Movie Review: Dear White People

Dear White People (2014)

R

3.5 Stars out of 5

Writer/Director                 Justin Simien

Tyler James Williams       Lionel Higgins
Tessa Thompson              Sam White
Teyonah Parris                  Colandrea (Coco) Conners
Dennis Haysbert               Dean Fairbanks
Brandon Bell                      Troy Fairbanks
Peter Syvertsen                 President Fletcher
Kyle Gallner                        Kurt Fletcher

 

Race relations in America is an issue that changes but never really goes away. Spike Lee has held the crown for many years as the primary cinematic explorer of this fraught topic. New to this scene is Justin Simien. With his perspective as a gay Black man in America, he has written and directed his first film, “Dear White People”. That this title is provocative is surely his intent, but it comes from the name of a local college radio program in his movie. And the radio program’s use of the name is unquestionably intended to gain the attention of White people and do so in as provocative a manner as possible.

“Dear White People” is set in the fictional “Ivy League” college of Winchester. I find it a little ironic it was actually filmed in ultra-white Minnesota. The story has a racial tension major arc involving Sam White (Tessa Thompson), a bi-racial film major. She is also the primary force behind the aforementioned radio program, Dear White People; a program where she ostensibly gives advice to White people on how to interact with their Black colleagues. In reality of course, her program is a cry against the many ways (little and big) Blacks are deprecated and labeled as different in American society. Sam is also running for the position of Head of House in the Winchester dorm set aside for Black students. Her opponent for the position is her former boyfriend and son of the Dean, Troy Fairbanks (Brandon Bell). Sam’s unexpected election sets off a train of events that brings to the surface the only-barely suppressed tensions that exist between the Black and White students, as well as a series of personal evolutions that require some of the students to view themselves as well as their race in a new light.

Thompson delivers the best performance in the movie as the at times defiant and at other times sad and confused Sam. It is easy for almost anyone to put themselves in Sam’s shoes as she swings from taking an activist position for Black rights to worrying about her seriously ill White father and frustrated White boyfriend; that is to say, anyone can imagine her sensitivity as to public perception as to which racial group she cleaves to; it might seem obvious from her radio show that she identifies as Black, but it really is not that simple for her. Lionel (Tyler James Williams) as the sole gay person in the film has quite nearly the same problem; except his problem is that all groups actively marginalize him. Another pair of individuals seeking to find out just who they themselves are includes Troy the son of a very involved father/dean and Coco (Teyonah Parris), an aspiring reality TV actress. Troy is a pawn in his father’s (Dennis Haysbert) long running duel with the university president (Peter Syvertsen). Dean Fairbanks insists that Troy go all out at Winchester and achieve only the highest levels of performance. Troy on the other hand really just wants to write comedy. Troy’s generational nemesis is President’s Fletcher’s son, Kurt (Kyle Gallner); Kurt is of course the school elitist/bully.

Sam and Troy achieve some degree of success in their personal arcs, Coco finds some closure in her search for fame, the dean and the president don’t really get anywhere in their contest, and the bully Kurt creates a party of surpassing racial insensitivity that riles up absolutely everyone. But what is the point of this movie? Does Simien really want White people to listen and take note of the various advice dispensed by Sam? Does he want to establish that there is an established and sophisticated Black culture on America’s universities; that they employ a language and practice behaviors that might require an interpreter for the ignorant White person (I can attest this would have been useful for me on more than one occasion)? Or maybe, there is a simple extension of this last question. That is to say, perhaps Simien only wants all people (Black/White, male/female, gay/straight) to simply incorporate the idea that there are other groups out there and they merely demand the same level of respect that each of us accord to members of our own group. Perhaps it’s idealistic, but it is long past time for modern cultures such as America to abandon the caveman era concept of The Other. It is time to stop using this concept as an excuse to demean and restrict the rights of humans outside any given group.

This is not a movie for every film-goer. The language and many of the millennial concepts may be quite foreign to many. The anger and resentment of the Blacks against the unconscious, let alone the overt and covert bigotry they experience on a too frequent basis will not inspire, but will likely depress many viewers. That being said, it is a useful movie to watch for anyone wishing to take a peak over the fences each of us have erected around ourselves and our gender/race/ethnic/sexual orientation/etc. group. The movie is not an especially pleasant film to watch, but for some (at least for me), it can be enlightening to help one get a sense of what it is like to walk in the shoes of someone different.

 

Book Review: "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" by Maya Angelou

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

Four and Half Stars out of Five

Maya Angelou

How many people have experienced, seen, done and learned from their experiences as much as Maya Angelou? How many depression-era Black girls (raised for the most part in the rural South) have grown to an adulthood that includes on her resume the following: author, poet, modern dancer, singer, journalist, Broadway actor, coordinator for the Southern Christian Leadership Council and (oh yes), fry cook, prostitute, and night club dancer. Who else has had working relationships with Martin Luther King, Malcom X, the Clintons and the Obamas? Has anyone accomplished as many firsts such as the first Black woman screenplay writer with a movie that reached production or the first Black woman director of a major motion picture? And how many others have been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, for a Tony, and received the National Medal of Arts, the Lincoln Medal, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Who else has a resume like Maya Angelou?

Maya Angelou began a period of intense artistic endeavors in 1968 that was to last almost until the day of her death at age 86. After a period of mourning over the murder of MLK (on her 40^th birthday), she wrote, produced and narrated a 10 part documentary on Jazz and Blacks in America for public television. Later that same year she was challenged by her soon to be publisher (Robert Loomis at Random House) to write an autobiography; an autobiography that was written with the intention of establishing a new artistic direction for the genre. “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” was her answer to Loomis and the first big step in a artistic career with few parallels. “Caged Bird” would actually fall into the sub-genre of autobiographical fiction. Angelou would for the first time establish a Black woman as the central character in a novel. She would use the first person narrative style where each time she wrote “I”, she meant “we” for the Black people of America. She would be one of the first to describe “Blackness” from within, she would do so without apology or defense, and rather than focusing on politics or feminism, she would write her autobiography as a means of self-revelation. Each chapter in her life would be written almost as short stories from her life, as episodes that help explain her life and that of Blacks in America. “Caged Bird” would the first of seven autobiographies, three books of essays, multiple books of poems, two cookbooks, seven children’s books, seven plays, fourteen screenplays, and numerous audio recordings.

Angelou begins her story by relating how she and her brother Bailey (Jr.) were sent away from their parents in California to their paternal grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas. The stated reason was that her parents’ marriage was breaking up, but as she continues her story from age 3 (Bailey Jr. was 4) when they were first sent to Arkansas, it becomes increasingly clear that Maya and Bailey Jr.’s parents were far from ideal (though her later autobiographies suggest she reconciled with her mother). Her grandmother in Stamps who they came to call Momma was quite the opposite. Annie Henderson was Bailey Sr.’s mother and was one of the few people in the Stamps Arkansas area (white or Black) that came through the depression in a reasonably comfortable manner. Because she owned and operated a store, and because she was an intelligent manager, she, her crippled son Willie and her two grandchildren were able to experience some minor comforts during this otherwise difficult era in American history. In fact, she was sufficiently prosperous that she could lend money without interest to white people undergoing their own fiscal problems. Angelou is able to show in a poignant and illustrative manner that this kindness by Annie was not returned after the Depression. The local white dentist for example refused to treat Maya because she was Black, and he refused in language that was the very definition of racially offensive. Life in Stamps was at times good for young Bailey and Maya, but the overt and covert racism they experienced was a constant feature of their life.

A good example of the covert racism was displayed during a high school graduation ceremony where a local white politician (Donleavy) described the big changes coming to the local white and Black high schools: in the case of the white school, there would microscopes, new books, things designed to help them academically, while for the Black schools, Donleavy extolled the virtues of the local Black athletes.  Young Maya described it as such: “It was awful to be a Negro and have no control over my life. It was brutal to be young and already trained to sit quietly and listen to charges brought against my color with no chance of defense.” Such institutionalized insults were combined with the daily abuse such as experienced by Annie Henderson at the hands of the ignorant “powhitetrash” children who could at their leisure walk by Annie’s store and hurl insults at her – the very woman that provided a moral and financial pillar for their joint communities. There was no respect displayed by the white community, nor even any appreciation that the two races were one species. Maya summed it up early in her life by commenting: “ I could not force myself to think of them as people”.

As young Bailey and Maya grew to the age of eight and seven, they were suddenly and without explanation driven from Sparks to St. Louis to live with their mother and her boyfriend, Mr. Freeman. This change in place and culture was severely dislocating for the children. It was further compounded as the two young people had to re-assess the idyllic vision each had of their absent father and mother for the new, now visible reality. Their father was a flashy, charming rascal that worked as a dietician in the Navy and later as a doorman – but never displayed the firm control of his behavior demanded by his mother (Momma to the two children) that she required of young Bailey and Maya. And their mother, Vivian turned out to be a local beauty though trained as a nurse, made her way in life as a card dealer and ran with a very rough crowd – a crowd that included her three brothers. After living for a year with Vivian and Mr. Freeman, Maya was sexually molested and later raped by Mr. Freeman. This low point in Maya’s life is actually the highpoint, though a painful one to read within the book. Maya Angelou uses language to describe her absolute ignorance as to what was taking place to her eight year old body. Her mind was so confused, she believed she was finally getting the emotional love that she yearned for from her natural father when Mr. Freeman would hug her following her molestation. Her young mind was so lost from the reality of her situation, that when he actually raped her and caused her so much pain and physical damage that she had to be hospitalized, she still never understood that she was being violated and not loved. Later when Mr. Freeman’s guilt was exposed and he was murdered (presumably by her rough uncles), she blamed herself. She concluded her voice could kill, and she refrained from speaking for five years.

“Caged Bird” is written with such fluid prose that it can be read and enjoyed just for the language. But it contains such vivid insight into the world of the Black American during the depression that it is an excellent tool to teach about understanding on a deeply personal level how one of a different race experiences life. It can be read for the personal details of young Maya Angelou, but written within the context of the story is a history and an explanation for the Black experience in modern America. Maya Angelou gives a clear interpretation of the book’s title in her 1983 poem’s (Caged Bird) final stanza:

The caged bird sings/ with a fearful trill/ of things unknown/ but longed for still/ and his time is heard/ on the distant hill/ for the caged bird/ sings of freedom

How ironic then, that a country that prides itself on declaring its best virtue is its freedom, when over one tenth of its people is still crying out for their freedom. A freedom that goes well beyond simply saying we are free, but one where young Black men can go to the store to buy some candy and not expect to be shot by a vigilante, or a child with a toy gun won’t be killed by a local policeman, or if running won’t be shot in the back by yet another policeman, or left to die in the back of a police van. When it stops being open season on young Black men, young men guilty of nothing more than being Black, then we will have taken one step towards that freedom we so frequently proclaim that is here in America for all – when the truth of the matter is, that it here for only part of our society. Let’s take the even smaller step and at least be honest about the nature of our freedom.