I guess after a hundred of these things I am here to say that the world doesn't work like that. I have enjoyed every post and at times I feel that maybe the words that I have written here mean something to somebody else besides myself but really and truly this is just a simple blog from a guy that really likes movies, whose friends tune in and read up on this things that he has to say.
I hope I don't sound too much weirder than I normally do in this thing because I feel much weirder today than I have in a long time. There has been something slowly building inside of me and I feel that maybe this week has finally brought it all to the surface. And I feel that if I don't write this out and let it out into the world I might just have a nervous breakdown, or even worse completely loose it at just the wrong moment.
I am suppose to be at a birthday party right now. I was invited to a party tonight as a friend of the friend that the party was for. And I got to the place, I parked my car, got all the way to the front door of the apartment complex and I just couldn't do it. I tried to push the buttons to get into the place, but something stopped me. I sat outside for about 10 minutes trying to work up the nerve to go in, but I just couldn't. I didn't want to go in because I didn't know how I was going to act around a group of people. The crazy thing is that I've never felt like this before.
Let me just say to all of you folks out there. Especially my black folks that read this, if you read this. Just something I wouldn't recommend to any of you out there. If by some chance you are having a rough week, I would say that it really is not a good idea to go and see the movie 12 Years a Slave. Now to be perfectly honest with you it is going to be hard enough to watch this movie anyway, which is a great movie by the way, but if you are already having a bad week this movie is not the movie to clear your head with.
Like I said, this movie is amazing. It is probably the best drama I have seen this year and the performances in this movie are unbelievable and so powerful. But for me the movie did something else to me. It has put me in this state of uncertainty. It has forced me to think about a lot of things that I really haven't ever thought about and I guess things that I really didn't ever want to think about.
I have grown up in a culture, around a group of people that have been nothing but supportive of me and have loved me unconditionally for the weird and quirky person that I am. And that has been the best thing ever. But for people of my color that has not always been the case in this country. If fact the honest truth is that country historically has a great distain for black people, and for a long time we were thought of to be less than human.
That is a hard thing for me to think about. A person that loves this country so much. A person that grew up in the time that I did and have so much love for so many people. I often times get into debates with my aunts and uncles about subjects of race and race relations in todays era if you will, and I always fight on the other side of it, pushing back against them and the notion of this great racial divide in this country. Not ever really taking the time to sit back and think about what they went through, really thing about how things were forty and fifty years ago even.
I have been lucky enough to only have been made to feel less than because the color of my skin just a few times in my life, but what about those who dealt with it constantly growing up? In watching 12 years a Slave and even the movie Django Unchained from last year there was one phrase that came up in both movies and to be honest with you it has haunted my thoughts for the last couple of days. In both movies the term is brought up about being or not being "An Exceptional Nigger."
It's weird but every since Friday I hear that term ringing in my head. "An Exceptional Nigger", In the movies this is suppose to be a compliment. Meaning that this is a black person that might be able to read or write or put together complex ideas or be more useful than just a body out to pick the cotton or work the fields. It was their way of saying even though you are less than human, you are almost to the point of being human. Am I that "exceptional nigger"? Is that what is thought of me?
And the thing that I guess that has been hard for me is that I feel as though I hear that term today, without really hearing it. I feel as though I hear it in the way that people talk about race in this country especially when all of the Trayvon Martin stuff was going on, and I feel that I hear it in the tone or the way that people talk about the President of the United States. I feel that even though we have come so far as a nation there is still so far we have left to go.
This is all pretty heavy stuff, and I guess this is a hell of a way to ring in my 100th post. But I feel as though if I don't talk about these sort of things and make known my opinions on it that it will just eat me alive. I believe that 12 Years a Slave is a very important movie. And I think that it is very well done. And I also think that it shows the endurance and the will to survive that every human has within themselves. I don't know if any of this made since or if it was even really worth reading. but I guess I do feel better knowing that I have written it, so in that way I am glad. See you again soon.
I have grown up in a culture, around a group of people that have been nothing but supportive of me and have loved me unconditionally for the weird and quirky person that I am. And that has been the best thing ever. But for people of my color that has not always been the case in this country. If fact the honest truth is that country historically has a great distain for black people, and for a long time we were thought of to be less than human.
That is a hard thing for me to think about. A person that loves this country so much. A person that grew up in the time that I did and have so much love for so many people. I often times get into debates with my aunts and uncles about subjects of race and race relations in todays era if you will, and I always fight on the other side of it, pushing back against them and the notion of this great racial divide in this country. Not ever really taking the time to sit back and think about what they went through, really thing about how things were forty and fifty years ago even.
I have been lucky enough to only have been made to feel less than because the color of my skin just a few times in my life, but what about those who dealt with it constantly growing up? In watching 12 years a Slave and even the movie Django Unchained from last year there was one phrase that came up in both movies and to be honest with you it has haunted my thoughts for the last couple of days. In both movies the term is brought up about being or not being "An Exceptional Nigger."
It's weird but every since Friday I hear that term ringing in my head. "An Exceptional Nigger", In the movies this is suppose to be a compliment. Meaning that this is a black person that might be able to read or write or put together complex ideas or be more useful than just a body out to pick the cotton or work the fields. It was their way of saying even though you are less than human, you are almost to the point of being human. Am I that "exceptional nigger"? Is that what is thought of me?
And the thing that I guess that has been hard for me is that I feel as though I hear that term today, without really hearing it. I feel as though I hear it in the way that people talk about race in this country especially when all of the Trayvon Martin stuff was going on, and I feel that I hear it in the tone or the way that people talk about the President of the United States. I feel that even though we have come so far as a nation there is still so far we have left to go.
This is all pretty heavy stuff, and I guess this is a hell of a way to ring in my 100th post. But I feel as though if I don't talk about these sort of things and make known my opinions on it that it will just eat me alive. I believe that 12 Years a Slave is a very important movie. And I think that it is very well done. And I also think that it shows the endurance and the will to survive that every human has within themselves. I don't know if any of this made since or if it was even really worth reading. but I guess I do feel better knowing that I have written it, so in that way I am glad. See you again soon.
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