Co-sign!

It IS part of our history, but it’s not our shame. The Holocaust lasted less than a decade, as best I can determine, yet Jewish people don’t try to forget it, and don’t let anyone else forget it. In fact, they’ve managed to make their experience seem more tragic than slavery. So, why should we sweep our experience, our history under the carpet? Anyone who can watch a movie that truthfully depicts slavery and comes away from it believing that it’s flattering to white people but makes blacks seem inferior, is not very observant. Though the statement is credited to George Santayana, I had first heard it in ‘Roots’. So, I’m always mindful of that warning: “Those who forget the past, are doomed to repeat it.” or something similar to that. In many ways, we have forgotten it. Today, slavery manifests itself in more ways than physical bondage. Imprisonment is a form of slavery. Addictions are a form of slavery. Debt and excessive consumerism are forms of slavery. Anything stiflng to a person’s ability to make decisions for their own lives, how they use their money, or be present and have an impact in their children’s lives, is a form a slavery. The difference is that, in some ways, we impose these forms of slavery on ourselves. We have to teach our children the good and bad of our history. If they only learn that we were kings and queens, or that we existed only as slaves, they’ll be like four-legged tables missing a leg. People are defined by how they handle heartbreak, as well as triumphs. Now, I watched Django Unchained, but that doesn’t…shouldn’t mean I want or deserve more, more, more of the same. I watch movies about a variety of topics. Since Spike Lee is a movemaker, what is the next movie he’ll release? He should simply create more of his own…the kind that counter those images that he feels are damning to us.