I am most grateful for those amazing writers and artists that have share their words with the world over the past couple of centuries. Even though they have not been lauded, people of color have been telling their truths for as long as we have been in the world.
Alexander Dumas, Phillis Wheatley, Simon of Cyrene, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Paul Lawrence Dunbar, Priscilla Shirer, Nat Turner, James Baldwin, Cora Jakes Coleman, Maya Angelou, Lorraine Hansberry, Ntzoke Shange, August Wilson, Nelson Mandela, J California Cooper, Lecrae.
Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. 1 Thessalonians 5:18
Praise the Lord, my soul, and forget not all his benefits. Psalms 103:2
I spend much of my time thinking about what I want and need. It is time to focus on what I have and be grateful. Making the invisible, a little more visible.
The smell of dust burning as the radiator comes on for the first time. The hiss of the steam as it comes out of the pipes for the first time of the season. I am grateful for a warm spot.
So I came to this show late…but I do like to skip the hype. There was a lot of hype around this when it started. It was right.
It starts a little slow for me. But the energy gets there. The one thing I love about this limited series is that it gives me the chance to see Americans how others see us. This action adventure series is on Netflix and I enjoy how it is shot. It allows me to see my world different.
It has the ageless Sanaa Lathan and Greg Henry in it as they play cat and mouse with us. Binge it over a weekend.
General Moses is a drawing by Charles White of Harriet Tubman. She sits on these rocks like she is on a throne, giving counsel to many. The first time I saw this I remember thinking wow, what a powerful woman this was. This is an ink drawing created by Charles White in 1965.
Mother and Child Sorrow by Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller in 1962 and is a bronze cast sculpture. I love that a woman was creating art that spoke to the abuse African Americans received during that time in history. Cheers to women who tell our stories by any means.
Participating in something you have no control over requires much control.
Bert Williams (1874-1922) was born in the Bahamas. In 1918 the New York Times wrote he was one of the greatest comedians in the world. Williams was also at one time was one of the highest paid performers in vaudeville and on Broadway. He and his team were one of the first African Americans to perform on Broadway, in a show titled Dahomey, a musical in 1903.
Because of his race, he was usually the solo African American performer in a vaudeville show, which meant he travelled, ate and slept separately from the Caucasian performers. He would be alone and separated from everyone else. A white supremist groups threatened theater owners to only have one black performer per show. When he signed with Ziegfeld’s Follies, Caucasian performers demanded he be fired, but management refused. He became so popular that others wanted to work with him.
Hattie McDaniel (1893-1952) was an African American actress and holds the distinction of being the first woman of color to win an Oscar. She won for the role of Mammy in Gone with the Wind. She appeared in over 300 films and was also a singer.
Even though she made enough money to live well, she found that it did not stop discrimination. She almost didn’t get to attend the Oscar ceremony where she won because it was segregated and didn’t allow African Americans in. She also had to file lawsuits to stay in her neighborhood because deeds restricted African Americans from purchasing there and was denied the right to be buried in the cemetery of her choice because race restrictions. She didn’t allow other people’s rules to allow it to limit her.
It took incredible self-control to continue to work and perform routinely. It took discipline to continue to give great performances every time. It took heart not to give up and go do something that was more just.
Even though summer fights fall, it always loses. But fall creates a beauty of it’s own. Tall firm trees growing bare. Brown leaves coating the ground like a rug.
I am at the age when I watch a movie with cowboys and Indians, I root for the Indians.
It has been firmly established that we cannot depend on textbooks or schools to educate us in matters of history when related to people who do not make up the majority of the population.
Storytelling in movies work for me.
Sardar Udham is a quaint little film on Prime right now that paints a picture of the UK government you will not see in shows like The Crown or Call the Midwife. In the latter stories we are given a touch of prejudice here or some injustice there but the shows leave you with an overall we still feel good about things.
Let me first admit, I had never heard the story of Udham Singh. As the two hour and forty three minute movie weaved its story there was much googling and binging on my part. How did I not know about this? Singh was a freedom fighter working for the independence of India during the time of their occupation by the British Government.
This movie tells the story of how Singh assassinates a British official who gave the order for the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre in Amritsar. The officer’s order allows British soldiers to shoot and kill 20,000 peaceful protesters made up of men, women and children.
The movie was beautifully shot. The story was told like one of the rugs his machine made going back and forth. The flashbacks served to remind him what his mission was. But the story was so big, characters got lost as they began to come and go. But it was still worth it. It told the story of a man who thought his people mattered. And I love how the producers pointed out that the British Government still had not apologized for the massacre yet.
Just when you think the oppressor can’t get any worse, a story like this shows up. It helps you understand the depths of the depravity of mankind. It tells a story I am sure some people want erased.
This movie allows me to understand the horrors other people have experienced and even though I cannot relate, I can empathize. Most importantly, it teaches me how to plan the counter attack if this type of things ever happens again. I know some of y’all are tired of being work. But you better stay woke.
UPP Creative Media 