Blood Clot/Dreadlock: Twisting Meanings/Hiding Heroes

"I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong."

"The creative process begins with selection: which narratives we decide to privilege over others matters. Our myths reveal mountains about who we are as a nation. Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln” erased Frederick Douglass, reinforcing the tired notion that a singular white man, through the sheer force of his moral conviction, brought slavery to an end. In “Lincoln,”...this cliché not only hobbles the film’s cultural relevancy, it is a narrative failure as well. The story begins with Lincoln already having formed his opposition to slavery. Without the history of his relationship to Douglass, we have no idea how this president is willing to risk so much to pass the 13th Amendment. There is no inciting incident, no motivating factor: We are left with just a determined man. And the story suffers for it."

 

"Every move a picture,..."

"The first African American nominated for Vice President of the United States"

Hmmm.

"In the final speech of his life, Lincoln endorsed the idea of black voting rights. There can be little doubt that the re-elected president would have worked with the Republican super-majorities that would dominate the next Congress to create a Reconstruction that would give the newly-freed slaves a decent chance at full citizenship. But John Wilkes Booth had destroyed that incipient future. Instead, the new Republican Congress would be forced to work with an obstructive white supremacist Democrat in the White House, Andrew Johnson. And, as events turned out, the civil rights revolution would have to wait another hundred years."

Is the real story sinking in yet?