SLAVERY: Django Unchained - The Ghost Of The Slave Master... In The Hood?!
June 10, 2013 - UNITED STATES - Just before the end of the college semester I was invited by a colleague to come to his class and share my personal insight on a movie he was going to show his students. I asked him what was the movie, and he replied "Django". Without hesitation I accepted his invitation because I have always been a fan of Jamie Foxx because he is not afraid to take chances in a chosen occupation where he can, and will be scrutinized on a daily basics. I will make it clear now that I went to my friends' class with the single intention of being entertained by one of Hollywood's greatest actors. I sat their enthralled along with his students as I watched Quentin Tarantino tell a brutal, inhumane and degrading truth, of how a race of people was never considered when Webster penned the definition of the word "human". This director told a story that Hollywood would never dare tell.
The movie ended and I look at the faces of these young zealous thinkers and what did I see? Confusion, puzzlement and disbelieve. This movie went against every fiber of their being, and everything they had been taught about slavery. My buddy asked the class, "So what did you guys think of the movie"? There was lifeless stillness. Then my frightening enlightenment started. An African American young lady said, "They fed slaves to dogs? I don't believe that". Someone else said, "If they treated the slaves bad, how could they have the energy to work in the fields? They needed the crops for economic reasons and they had to have strong slaves to work the fields". Ladies and gentlemen do I really need to tell you that by this time I was squirming in my chair. Then it happened. A young man said with an authoritative voice, "I think most of this movie was foolishness, there is no way a white director can tell a story about slavery". I was sure of it, I was having a heart attack. Then he put frosting on the cake by saying, "white people don't know nothing about me". My buddy looked at me with a monumental smile on his face then of course I realized my invitation to the class was an invitation to a hanging, my own.
Professor Jack, would you like to add anything to the conversation, my buddy asked? I turned to the last gentlemen that spoke and told him the story of Willie Lynch. Mr. Lynch, a British slave owner in the West Indies was asked to come to this country because he was an authority on how to control slaves. He stood on the banks of the colony of Virginia in 1712 to teach the methods of how to control slaves. Ladies and gentlemen, you can read it for yourselves, but I want to bring out the binding chemistry of his speech. He taught the slave owners how to control the thinking process of the slaves. If you can control a person's thinking you can control them forever. As an educator and a person who has matriculated and learned under some of the greatest thinkers in this hemisphere, I am constrained by my conscious and my moral upbringing to tell my students the truth. The Willie Lynch effect is still flowing deep and warm in our veins today. Willie Lynch insisted that the slave owners convince their slaves that their lives are not that bad. They had food to eat. A place to rest their head and if they worked hard enough to please the slave master they can maybe be a House Nigger. (Samuel L. Jackson's character). I went on and asked a few rhetorical questions. How much time in school did you spend on African American history? How many books did you find in the library titled "African American History?" Did you know that if you were caught teaching slaves how to read you would be executed? (Yes, white people also if caught) How come when Hollywood makes a movie and the time period happens to be during slavery, the black characters are portrayed as witty caretakers? Never educated or serious thinkers? How come we are not told about the real horror the Tuskegee Airmen went through to just serve this country?
Then I walked over to the young man that made that last statement boldly to the class, and asked him, "How was Willie Lynch an authority on a race of people that was not his color? How did Quentin Tarantino make such a beautiful slavery movie and he's not African American"? The class and my buddy was silent. I smiled and said, "I'm not going to give you the answers just yet. Let's talk about Jamie Foxx. Jamie made it clear early in his career that he had a strong grandmother that loved and disciplined him when it was necessary. She taught him how to stand up straight, be a gentlemen, respect others, look a person in the eye and most importantly love who you are. There is a generation of African American young people that have been taught that if they love themselves then they are arrogant. It is my opinion that this thinking of young black adults is still the Willie Lynch effect. If some other race have pride in themselves then they are go-getters. If African Americans do, then we are arrogant. Jamie Foxx clearly understands his history and his value. I believe that's the reason he took this role. I have much love for this brother.
The class was quiet, the overhead projector fan was running with a speechless buzz, and I was standing in front of this young thinker looking him in the eyes. Now, I will answer my question. "You said that the white man don't know anything about you....How do you think they were able to conquer us? Why do you think Willie Lynch was so successful? He knew more about you, then you knew about yourself". His attention was arrested on my every word so I left him with a painful truth. I said, "Willie Lynch in his speech spoke of the stench of a rotting slave hanging from a tree. This is for you my young brother, if you don't expand your thinking. That stench that greets you in the morning will not be the smell of that rotting corpse that's hanging from that tree. That smell will be coming from that comfortable cushy bed of obscurantism you just got out of...." - Black News.
The movie ended and I look at the faces of these young zealous thinkers and what did I see? Confusion, puzzlement and disbelieve. This movie went against every fiber of their being, and everything they had been taught about slavery. My buddy asked the class, "So what did you guys think of the movie"? There was lifeless stillness. Then my frightening enlightenment started. An African American young lady said, "They fed slaves to dogs? I don't believe that". Someone else said, "If they treated the slaves bad, how could they have the energy to work in the fields? They needed the crops for economic reasons and they had to have strong slaves to work the fields". Ladies and gentlemen do I really need to tell you that by this time I was squirming in my chair. Then it happened. A young man said with an authoritative voice, "I think most of this movie was foolishness, there is no way a white director can tell a story about slavery". I was sure of it, I was having a heart attack. Then he put frosting on the cake by saying, "white people don't know nothing about me". My buddy looked at me with a monumental smile on his face then of course I realized my invitation to the class was an invitation to a hanging, my own.
Professor Jack, would you like to add anything to the conversation, my buddy asked? I turned to the last gentlemen that spoke and told him the story of Willie Lynch. Mr. Lynch, a British slave owner in the West Indies was asked to come to this country because he was an authority on how to control slaves. He stood on the banks of the colony of Virginia in 1712 to teach the methods of how to control slaves. Ladies and gentlemen, you can read it for yourselves, but I want to bring out the binding chemistry of his speech. He taught the slave owners how to control the thinking process of the slaves. If you can control a person's thinking you can control them forever. As an educator and a person who has matriculated and learned under some of the greatest thinkers in this hemisphere, I am constrained by my conscious and my moral upbringing to tell my students the truth. The Willie Lynch effect is still flowing deep and warm in our veins today. Willie Lynch insisted that the slave owners convince their slaves that their lives are not that bad. They had food to eat. A place to rest their head and if they worked hard enough to please the slave master they can maybe be a House Nigger. (Samuel L. Jackson's character). I went on and asked a few rhetorical questions. How much time in school did you spend on African American history? How many books did you find in the library titled "African American History?" Did you know that if you were caught teaching slaves how to read you would be executed? (Yes, white people also if caught) How come when Hollywood makes a movie and the time period happens to be during slavery, the black characters are portrayed as witty caretakers? Never educated or serious thinkers? How come we are not told about the real horror the Tuskegee Airmen went through to just serve this country?
Then I walked over to the young man that made that last statement boldly to the class, and asked him, "How was Willie Lynch an authority on a race of people that was not his color? How did Quentin Tarantino make such a beautiful slavery movie and he's not African American"? The class and my buddy was silent. I smiled and said, "I'm not going to give you the answers just yet. Let's talk about Jamie Foxx. Jamie made it clear early in his career that he had a strong grandmother that loved and disciplined him when it was necessary. She taught him how to stand up straight, be a gentlemen, respect others, look a person in the eye and most importantly love who you are. There is a generation of African American young people that have been taught that if they love themselves then they are arrogant. It is my opinion that this thinking of young black adults is still the Willie Lynch effect. If some other race have pride in themselves then they are go-getters. If African Americans do, then we are arrogant. Jamie Foxx clearly understands his history and his value. I believe that's the reason he took this role. I have much love for this brother.
The class was quiet, the overhead projector fan was running with a speechless buzz, and I was standing in front of this young thinker looking him in the eyes. Now, I will answer my question. "You said that the white man don't know anything about you....How do you think they were able to conquer us? Why do you think Willie Lynch was so successful? He knew more about you, then you knew about yourself". His attention was arrested on my every word so I left him with a painful truth. I said, "Willie Lynch in his speech spoke of the stench of a rotting slave hanging from a tree. This is for you my young brother, if you don't expand your thinking. That stench that greets you in the morning will not be the smell of that rotting corpse that's hanging from that tree. That smell will be coming from that comfortable cushy bed of obscurantism you just got out of...." - Black News.
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