Murray State University Cinema International is screening the film I Am Not Your Negro, which chronicles the realities of American structural racism through the writings and speeches of James Baldwin, who viewed the future of the United States inextricably tied to that of African Americans.
The group is hosting a showing on Saturday, Nov. 4 at 7:30 p.m. on the Murray State University main campus in Faculty Hall room 208.
Director of Cinema InternationalTherese St. Paul said the documentary explores how Baldwin’s writings challenged American thinking during the Civil Rights movement.
“[Baldwin] has taken writing as a revolutionary act, and a way to be against the system and the status quo and therefore challenge stereotypes through this act of writing, which is wonderfully expanded thanks to cinema now. So that's what cinema can bring, and paying tribute to the social political fight of African Americans in the process gives more visibility. Cinema can do that.”
Ray Horton, associate professor of English at Murray State, is teaching a course entirely on Baldwin. Horton hopes viewers gain insight into the Black experience throughout the course of American history, but also encourages them to take away a key lesson: don’t be silent when witnessing injustice.
“One of the things that this documentary does a tremendous job of, in the way it both gives you insight into Baldwin’s life, but also connects that experience to current events that are happening in the time that the film was made.” Horton said. “It really forces you to confront a lot of those issues that, you know, many people, especially if those issues don't feel like they touch you personally. There's a temptation to look away from them. He's someone who won't let you look away.”
Horton referenced Baldwin’s 1968 speech he gave at the World Council of Churches where he addressed systemic racism in America.
“[Baldwin] says most people are not wicked. Most people are terribly lazy. Most people are terribly afraid of acting on what they know. And that fear of acting on what they know, he means that at a very personal level, but he also means that at a political and historical level. A lot of the message Baldwin has for us individually, but also collectively today in the United States, is we already know, in many ways, the history that we need to be acting on, and we're refusing to see it.”
