5 Black Woman Directed Movies Touching on Racial Injustice in Law Enforcement

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Good morning. I've been procrastinating on finishing my latest post. I missed a week of posting, and I truly intend not to do that. This Saturday morning I'm working from home. I'm mostly just monitoring things on my computer, but I'm also not motivated to finish that damn post at the moment, so instead I'm just going to do another, quicker post that I am motivated to do.

I don't actually know much about the demographic of my readers. I assume most of you are Americans, but even if you are not, the protesting after George Floyd's death was shared and has affected people worldwide, and I'm going to talk about it real quick. It's really just some basic chiming in, but I'm going to do it anyway because what is happening is important, and chiming in is literally the least I can do.

I think truly a lot more people are talking about the systemic problems of police brutality and race and thinking about/expecting solutions this week than last, and I think that's in no small part to the raw anger and desperation that is clearly in the background of even the most peaceful protests.

People, of course, aren't just protesting this recent death. They are trying to make us all pay attention to lifetimes of small as well as other really fucked up instances of bad treatment, and that's really important activism. Anyone out there doing this damn thing - however you are approaching this activism - much respect to you and keep on truckin'.

In the end what's happening now is all just part of the bed we Americans made throughout our history, and now we're lying in it…and trying our best, in that messy, imperfect way of large growth, to manage through it as a country. And honestly, even though at times this activism is messier, more chaotic, more costly, and more violent than some would prefer, real change in America often comes with that. In fact, The People rising up for cultural and political change is the greatest and most precious of American traditions. 

So, it's really quite beautiful to see Americans trying to force grass roots change and seeing Americans that don't always listen, really listening. Despite the immense tragedy of what these protests are about, I actually feel a lot of optimism and patriotism about what The People are doing right now. May this be a start for long-needed real change.

On that note, and in the original spirit of this SSL blog, I'm going to conclude this post with one of my lists of 5 Movies Directed by Women that I have actually seen.

This time, however, I am going to spotlight movies directed by black women, and specifically movies related to police brutality and legal injustice for black people...because artists and activists have been trying to get this issue out there in the world for, ya know, ever.

The Movies

1 Queen and Slim - This is directed by Melina Matsoukas. I watched this streaming a few weeks ago, and I highly recommend it. It's really beautifully shot, and just a solid movie.


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2 Whose Streets? - This was directed by Sabaah Folayan - I actually can't remember how I saw this. I had thought it was an Academy nominated doc, and that I saw it a program for those, but looking it up, I can see it wasn't nominated -so that's not it. I feel pretty certain it was in a small theater somewhere, so who knows. Looking at the trailer, though, I definitely saw and remember it, and again, I'd definitely recommend. It's a thoughtful, eye-opening doc.





3 Talk to Me - This was directed by Kasi Lemmons. This came out in 2007, and I rented it sometime during that period. I remember liking the movie quite a bit, but it's been too long now to remember a lot of details, but I know I hadn't before heard of 'Petey' Greene, the late-60's D.C. D.J. that played a role in the city's civil rights struggle a the time. Check it out for sure.






4 13th - This was directed by Ava DuVernay. This I saw streaming as well. It's a great doc. 100% check this one out. Also, if you haven't seen this woman's movie, Selma about the Civil Rights march from Selma to Montgomery - check that one out too. It's narrative not doc, but it shows the strategy and politics and disagreements around that march that I had not really understood before.






5 Mudbound - This was directed by Dee Rees. This I saw with a buddy that worked on this production as a medic. We saw it at a independent theater in Nashville. This is more of a historical perspective, and as you might expect, the law doesn't come off well.





Honorable Mention:

Traffic Stop - This was directed by a woman, just not a black woman  - Kate Davis. It is, however, about an incident between a black woman and law enforcement. I saw this at an Oscars Shorts Doc series. Worth a watch.


What
Happened Nina Simone

#BlackLivesMatter

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Hello out there. I am once again going to digress for a hot minute from things like lady-gasms, lady-bation, or Orgasm Equality. After the ridiculously sad, unnecessary shooting and death of Anton Sterling in Baton Rouge by police officers, I woke up to the news of the equally sad and unnecessary shooting and death of Philando Castile also by a police officer. I watched the entire video that Castile's girlfriend live streamed to Facebook in the aftermath, and I spent even more time than the day before reading about it and engaging in social media about it. It was sad and shitty and it made me feel like I needed to be more active about supporting #BlackLivesMatter - more than a 'like' here and there, so I posted support. It's nothing much in the scheme of things, but I felt like at the very least, I could be vocal about my support for people of color to tell their stories and ask for the justice they deserve - I mean at the very least that's what I should do.

And, I think what kept me on social media so long searching and looking and reacting and all that was that I felt like I was seeing a tipping point happen. I felt like I was seeing that moment when all the civil rights work that people of color have been doing, the work that is largely not covered, not thought about, and often marginalized was actually making a dent in the mass of us white people that have been more quiet than not on the topic. I mean, that day, their work finally worked on me. I felt like like I hadn't done enough, hadn't paid attention enough, hadn't lended support enough, and so this day I tried a little harder - because I felt like it would be wrong not too.

The thing was, though, I saw other people speaking up more also. I saw a concerted effort from all types of people to keep this in front of our eyes, and I even saw it from people that I really didn't expect. I saw a lovely, heartfelt, even a little radically progressive video re-posted by a person I went to HS with that has posted kinda gross conservative things in the past and also from some other people I knew who tend to post some conservative rhetoric and never about things like #BlackLivesMatter. But they did now. It had become too real at this point. Inside the sadness that helped make this turn, it was also exciting. It all made me feel very emotional, so I can only imagine what this day felt like to people who had been on the ground for this cause for years. I really felt like, me and the other people I saw on my feed were the beginnings of that critical mass of largely non-affected majority population that every cause needs to turn in order for the country to take their arguments and sentiments seriously enough to change laws and cultural norms.

And then as I was watching a rerun of Jimmy Fallon on TV, I saw that Dallas police officers had been shot at an otherwise calm Black Lives Matter demonstration by some randoms shooting specifically at police from rooftops. Everything about it was sad. It was sad that people were killed. It was sad that children learning first important lessons about peaceful protest were put in the middle of a chaotic, deadly, scene, and it was so sad that a couple rogue people might erase so much of the progress that had happened that day. It shouldn't erase it, but a lot of people are highly emotional about the topic and tend towards finding ways to justify their racism,

So, today has been even sadder and even more emotional, and I just wanted to write about it. I still think progress was made, and I hope it can continue. Maybe there hasn't been too much backsliding. There has been a lot of reminders from all kinds of people that one can support good police work and also the cause for people of color to receive better and more humane treatment from police officers (because too often these two things are not seen as coinciding)...and that unnecessary loss of life is always sad, is always to be taken seriously, always deserves justice, and each time it happens, should help us move forward in a way that limits the possibilities of it happening again.

Anyway, here's to an America that is going through hard times. I believe we are headed towards doing the right thing, though, and I believe we will come out stronger, more just, and with a population of people who feel more whole.

Here's some more eloquent people, like Attorney General Loretta Lynch and Daily Show host Trevor Noah, talking about this stuff...