In this country
for a dangerously long time
never seen any genuine confrontation
so fat and so sleek, and so safe, and so happy,
and so irresponsible, and so dead.
God forgives murder
in some bizarre way, to be a milestone
has made them criminals and monsters
dreaming of anything like “the final solution.”
I am speaking as a member of a certain democracy
from a public point of view,
great esteem which is not easily distinguishable
has no moral authority
if it is distinguishable, from love.
This problem, which they invented
has no moral justification
part of my responsibility—as a witness—
for whom they gave their lives.
History is not the past.
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It is the present
would not be an eccentric patriot
but a raving maniac.
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We are our history.
This piece is composed solely out of phrases taken randomly from James Baldwin’s (2017) “I Am Not Your Negro: A major motion picture directed by Raoul Peck”.
This book is great testimony to how brilliant the script is for Raoul Peck’s (2016) documentary—of the same name—on James Baldwin. In it, Peck cinematically envisages the text that Baldwin drafted—but never got to finish, on the lives and assassinations of three of his close friends: Medgar Evans, Malcom X and Martin Luther King Jr.
As to be expected, Peck’s documentary is highly educational and powerfully put together—just like his (2000) film, “Lumumba”, on the assassinated Congolese freedom fighter and African nationalist Patrice Lumumba, who served as the first prime minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
I am also eager to watch Peck’s (2021) HBO documentary series, “Exterminate all the Brutes”, in which he explores colonialism and the origins of white supremacy, as well as his (2017) historical drama, “The Young Karl Marx.” They are on my Must Watch list.
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