Эссе на тему: “I Am Not Your Negro”

A film “I Am Not Your Negro” directed by Raoul Peck is based on James Boldwin’s unfinished manuscript “Remember This House” about race issue between white and black people in the USA. J. Boldwin said that the true reason of discrimination of black people in the States is not that people of color are of a different race or a different color of skin, but is that white people made this issue by themselves when they were capturing African people and using them as slaves in America. Boldwin says: “If you call me nigger, it means that you need it”. And a responsibility for the problem lies with white americans and they decide how and when it would be solved.
Black people were not always slaves. They were made slaves. White people had a hand in it because they needed cheap labor.
Until quite recently, being a black man in the USA was pretty hard even after the abolition of slavery. All this time they were not considered as full citizens of the USA. Afro-Americans were a second-rate race, which was worse than others to many Americans.
James Boldwin proposed another point of view on the situation to American people. He didn’t considered himself as a racist, he didn’t hate white people although their attitude toward people of color were awful. He hated the society and hated how it was built. The society what was built hundreds years ago and dictating look down on black people.
The black people were rejected by American society, they were not considered as full citizens because they had been being exploited as slaves for centuries. They were slaves. They have been treated as animals and even worse. People of color lived in dire conditions, worked for a day and night, was subject of humiliation, insult, beating, etcetera. White people could do with people of color everything they wanted even murdering because of those were as their property. Black people could neither say anything nor fight back. Perhaps during first time they resisted, tried to run away, not to obey. However, later children of black people were born in captivity. They became slaves since the first day of their birth, grew up as slaves, raised own children as slaves and died as slaves. They were being sold, swapped, given as supplies. Nobody cared what was happening with them. It lasted for hundred years.
In that amount of time whole society, culture and minds were built on idea that black people were slaves. White people grew up with clear certainty of that black people were worse than them, that they were their slaves. However, black people lived with certainty that everything should be by this way. And despite slavery was abolished in the USA by 13th amendment to the United States Constitution black people still were under white people. No wonder. Slavery in America existed for centuries, tens of black and white people generations grew up thought people of color were not citizens of the USA.
Colored slaves appeared in the USA because of violent removal from places of living in Africa. When white people arrived to the New World people of color didn’t wait them to be their slaves. They were made slaves. And they were being made slaves, when new generations were being born, when new slaves were being removed from Africa. It was a process. A long process. This was why J. Boldwin said all citizens of the USA, black and white people, must take responsibility to solve race discrimination problem,
Slavery was abolished in 1865 in the USA. James Boldwin’s activity for solving race issue was in 1960s. So it has been a hundred years since the abolition of slavery but race discrimination and hatred were still there.
For white people of the first half of 20th century people of color were as a separate group which didn’t deserve everything what white people had. It included freedom, rights and opportunities. There was the segregation in the USA. Black people couldn’t be near white people. They had separate schools, institutions, seats in public transport and even separate transport.
Often speaking about race discrimination in the USA people see the issue in terms of hating black people by white ones. It was so. White ones hated black ones. Someone really hated them, someone just considered them as they were worse. Therefore this hatred cannot be one-sided. People of color also hated white people. They hated them for centuries of exploiting, humiliation and harassment. They hated for their attitude. Perhaps it was one of factors in long disability in solving race issue. White people hated black people, black people hated white people. The two sides didn’t want to communicate. J. Boldwin said how his white skin teacher came his home to take to a theatre but his father was mad of that. The father shouted at the teacher and then scolded the son. He was angry with his son that last one had communication with white people. The constructive dialogue couldn’t be undertaken in such circumstances.
James Boldwin say about a hero his own novel “Giovanni’s Room” who is so afraid of his love to another man that he choose well-worn path. So he shattered his and his beloved man’s lives. White and black Americans had a similar fate. Except hatred they were afraid. White people were afraid to acknowledge that people of color can be equal to them, give them rights and opportunities. Black people were afraid of getting communication. They thought that white ones hated them too much and despised.
Therefore, progress of democratic came to the USA. Black people started to revolt, struggle with that awful system in the USA. They demanded the same rights and liberty what white people had in America. There were Malcolm X and Martin Luther King. There were radicals and pacifists. Therefore, they were united by one thing. They wanted to eradicate the segregation in the USA. They wanted to have free and full lives. Lives they deserved.
James Boldwin was a special person. Not for nothing after 30 years of his death people try to save his memory, made an Oscar-winning film like “I Am Not Your Negro” based on his manuscripts and performances. He was not an ordinary black man who fought for rights and liberty. He made an invaluable contribution to eradicating the segregation and to making prohibition against the race discrimination in the USA. Therefore, in the first, he was one of the greatest writers and dramatists. In the works he raised the question of black people discrimination more than once describing his point of view. He stood with Martin Luther King and Malcolm X but he was alone.
James Boldwin proposed another idea with regard to the issue of race discrimination in America. In the beginning of “Remember This House he wrote” he wrote: “I am not racist. At least I think so”. This addition was more important than it seemed. This man understood racism could be very dangerous and tricky; a man could have racism in his heart not knowing about that.
Since childhood J. Boldwin, as he said, didn’t hate white people. He hated the system where white and black people had to hate each other. He preached love and mutual understanding between the two sides. If people were divided to black and white sorts, they would never solve race issue. They had to consolidate.
Many black people didn’t love J. Boldwin for his speeches about loving white people. It was hard because of black people’s disadvantage in the USA at that moment. Therefore, people heard and understood him. He also said about loving black people by white once. J. Boldwin thought black people were also Americans, and if race issue was not be solved the USA wouldn’t be able to develop.
James Boldwin called white people to take responsibility for solving black people discrimination issue because source for it was in white Americans. People of color are not they negros. As long as white Americans will need slaves and “niggers”, they will continue to exist.