THE AMERICAN STORY OF SLAVERY By Eugene Robinson, Published: March 6, Washington Post Hollywood has finally taken an unflinching look at slavery. Itâs past time for the rest of the country to do the same. I wanted to wait a few days before writing about the best picture Oscar for â12 Years a Slaveâ to see if it still felt like an important milestone. It does. Academy Award recognition for one well-made movie obviously does not make up for a century of pretending that slavery never happened. But perhaps the movie industryâs top prize can give impetus to the efforts of artists and scholars who are beginning to honestly confront this nationâs original sin. We tell ourselves that we know all about slavery, that itâs ancient history. But weâve never fully investigated its horrors, which means weâve never come to terms with them, which means weâve never been able to get beyond them. Where slavery is concerned, we are imprisoned by William Faulknerâs famous epigram: âThe past is never dead. Itâs not even past.â The success of â12 Years a Slaveâ may be a significant step toward our collective liberation. The movie came just a year after the release of âDjango Unchained,â the epic in which Quentin Tarantino reimagined slavery as a Southern-fried spaghetti Western. âDjangoâ had one of those traditional hero-on-a-quest story lines that Hollywood canât get enough of, and Tarantinoâs blood-spattered style was perfect for capturing the unspeakable brutality that sustained U.S. slavery. But â12 Yearsâ is vastly more important, for two reasons: It won best picture, and itâs based on a true story. Solomon Northup, a free man, really was kidnapped in 1841 and sold into slavery. He really did spend a dozen years in captivity. He really did meet a brave young woman named Patsey. He really did survive the experience, secure his release in 1853 and publish a powerful memoir, âTwelve Years a Slave,â that was the basis for John Ridleyâs Oscar-winning screenplay. It took a British auteur and an A-list movie star to bring Northupâs harrowing story to the screen. Steve McQueen, the first black director of a best picture winner, has said that his wife âdiscoveredâ Northupâs book; in fact, it is one of the best-known slave narratives. Producer Brad Pitt provided the box- office clout needed to overcome Hollywoodâs reservations about this ambitious film, starring unknown black actors, that sought to challenge audiences rather than delight them. No matter. Chiwetel Ejiofor delivered a searing, Oscar-nominated performance as Northup. Lupita Nyongâo won an Oscar for making Patsey the filmâs most haunting character and has emerged, by consensus, as the yearâs brightest new star. And because of the awards, there is new interest in McQueenâs film and Northupâs book â which means that more people will educate themselves about slavery. I called it the nationâs original sin because slave owners, including the Founding Fathers, knew very well that they were sinners. Owning slaves was a matter of economics â one could hardly be expected to run a plantation without them â and personal luxury. James Madison called slavery âthe most oppressive dominion ever exercised by man over manâ â but did not free the slaves he owned. Thomas Jefferson believed slavery should be ended in the future â but continued to own slaves throughout his lifetime. Patrick Henry, who said âGive me liberty or give me death,â believed that slavery was âevilâ â but would not free the men and women he owned because of âthe general inconvenience of living without them.â One price the slave owners paid was constant fear of insurrection, especially after the Haitian revolution. As the slave population in the United States grew sharply after the invention of the cotton gin, techniques of repression and control increased in brutality. Many people think of slavery as only a Southern phenomenon, but some of the biggest slave traders in the country were based in Rhode Island. Commerce in cotton picked by slaves was so important to New Yorkâs growth as a financial center that the mayor, Fernando Wood, wanted the city to secede during the Civil War in order to continue doing business with the Confederacy. As the war raged, slaves across the South took advantage of chaos to escape. Able-bodied whites who otherwise would have fought in the Confederate Army had to stay home to make sure that slaves did not rise in rebellion or simply run away. Scholars digging through public, commercial and family archives are unearthing facts and stories that have long been swept under the rug. Hollywoodâs recognition of â12 Years a Slaveâ announces an uncomfortable truth: Slaveryâs story is Americaâs story.
Posted on: Fri, 07 Mar 2014 13:46:20 +0000
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