There’s a moment early on in 12 Years a Slave that reminded me of the revelatory effect Raisin had on me back then: As the newly kidnapped Solomon cries, “Help me! Help me!” and wrestles impotently with his chains in a cell in Washington, McQueen’s camera cranes upward to capture the alabaster city on the hill, the Capitol glinting in the sunlight and indifferent to the rank injustice at its doorstep. It’s a harrowing juxtaposition that might make any teenager look twice at today’s Washington, where, incredibly enough, one of our two major political parties is still essentially all-white, and where white legislators in both parties have responded to the Supreme Court’s recent castration of the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965 largely with apathy, not urgency.
Posted on: Tue, 05 Nov 2013 20:59:26 +0000
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