Source: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/james_baldwin_and_the_meaning_of_whiteness_20170219
Posted on Feb 19, 2017
By Chris Hedges
Raoul Peck’s “I Am Not Your Negro” is one of the finest
documentaries I have ever seen—I would have stayed in the theater in New York
to see the film again if the next showing had not been sold out. The newly
released film powerfully illustrates, through James Baldwin’s prophetic work, that
the insanity now gripping the United States is an inevitable consequence of
white Americans’ steadfast failure to confront where they came from, who they
are and the lies and myths they use to mask past and present crimes. Baldwin’s
only equal as a 20th century essayist is George Orwell. If you have not read
Baldwin you probably do not fully understand America. Especially now.
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History “is not the past,” the film
quotes Baldwin as saying. “History is the present. We carry our history with
us. To think otherwise is criminal.”
