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I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO: A Bold Review | Under the Docs · Under the Docs

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: And like I've heard everything that James Baldwin originally said,
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: but I.
• 0:04
  Speaker 2: First heard it as like a TikTok clip.
• 0:13
  Speaker 3: Under the dogs, Yeah, under the docks. Very we're breaking
• 0:19
  Speaker 3: the looks funny? Could they arise all the shots? They
• 0:24
  Speaker 3: got the dogs under the docks?
• 0:28
  Speaker 4: Under the docks, Yeah, under the docks, under the.
• 0:45
  Speaker 5: Dogs, and we're back under the docks.
• 0:59
  Speaker 6: We want the video you may not have to Black
• 1:03
  Speaker 6: History Month representing what's good.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: I Am Not Your Negro is a documentary from twenty sixteen,
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: directed by Raoul Peck and it's also, like we've said before,
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: one of the more fun documentary titles to say out loud.
• 1:21
  Speaker 6: Oh definitely, yeah, Like, be careful where you say. This
• 1:23
  Speaker 6: is not work friendly stuff, Right, you're gonna say that,
• 1:27
  Speaker 6: you may go to HR.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess yeah, if you say that out loud
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: without any context, even with context, it might be a problem.
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: Which do we just say I Am not your N word?
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: Or that makes it sound even worse?
• 1:39
  Speaker 5: Right, that does sound worse? Actually?
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: Well, this one is essentially a dramatized archival footage version
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: of an unfinished manuscript called Remember This House, and it
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: was essentially based on James ball.
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: Win's unfinished writings.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: And if you don't know who James Baldwin is, he
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: was a civil rights leader slash writer, and he was
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: personal friends with Malcolm X and Martin Luther King and
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: kind of grew up around this exact same time.
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: He was actually senior to them.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: He was kind of seen as a mentor to these
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: guys in some capacities where they would He talks about
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: how Malcolm X showed up at a lecture that he
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: was giving at some point kind of like making comments
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: only if he was heckling or what, but that he
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: was a person.
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: On this scene.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: So James Baldwin becomes a pretty well known author. He
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: dies of stomach cancer before he's able to put this
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: manuscript out, so it gets adapted into this documentary. The
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: documentary's made in twenty sixteen. It goes on to win
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: a BAFTA Award for Best Documentary.
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: It's voiced by Samuel L. Jackson at his most tame.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: By the way, we don't really get the Snake's on
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: a plane Samuel L.
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: Jackson for you know, no reasons, No.
• 3:03
  Speaker 5: Mfs had all dropped in the in this film.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, this one is is totally well, maybe not
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: safe for word just because of the topic itself, but
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: it is very vanilla.
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: Although it's it's pretty interesting.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: I didn't know a whole lot about James Baldwin going
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: into this, and I do feel like I've got a
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: better appreciation for some of the things that he wrote
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: and said. And this one, again, it's interesting because this
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: was his last unfinished work, and I don't believe that
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: it ever really got published in another different format that
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: got as much recognition as this.
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: So watching this documentary, I guess.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: Is kind of like like a like a book on tape,
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: but like a book on video as you watch it
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: plot in the course this one, again, since it's like
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: a manuscript, it's kind of poetic to what it's the
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: way it's written, It's not necessarily like, here's an argument
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: that I'm going to make, and here's all the facts
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: that kind of back it up. So I try to
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: extrapolate some of those claims, although these claims are not
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: necessarily made verbatim throughout this. So in general, I think
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: that James Baldwin's central thesis of this particular work is
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: that America has an identity crisis that's essentially rooted in
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: a refusal to acknowledge racial tensions, and that there is
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: an actual problem with racism, and that the more it's denied,
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: the wider that gap becomes, and that you can't just
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: brush it under the rug that even white people, if
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: we're just simple things down to like white people hate
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: black people and that's the problem. Even if that were
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: as simple as has said, that it's still everyone that
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: is not benefit it from this. Everyone is being pulled down,
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: and that until the you know, everyone can acknowledge that
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: there is racial tension, that there's never going to be
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: progressed in any capacity, which is sort of pessimistic. But
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: then James Baldwin also says, I'm not a pessimist because
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: I'm still alive, which seems to me like a very
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: pessimistic thing to say, right, but in his logic that
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: it's not pessimism, that it's actually optimism that he's working from.
• 5:24
  Speaker 6: Yeah, And part of the issue with some of these
• 5:27
  Speaker 6: kind of statements to me is like there's no resolution
• 5:30
  Speaker 6: because you go like, yeah, once we acknowledge it all,
• 5:32
  Speaker 6: and then you're.
• 5:33
  Speaker 5: Like, Okay, what's the next step.
• 5:34
  Speaker 6: Say we all acknowledge that racism does exist, which there
• 5:38
  Speaker 6: is to me, I think prejudice more than racism.
• 5:41
  Speaker 5: Okay, what's the next step?
• 5:42
  Speaker 6: Right, we acknowledge that things did happen messed up in history,
• 5:45
  Speaker 6: which we can definitely acknowledge it, and then there's still
• 5:48
  Speaker 6: to this day that there is people that have their
• 5:50
  Speaker 6: biases for whatever reason, whether it's because of family inherited
• 5:55
  Speaker 6: or talking to people a certain way, or maybe had
• 5:58
  Speaker 6: a bad experience with said ra.
• 6:00
  Speaker 5: Okay, how do we move forward?
• 6:02
  Speaker 6: And that's where like these waters get murky, because it's
• 6:05
  Speaker 6: like whoa, we can't really move forward until.
• 6:07
  Speaker 5: You admit it. But then when you admit it, we're
• 6:09
  Speaker 5: gonna still tell you you're wrong, and.
• 6:10
  Speaker 6: It's just like endless loop of pessimists like that, and
• 6:14
  Speaker 6: you never get anything done again.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: I guess one of the arguments that I'm paraphrasing from this,
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: but it's that the concept of American like the American dream,
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: can't exist without denying black humanity and black contribution to
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: that society, to the point where now in order to
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: truly pursue the American dream, you have to also deny
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: like black culture. Not because the American dream would fall
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: if it were criticized too hardly, it's just that denying
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: black culture is so part of the American dream that
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: you like, either you don't bind the American dream at
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: all now because you're like, oh, well, can't accept black culture,
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: or do you also sort of start denying that and
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: that this is not a racial thing. It's not like
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: if you're white and you want to pursue the American dream.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: If you're any color at all and you want to
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: pursue the American dream, then you have to deny black
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: contributions to it just because it's it's incompatible. It's kind
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: of paraphrasing what I was understanding James Baldwin writing about,
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: which is leading what you're talking about, how it's almost
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: like there's no solution in play here. It's just like
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: here's this gaping wound that you might die from and
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: there it is, like we're not going to tell you
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: how to patch it or anything, and just letting you
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: know that it's there.
• 7:37
  Speaker 6: Yeah, And that's the frustrating part about like these kind
• 7:40
  Speaker 6: of films, like I don't think this was necessarily bad,
• 7:43
  Speaker 6: Like there's well produced, well edited, Like even James Baldwin
• 7:48
  Speaker 6: is obviously a great writer, right, Like his writing ability
• 7:50
  Speaker 6: is good.
• 7:51
  Speaker 5: I just don't necessarily agree with his message.
• 7:54
  Speaker 6: Like I agree with part of his message of like, hey,
• 7:57
  Speaker 6: there's this problem, but how do we address it?
• 8:00
  Speaker 5: And I thought like as we'd go that we would
• 8:02
  Speaker 5: resolve it.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: But spoiler alert, it fix these problems James Baldwin.
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: Geez.
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: So the other claim is that white innocence is like
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: a danger to everybody, and the white innocence basically meaning like,
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: oh well, those weren't my ancestors, or even if it
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: was that, that was my great great grandpa that owned slaves,
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: not me, So I'm not really tainted, right, like the
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: sins of the father kind of thing. And again, I
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: mean now in twenty twenty five, right, some of this
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: stuff it went from you hear James Baldwin talking about it,
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: and it's like, damn, this guy's got a good point.
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: The way that he's communicating it. It's like he's making
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: a great point whether or not you agree with it,
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: Like he has merit where he's coming from. But you
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: hear a twenty twenty version of this, and like, I've
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: heard everything that James Baldwin originally said, but I first
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: heard it as like a TikTok or it's like someone
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: like like you know, doing like a like snapping in
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: your face as they're like saying some of these quotes,
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: and it's like, oh man, this is where some of
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: that came from. It came from like these writings of
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: James Baldwin, some of these thoughts. But he was able
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: to phrase it in a way that that wasn't just
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: like white silence is violence, right, Like I hear the
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: cheerleader versions of this that come out of protests, but
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: his version of that is how like Hollywood and American
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: culture that they put white heroes on pedestals, and then
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: like the black people in movies aren't necessarily the villains always,
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: but they're just going to be a background character. They're
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: just going to be someone that's not the main leading
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: hero protagonist. And actually, throughout this documentary they keep showing
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: clips of Sidney Pointier, who was like a famous black
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: actor at the time, and one of the main movies
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: he was in was called Guess Who's Coming to Dinner.
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: I think that's the name of it, and the whole
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: premise of the movie is that a white girl brings
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: a black guy to dinner at her family's house and
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: everyone's too polite to outright and like deny him entrance,
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: but he has to go through like a very awkward dinner,
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: you know, with like a like a clearly racist family
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: that they themselves do not consider themselves racist. And and
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: then Sidney Pointier actually gets criticized by the black community
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: for like not standing more up as if he wrote
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: the movie and didn't just get hired to act in it.
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: But the it starts a trend throughout this documentary where
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: not just the documentary itself, but James Baldwin, he constantly
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: will use movies and TV shows as his examples like
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: he and because he kind of lives inside of this
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: community of actors and pop culture makers to where I
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: think that he he doesn't come across as the same
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: every man on the street maybe like Darryl Davis did
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: in the previous documentary. Baldwin kind of comes across as
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: an insider, and he even acknowledges that he is an insider,
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: but he kind of criticizes himself. He's like, I'm not
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: the insider that's planning rallies or raising money or deciding
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: what to do with the money, and I don't have
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: any responsibilities at all other than to be a witness
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: to just what's happening and to write down my thoughts
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: and then to spread my thoughts about what I'm seeing.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: Like that that he recognized that that was the greatest
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: contribution that he was willing to make throughout this movement,
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: surrounded by people that were literally putting their life on
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: the line constantly.
• 11:39
  Speaker 5: And just to go back.
• 11:41
  Speaker 6: It's ironic because the film that they're criticizing him for.
• 11:45
  Speaker 5: You know, now in the modern.
• 11:47
  Speaker 6: Times, you have the in two thousand and five movie
• 11:49
  Speaker 6: Guess Who, with Ashton Kutcher being the white guy that's
• 11:53
  Speaker 6: going to meet the black family that his black girlfriend's
• 11:55
  Speaker 6: going to introduce him to her black dad, which is
• 11:57
  Speaker 6: Bernie Mack, which is a pretty decent movie. But I
• 12:00
  Speaker 6: just think, like, to me, that's progress, right, Like that's
• 12:03
  Speaker 6: kind of like okay, like I get where he's saying,
• 12:06
  Speaker 6: but his point of view, and we got to remember that,
• 12:09
  Speaker 6: like he died in nineteen eighty seven, So him died
• 12:11
  Speaker 6: in nineteen eighty seven is is a big drastic change.
• 12:15
  Speaker 6: And plus he's sick for those couple of years. I'm sure,
• 12:17
  Speaker 6: like you know, you're sick and you're going through all
• 12:18
  Speaker 6: the stuff and what he was writing was more into
• 12:23
  Speaker 6: that fifties sixties era, if you ask me.
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: Another one of the claims I kind of derived from
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: this documentary was that Malcolm X and Martin Luther King
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: Junior were seen as almost opposing sides on the same fight.
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: That Martin Luther King was nonviolent and let's just go.
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: In like peacefully protest and just occupy spaces, and that
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: Malcolm X was almost like by any means necessary with
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: the you know, the gun looking out the window kind
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: of thing. And he they make a point in this documentary,
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: or at least Baldwin is through his right in that
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: as time went on, they actually started to become the same,
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: Like Malcolm X lost a little of his edge and
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: realized you have to do a certain way, and Martin
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: Luther King realized, oh, maybe you can't just always turn
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: the other cheek. And that was one of the big criticisms.
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: It was like Malcolm X is like, look at this
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: guy just turned the other cheek, just letting everyone just
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: beat up on them. And they both kind of came
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: to the same middle ground. And then they both died,
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: right They both both got shot.
• 13:28
  Speaker 7: They both got assassinated, which is a disappointing part of
• 13:31
  Speaker 7: this film is like, why aren't they dissecting like the
• 13:35
  Speaker 7: actual assassinations, Like they're just more focused about it.
• 13:38
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I devil killed them.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: You got to remind you, well, at least when I
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: was watching this and reminding myself that this is not
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: a documentary that's trying to explore any of the claims made.
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: It's literally just putting video and context to the writings
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: of James Baldwin, so that if James Baldwin didn't himself
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: investigate or research something like, the documentary's not going to
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: get into it either. The last one that he mentions.
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: Is that.
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: Clearly James Baldwin was gone before Ferguson and Black Lives
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: Matter and all this. But they do a decent job
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: of superimposing modern footage from you know, like Ferguson Riots
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: on top of what James Baldwin is saying, but he's
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: talking about like the nineteen sixties, right, But it's it
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: kind of is showing like, Okay, here we are sixty
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: years later, let's check back in and see how America's
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: doing and it doesn't look like it's doing so hot.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: Based on the juxtaposition of these clips that they're.
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: Using on top of that.
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: I think it was well done and it's making the
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: point that the things that James Baldwin is criticizing America
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: for are timeless in a way. The fact that you
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: can put footage from sixty years later on top of
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: what he's saying and it's like, oh, this guy wrote
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: this about the Ferguson riots. I guess it just gives
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: more credit to James Baldwin being an influence for good reason.
• 15:07
  Speaker 6: Yeah, and again, like the film, this is not nothing
• 15:10
  Speaker 6: to knock on the film, but because it is James
• 15:13
  Speaker 6: Baldwin's memoir and one of the things he said that
• 15:16
  Speaker 6: stood out to me which I thought was interesting, and
• 15:19
  Speaker 6: this is where this how do we get moved past
• 15:21
  Speaker 6: these moments where he said the root of Black Americans
• 15:25
  Speaker 6: hatred is rage, right like from slavery and Jim Crow laws,
• 15:30
  Speaker 6: And he said the root of the white Americans hatred
• 15:34
  Speaker 6: is fear, where it's like, you know, they fear the
• 15:38
  Speaker 6: black man, or they fear this other race.
• 15:40
  Speaker 5: And I was like, it's just.
• 15:42
  Speaker 6: Sad that at that time that more people couldn't be
• 15:45
  Speaker 6: more nuanced and be like, hey, maybe there's somebody controlling
• 15:48
  Speaker 6: this like maybe there's like a puppet master that it
• 15:51
  Speaker 6: likes us to be divided. Like I just get disappointed
• 15:54
  Speaker 6: that nobody goes down those avenues of like.
• 15:56
  Speaker 5: Yeah, don't you doesn't this look intentional?
• 15:58
  Speaker 6: Like to me, I'm like, yeah, it looks intentional, like
• 16:00
  Speaker 6: and then he even goes further into say white is
• 16:03
  Speaker 6: just a metaphor for power, and he brings in like
• 16:05
  Speaker 6: Chase Bank, and I'm like, that's like not fair to
• 16:08
  Speaker 6: like all these like white rednecks that are just as
• 16:11
  Speaker 6: poor as anybody else, right, And it's always these poor
• 16:14
  Speaker 6: people that are fighting against each other and they don't
• 16:18
  Speaker 6: get any they never get anywhere because they're too busy, like, oh, well,
• 16:23
  Speaker 6: you know you're a piece of crap because your ancestors
• 16:25
  Speaker 6: had slaves or somebody that looked like you may have
• 16:28
  Speaker 6: had it. And we're in this endless argument. And that's
• 16:32
  Speaker 6: the part, Like I understand where he's coming from. I
• 16:34
  Speaker 6: think he's very poetic, he has he's well read obviously, well,
• 16:39
  Speaker 6: he's constructure sentences perfectly.
• 16:42
  Speaker 5: But I just think that like he should have been
• 16:44
  Speaker 5: around more people.
• 16:45
  Speaker 6: Like that's why, like Darryl Davis's approached a little bit
• 16:48
  Speaker 6: because Darryl Davis seems to be have talked to many
• 16:50
  Speaker 6: other people, and it seems like Baldwin is only in
• 16:54
  Speaker 6: this echo chamber.
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: I think this is the perfect time to get into
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: the hidden treasure and overboard moments, because there's so much
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: hidden treasure in this one, and you were you were
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: kind of going on on some of I guess the
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: overboard moments where James Baldwin is.
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: Kind of living in a little bit of a bubble.
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: What else?
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: What else you got are what are like the full
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: pros and cons for you on this documentary?
• 17:24
  Speaker 6: I would say the pros towards the end they have
• 17:27
  Speaker 6: like actual I thought this gave me a better look
• 17:30
  Speaker 6: at James Baldwin because some of the overboard moments is that,
• 17:33
  Speaker 6: like you got Samuel L.
• 17:34
  Speaker 5: Jackson talking softer than you've ever heard of in your.
• 17:37
  Speaker 6: Life and was trying to adapt James Baldwin's writing. So
• 17:41
  Speaker 6: sometimes I think the way that he spoke like maybe
• 17:45
  Speaker 6: misconscus or makes me think like, oh, that this is
• 17:48
  Speaker 6: where Baldwin's going with it. But at the end they
• 17:51
  Speaker 6: have like a I don't know if he's in front
• 17:53
  Speaker 6: of like district judge or like city council or some
• 17:57
  Speaker 6: kind of like formal government thing and he's speaking, and
• 18:01
  Speaker 6: I thought his message was way easier to digest where
• 18:06
  Speaker 6: he's like, hey man, I'm trying to change this. I'm
• 18:08
  Speaker 6: trying to like get this move forward. And I felt
• 18:11
  Speaker 6: like more that Darryl Davis of like, let's unify, and
• 18:15
  Speaker 6: I think that part of this and me seeing that
• 18:17
  Speaker 6: made me respect the film more because I was like,
• 18:20
  Speaker 6: at first, I'm just listening to it, so I'm like,
• 18:21
  Speaker 6: then I had to go back and remember, this is
• 18:23
  Speaker 6: his memoir. He's writing all kinds of thoughts throughout his
• 18:27
  Speaker 6: entire life, and he didn't get to finish it. I
• 18:30
  Speaker 6: don't know where he would have went, So I don't
• 18:31
  Speaker 6: want to judge the man on something that's incomplete.
• 18:34
  Speaker 5: And I thought that they did a well job at
• 18:37
  Speaker 5: the end.
• 18:37
  Speaker 6: Kind of giving you the real message of Baldwin that
• 18:41
  Speaker 6: like it wasn't just this pessimistic look, that he did
• 18:44
  Speaker 6: have some plans for the future to really get things going.
• 18:47
  Speaker 6: And some of the other overboar moments for me was
• 18:51
  Speaker 6: like I know they were trying to compare it and
• 18:53
  Speaker 6: I get it right, like America is still not that great.
• 18:55
  Speaker 6: But when They're trying to like be like we're the
• 18:57
  Speaker 6: fattest country in and like and do this anywhere, like
• 19:01
  Speaker 6: like we're the only country that you get this privilege
• 19:04
  Speaker 6: of living like And then I'm thinking back and Baldwin's
• 19:07
  Speaker 6: talking about being in France and in England, and I'm like,
• 19:10
  Speaker 6: bro like, literally England is the leader of the slave trade,
• 19:13
  Speaker 6: Like what are we doing here?
• 19:15
  Speaker 8: Man?
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: Like?
• 19:16
  Speaker 5: How reacting as if like it's just America? Bro Like?
• 19:19
  Speaker 6: But I think that goes back to the echo chamber
• 19:21
  Speaker 6: of the times. That's why I think at the end
• 19:24
  Speaker 6: where they kind of because they even try to like
• 19:25
  Speaker 6: match like TV still trash.
• 19:27
  Speaker 5: They show like, you know, like a.
• 19:29
  Speaker 6: Jerry Springer episode, they show like some Ferguson shots where
• 19:32
  Speaker 6: I'm like, yeah, I get it, Like America is a
• 19:34
  Speaker 6: melting pot of like chaos, right, That's pretty much what
• 19:37
  Speaker 6: it is, and we have all kinds of flaws.
• 19:41
  Speaker 5: But it ties it in at the end, I think
• 19:42
  Speaker 5: like where it kind of like made the message for me.
• 19:45
  Speaker 6: You know, I had some ups and down moments with it,
• 19:47
  Speaker 6: but I would say over the more hidden treasures was
• 19:50
  Speaker 6: actually getting the insight of Baldwin knowing how close he
• 19:54
  Speaker 6: was to Malcolm knowing how close he was to Martin,
• 19:56
  Speaker 6: and they even go into I think there was another
• 19:58
  Speaker 6: figure U maybe Eugene or.
• 20:04
  Speaker 5: I could have remember his name, another high sybl rights
• 20:07
  Speaker 5: activist like he was in time.
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: Medgar Evers was the other person that comes up.
• 20:12
  Speaker 6: And you know, like how emotional and like I always
• 20:15
  Speaker 6: think that's a crazy time.
• 20:17
  Speaker 5: Like he talks about like getting the phone call in.
• 20:19
  Speaker 6: London that you know Martin was killed and like Malcolm
• 20:22
  Speaker 6: was killed, and how he is correct that I think
• 20:26
  Speaker 6: that you cut off the heads and now it's like
• 20:29
  Speaker 6: the message is not what you wanted it to be,
• 20:31
  Speaker 6: even though I don't necessarily think that was the total
• 20:34
  Speaker 6: all message. I liked the little bits and pieces of
• 20:36
  Speaker 6: Malcolm's and Martin's, which I think everybody has their own
• 20:39
  Speaker 6: little spin on everything. But I think the boil down
• 20:42
  Speaker 6: the hidden gem. The biggest one for me is that
• 20:45
  Speaker 6: how he really brings out what Malcolm and Martin's like,
• 20:51
  Speaker 6: how their lives kind of merged together from going from
• 20:54
  Speaker 6: militant to like softer hand where they actually communicated when
• 20:59
  Speaker 6: it more seemed on the broader spectrum of like where
• 21:02
  Speaker 6: they're like, oh, Malcolm and Martin probably don't even like
• 21:04
  Speaker 6: each other. Like they didn't necessarily say that, but the
• 21:07
  Speaker 6: way you spin it, and he was able to fill
• 21:09
  Speaker 6: in that blank of like they were closer than we
• 21:11
  Speaker 6: probably think.
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: And the not to discount Medgar Evers. So if he
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: had never heard of him, I hadn't heard him before
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: this either. The reason he gets brought up is because
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: James Baldwin kind of puts him in the same category.
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: You've got Martin Luther King, You've got Malcolm X, and
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: you've got Medgar Evers, and all three of them were
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: assassinated like like during their height. And Medgar Evers was
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: a civil rights activist, he was a soldier and he
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: was like a secretary of the NAACP in Mississippi like
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: the very first. So he was kind of on putting
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: himself in dangerous way and like becoming you know, and
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: the NAACP thing. This was one of the interesting notes
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: is that James Baldwin is talking about how he himself
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: didn't get down with the NAACP for the same reason
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: that he didn't get down with the Black Panthers, for
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: the same reason that he didn't get down with the
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: Black Muslims. And it's all because so the premise that
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: he was describing about the Muslims is that they believe
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: in this white devil, and he didn't really believe that
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: all white.
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: People were the devil.
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: He couldn't get with the NAACP because the ACP was
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: just the black version of white America. It was still
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: a class a system that you had to be in
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: the high class in order to have any impact, and
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: so he disagreed with that, and he said he also
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: rejected Christianity because he saw hypocrisy that people were ignoring
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: Jesus's main commandment, which is love each other like I
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: love you. And since he didn't see any of these things,
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: he didn't relate to any of these groups. And they
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: don't really stressed this too much in the actual movie,
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: but he was on the FBI watch list and they
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: had all these notes where j Edgar Hoover himself is like,
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: isn't this guy gay?
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: Like? Isn't like?
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: And then it's the way that it's phrase, It's like,
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: we can use this to discredit this guy. And I
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: guess now, if you look up James Baldwin, he's seen
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: as both a black activist and a retro fitted LGBTQA
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: plus activist, just because he maybe didn't like overtly hide it.
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: Although you don't get that impression at all from watching
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: this documentary. I think that one of the interesting treasure
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: like hidden treasures here where I'm kind of on your
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: page too, where it's it's like all of this critical
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: theory about like bring everyone down and what about these
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: poor Appellationian people, like how are they benefiting from, you know,
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: the system and all that. I think that there's a
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: really good way that he phrases this in a way
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: that I was like, oh, that is right, and he
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: mentions about how he'd he's like, I just want to
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: be a writer, man, Like I know that there's a
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: bunch of stuff going on in civil rights movement. I
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: just want to sit in a room and write it
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: a typewriter and not worry about being murdered. That's that's
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: the only thing that I want to do right now.
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: And the only way that he could feel safe enough
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: to do that was to move to Paris. So he
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: moves to France and just Europe in general, and he
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: claims that that feeling immediately went away, like he doesn't
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: feel like if he goes out on the streets he's
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: going to be beat up or murdered by police officers,
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: and it was like, that is not a horrible point
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: to make. That between like the nineteen whatever's up into
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: I don't know, even today, you might not feel as
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: safe on the American streets as you would out in
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: Europe somewhere. And then I guess it's despite England being
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: behind the origin you know, the originators of the slave trade,
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: that you can still walk down the streets in London
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: without worrying about maybe as much about Babylon coming down
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: on you. I don't know if that's true or not,
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: but he makes a very strong argument to hey, look,
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: you can talk about statistics and theology and philosophy all
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: you want, but I don't feel safe in America, and
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: I do feel safe everywhere else that's not America. The
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: same way that in the previous documentary that Daryl Davis
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: was like, I feel safer in the home of a
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: Klansman than I do on the streets of Ferguson.
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: Right now.
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: I guess this weird juxtaposition, but I thought it was
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: a poignant way that he kind of conveyed that was like, hey,
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: I don't feel safe enough to write a book on
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: a typewriter without dying.
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: And that's what I'm talking about.
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: That's the whole like privilege and guill and like unresolved tension.
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: That's what I'm talking about, is that I'm worried I'm
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: going to.
• 25:49
  Speaker 9: Die, all right, Sin Kriswan, I gotta swim for this.
• 26:02
  Speaker 6: I actually like there is like obviously like the message.
• 26:06
  Speaker 6: I don't agree with all of it, like right, because
• 26:08
  Speaker 6: that's just how my mind goes. But I thoughts well
• 26:10
  Speaker 6: put together, it's a it's a good you could see
• 26:14
  Speaker 6: why I want awards as far as like the editing value.
• 26:17
  Speaker 5: It's a nice tight ninety five minute ninety four.
• 26:20
  Speaker 6: Minutes, not like you know a lot of these other
• 26:22
  Speaker 6: films that were sometimes you could get into the weeds
• 26:24
  Speaker 6: real quick with these three four hour documentaries.
• 26:28
  Speaker 5: I thought it was presented well.
• 26:29
  Speaker 6: I thought it it represented what it was supposed to
• 26:32
  Speaker 6: represent as far as Baldwin's writings.
• 26:35
  Speaker 5: And that was the point of this. So swim for me.
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: I think I got to give this one a sink.
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: And I hope that's not a hate crime to do
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: that because I know it's like one awards and it's
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: really important. Here's my reasoning, and this is my own
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: bias right first and foremost, I don't know if this
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: particular documentary did the right of James Baldwin justice. Because
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: every time they're reading what James Baldwin is talking about
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: on the screen, but it's in like Samuel Jackson's voice,
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: and every time that they're juxtaposing it with some video
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: footage of something, I find myself like, I don't know
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: if I agree with any of this, Like it's almost
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: like I'm reading an internet debate.
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: On Reddit or something.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: I'm just like, I don't really think that this guy's
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: But then when they show a clip of James Baldwin
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: actually talk, like on video, having a conversation with someone,
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: interrupting someone, and like, I disagree with you for these reasons.
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: When they show James Baldwin speaking for himself, I'm on board.
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: I'm like, damn, like, this guy's making a great point.
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: And as soon as they don't have archival footage of
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: him talking, I'm like, I don't know.
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: If I believe this.
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: This sounds like it's a stretch, and it in my mind,
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: I'm just like, man, this documentary is not doing James
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: Baldwin justice. Even if it's a great documentary. Even if
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: it's winning awards and it's doing all of these things,
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: it seems like it's del voting at best, and at
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: worst it's almost you know, like you kind of mentioned it,
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: Samuel L. Jackson, kind of whispering these things with like
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: a riot in the background. It's not what James. It's
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: not the same nuance that James Baldwin had. James Baldwin
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: has this like angry disbelief, right. I don't think it
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: comes from a place of fear or rage. Like his
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: anger comes from a place of confusion. And it's so
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: much easier to relate to him when he's talking versus
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: when the documentary is talking for him. So for that reason,
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: it's like I want to give James Baldwin a swim.
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: But we're talking about a documentary adapting James Baldwin's stuff,
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: So the documentary gets a sink on the horizon. We're
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: gonna do a freaking Werner Herzog month Werner Werner Werner
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: Verner Herzog. We're gonna watch Grizzly Man, We're gonna watch
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: Cave of Forgotten Dreams. So we're gonna talk about a
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: documentary called lo and behold. You don't know who Werner
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: Herzog is. He's got a funny German accent that is
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: hard to not hear, and he makes some pretty damn
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: good documentaries.
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: So I'm actually excited about this one.
• 29:21
  Speaker 6: Me too, because I've heard the hype and I have
• 29:24
  Speaker 6: not watched any of these, so this is all brand
• 29:26
  Speaker 6: new material for me.
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: So we're, yeah, we're gonna get a newbies perspective on
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: Werner Herzog after watching If you can't get a get
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: a good read on someone after watching three of their documentaries,
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: then what are you even doing?
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: Right? So I'm excited to see what you think about it.
• 29:42
  Speaker 6: Likewise, man, I've heard a lot of good things though,
• 29:44
  Speaker 6: you know, and don't forget Go to Paranoid American dot com.
• 29:47
  Speaker 6: Kill themockingbirders dot com. Go buy that merge man. I
• 29:50
  Speaker 6: think we got we got comic books. Anything you need, man,
• 29:55
  Speaker 6: we could get it to you. And then inbox, I
• 29:57
  Speaker 6: say we got special treats. I think this is another.
• 30:00
  Speaker 6: They're under the docks.
• 30:09
  Speaker 4: Under the dogs.
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, under the docks, very people, we're breaking the locks. Funny,
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: you could they erasele the shots. They got the dogs
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: under the dogs under the dogs, Yeah.
• 30:25
  Speaker 4: Under the docks, under the dogs. Chess by sothing chess
• 30:58
  Speaker 4: by so from.
• 31:00
  Speaker 10: Parent no Americans, by something just by something from paron
• 31:12
  Speaker 10: no American.
• 31:13
  Speaker 11: And some merch by some artelling at the car, say
• 31:19
  Speaker 11: you're back, need that print now your hay you consent
• 31:24
  Speaker 11: by your comic three your phone, think the start, I
• 31:28
  Speaker 11: one more, buy your sticking from the store, Think.
• 31:32
  Speaker 4: The start, I want more by something.
• 31:41
  Speaker 12: Just by shothing from paron no American, just by shotting,
• 31:51
  Speaker 12: just by shoping from parent NOI American.
• 31:59
  Speaker 8: From I screwpled my life away drifting the right to pay?
• 32:10
  Speaker 8: Will they light to bring? If you're the flight of
• 32:12
  Speaker 8: the plane shape with the highs are blaze somewhat of
• 32:15
  Speaker 8: an amazing feel. When it's real, the real, you will
• 32:18
  Speaker 8: engage it your favorite the pause, the lord of an arrangement.
• 32:21
  Speaker 8: I gave you the proper results to hit the pavement.
• 32:24
  Speaker 8: If they your emotional hate may be your language the game,
• 32:27
  Speaker 8: how they playing it well? Without lathe is evaded and
• 32:30
  Speaker 8: whatever the costs they are the shape shifting thanks gin
• 32:33
  Speaker 8: to cappectated that it is the apex executional flame you
• 32:37
  Speaker 8: walk ookular bombs distributed a war rather cruising for eyes
• 32:41
  Speaker 8: to see maxim out and I light my trees, blowing
• 32:44
  Speaker 8: off in the face. You're despising me for what throat
• 32:47
  Speaker 8: calculated did. Rather cut throat perinoid American must be all
• 32:51
  Speaker 8: the blood spoke for real. Lord, give me your day,
• 32:53
  Speaker 8: your way, vacate. They weight around that hate whatever they say, Man,
• 32:57
  Speaker 8: it's not in the least bit tweed Hea. You rotate
• 33:01
  Speaker 8: when the beat hits some things, because you will. Uncle
• 33:03
  Speaker 8: Nigger's for well, you welcome.
• 33:05
  Speaker 5: They ain't ever had a deal.
• 33:07
  Speaker 8: You're welcome, man. They lacking a bill.
• 33:10
  Speaker 4: You're welcome.
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: Yet they going.
• 33:12
  Speaker 5: It's still you're welcome.