portrayals. Maybe blackness in post-racial America is nothing more than a commodity to be used for personal gain anyway. If that is true, then Parker should attain near MLK-status because he was paid millions of dollars for use of his blackness.
Of course there are those who disagree and claim that a person's mate is an individual choice made by individual persons. Yet, individual black people still have been colonized each and every generation however. Moreover, the participation of white Americans in ending this tragedy continues to wane. If black Americans were born in positive societies in which our true history was preserved by us and taught to us, if black Americans lived in societies in which whiteness was not shoved down our throats at birth, if this were a society in which incarceration, unemployment rates and poverty were not functions of white supremacy, then yes, black people could make an authentic choice to be with a white person outside the context of racism and colonization. But when black Americans remained brainwashed in Euro-American countries to this day, forced to live tragic realities within our own communities, when black Americans are shown romanticized images of whiteness everywhere, that is not a true choice. White people who lack the courage to admit these realities also do not admit the realities of factors that dominate their so-called relationships with black people.
Very rarely does mainstream America pay to portray complete and positive images of black Americans. Then it does stand to reason to ask why Fox Searchlight would cough up $17 million for Nate Parker's Birth of A Nation. It is completely plausible to assume that under the guise of a Nat Turner legacy film, we will be pumped with underlying themes of white supremacy. Nate Parker, a black man in an interracial relationship becomes the perfect mouthpiece to get two and a half hours of the same old, same old. Nate Parker was educated at Penn State, one of America's many predominantly white institutions that has a legacy of cover-up that rivals only Watergate. His academic, athletic and career preparation has been dominated by white authority figures and employers. If that is true, where does the understanding of the sensitive themes and values of a figure like Nat Turner originate then? Parker has already displayed the all too common male entitlements in college. And he continues to associate with those companions to this day. Moreover, his choices in women communicate age-old themes of self-loathing or white aggrandizement. So there is reason to believe that Parker suffers from many of the conventional delusions of race and gender that confound black men nationwide. And this is who we allow to portray Nat Turner. As my old 1st grade teacher used to say, "I did not just fall off the turnip truck!"
At the time of publication, I have not viewed this film. And although Nate Parker has been paid already, the politics of the film is not even close to anything I can support. America's understanding of racism remains quite poor and its confidence that the themes raised here are off-base remains questionably high. I admit that these topics may be difficult to read. But redlining, lynching, blackface, minstrel shows, incarceration, unemployment, capital punishment and enslavement have been very difficult for blacks to endure. The same institutions and individuals that instituted racism are the same institutions and individuals who are required to remove it. It is for these reasons why these movies only give re-birth to the same old racist nation America has been from the start. There is nothing inherently wrong with interracial dating. In fact, in a just world, racism would not exist and folks could love anyone they want however they want. But America ain't that world. And I will remain careful who I get my history from.
Comments