Riff Notes of a Native Son
02. Feb, 2017 
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I Am Not Your Negro
Race Yourselves
Official Site | Trailer & Mo
PG-13Â | 95 min
The most important movie of 2016 (which is now getting a full release in 2017, so I guess that makes it the most important movie of 2017) is Raoul Peck‘s I Am Not Your Negro
YESS!!! Â It’s true!!!!
One can never truly understand what it’s like to be an African-American in America (especially when you aren’t one), but I’ve never seen a more clear and concise explanation and examination than in the MUST see doc I Am Not Your Negro
I knew who James Baldwin was, but since we were never required to read his works in high school, I never bothered with him.  Silly me.  All I knew was that he had kinda buggy eyes and that my English teacher really liked his work, and I trusted her judgement (and so did Tori Amos!!!)
Negro is based on Baldwin’s unfinished manuscript Remember This House (he died in 1987), which aimed to examine racism in America, through the vital lives, and violent deaths of his contemporaries and comrades - Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr
Knowing those men, and being a gifted (black) intellectual and writer gave Baldwin a great understanding of America and its race issues, but moving to France in the late 40s, and living in self-exile there, gave him and even more unique perspective – being able to look at America and its problems from the outside, and at a distance
The doc uses only Baldwin’s words and work – the unfinished manuscript, other writings (all spoken by a surprisingly unassuming Samuel L Jackson) along with interviews, lectures and debates caught on camera.  We get a portrait not only of America, but of the man himself.  In both ways, it works brilliantly.  It also not only works as a history lesson, but as a wake-up call about how the issue of race in America has never gone away
I Am Not Your Negro will continue to be the most important film of any year – until there is no longer an issue of race in America. Â Good luck with that
Verdictgo: Breast In Show
Negro is not not at a theater near jews AND white nationalists and not negros
and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…
