blacknerdproblems:***Trigger Warning For Sexual Assault*** There was a point a few years ago where
blacknerdproblems: ***Trigger Warning For Sexual Assault*** There was a point a few years ago where I wanted to be done with period films and TV shows. Either they had so few Black people in them, it was as if we were to believe they hadn’t been invented until the early 70s. Or, the opposite, the show was about Black people and was supposed to show the unflinching horror and somehow by movie’s end, the triumph of Black people in the face of evil incarnate. I didn’t drift from these movies because of what they showed, but mostly for what I felt the bundle of them implied: here’s some racism from fifty years ago or one hundred and fifty years ago because we don’t dare show you the racism that happened this morning. While not exclusive to slavery movies, slavery movies do indeed make up a large share of those productions. I can understand the person fatigued on that setting. It’s like getting a shot at your doctor appointment. Maybe it wasn’t a big shot that leaves your arm sore for a week, but they still shoved a sharp metal syringe into your shoulder. Likewise, even a really good slavery movie is still, a slavery movie and I can empathize with not wanting to always indulge that. A Birth of a Nation was supposed to be (and ultimately, probably will be) different. This isn’t the story of a slave overcoming horrors and indignities, being separated from their family, educating themselves, then escaping from the plantation with the help of some really nice White dude along the way. A Birth of a Nation is based upon the story of Nat Turner, the man that led the largest slave revolt in North American history. Nat Turner’s story didn’t end with him crawling through swamps to escape the cotton fields and creating his own family in the north, it ended when the cavalry rolled in because Turner led a group of slaves from plantation to plantation, killing slave masters and anyone who looked like them while taking over their property. Nat Turner’s rebellion is almost mythic in the cannon that is Black rebellion in the United States. It is a story so many of us know, but never thought we would see in a major theatrical release, not in a venue that still depends upon White patrons to be financially successful. To say the least, I was excited for the film when I heard about it breaking records at Sundance for how much it was purchased for and the overwhelming acclaim at its screening. When the first theatrical trailer released, I siphoned away time at my day job to write about it in my rawest, must guttural growl. This was my most anticipated movie release of this year, but probably beyond that as well. I used to question the timing of bad news when delivered at the feet of the newly famous or promoted, especially when it involved Black men. I don’t anymore though because I finally became smart enough to realize that if the news was true, then it didn’t matter [cue the ‘Bill Cosby was about to buy NBC’ folks]. Nate Parker, the director and star of A Birth Of a Nation, was accused of and went to trial for raping an 18 year old student with his then roommate and co-writer of A Birth Of A Nation, while at Penn State University. The details are troubling. No, the details are pretty disgusting. They include an allegation of the two men assaulting the student after a night of drinking where the victim testified that she was unconscious at the time. Parker was acquitted, the transcripts stating that primarily because he had consensual sex with the woman before, while his co-defendant was found guilty and sentenced to six months. The difference being that he didn’t have the same history as Parker did with the victim. Read on here. [x] -- source link