WEST BRATTLEBORO — The film I Am Not Your Negro will be the next offering in the continuing All Souls Church series “Looking Inward at White Power and Privilege” on Sunday, Aug. 26, at noon, preceded by a free light lunch.
In the film, director Raoul Peck envisions the book James Baldwin never finished, Remember This House. It is a journey into black history that connects the Civil Rights movement to Black Lives Matter, questioning black representation in Hollywood and beyond.
The church, located at 29 South St., will serve a light chili lunch beginning at 11:15 a.m. Both the lunch and the film are free and open to the public. The film series is sponsored by the All Souls Church Social and Environmental Action Committee. Childcare is available if requested in advance. More information is available by calling 802-490-2052.
In 1979, James Baldwin wrote a letter to his literary agent describing his next project, Remember This House. The book was to be a revolutionary, personal account of the lives and assassinations of three of his close friends: Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King Jr.
At the time of Baldwin's death in 1987, he left behind only 30 completed pages of this manuscript. Filmmaker Peck envisions the book James Baldwin never finished.
In February 2017, New York Times critic A.O. Scott wrote, “Whatever you think about the past and future of what used to be called 'race relations' - white supremacy and the resistance to it, in plainer English - this movie will make you think again, and may even change your mind.
“Though its principal figure, the novelist, playwright and essayist James Baldwin, is a man who has been dead for nearly 30 years, you would be hard-pressed to find a movie that speaks to the present moment with greater clarity and force, insisting on uncomfortable truths and drawing stark lessons from the shadows of history.”
All Souls Church launched the film series last year under the leadership of SEAC. The series explores how unrecognized white privilege hampers our society's requirement for racial justice.
“Our exploration arises in part from uncomfortable realizations of systemic racism in hiring practices within the Unitarian Universalist Association,” Catie Berg, a committee member, said in a news release. “Plus, our nation struggles with the divide that erupted last summer between supporters of white supremacy and supporters of racial justice,” most notably in Charlottesville, Virginia.
“The demonstrations in Charlottesville and other cities in the summer of 2017 show the challenge our nation faces in dismantling a system of gross inequality with roots nearly 400 years old,” Berg added.
The church's committee will continue this year to explore several questions, Berg explained, such as, “Can we recognize white power and privilege? How does unconscious white racial bias harm both our white and black populations? How can white people recognize their privilege and dismantle it to secure racial justice?”
As James Baldwin wrote, “Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it has been faced. History is not the past. It is the present. We carry our history with us. We are our history. If we pretend otherwise we literally are criminals.”