I was deeply moved by this film. It gave me entirely new understanding of the “racial” reality… how, indeed, it is a matter of consciousness… how “white” people (like myself) have grown up with a deep fear that has been supplanted by a “mythic” story to satisfy their fears. And that story has included the creation of the “Negro” stereotype and “character,” a “character” that has been maligned and abused and twisted to fit certain of our images. This has created a “fantasy” world, which clearly continues…and will, no doubt, continue, until people reach an understanding of the seismic flaw in consciousness and begin to accept and live the Truth.
Leaving the theatre I felt a huge chasm between myself and the Black people who were there. I felt so strongly a need to apologize, but, as the film showed me, I know that that engagement is also part and parcel of the “fantasy.” It’s a level of immaturity that somehow gives the “white person” a sense of goodness, despite the terrible conditions that remain. I didn’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do. Do you?