I Am Not Your Negro

Raoul Peck's documentary is not perfect, but damn close enough. James Baldwin is both subject and co-auteur here, some 30 years after his death. As conscience and philosopher of the civil rights movement, Baldwin readily acknowledges that he stood outside the movement in a number of ways– his exile to Paris, of course, but more fundamentally his not having put his life on the line as his three heroes– Medgar Evers, Martin Luther King, and Malcolm X– quite literally did. But in reality, the danger was always there for an outspoken and haughty black man, the smartest and most articulate man in the room– the danger doubled given his homosexuality.

The film is visually stunning, and you could listen to Baldwin's impassioned, dignified, and yes, superior accent (what to call it... Harlem Brahmin?) all day long. Samuel L. Jackson's voice-over narration is a different animal entirely, but Baldwin's voice rings through the words.

I had some problems with the movie's critique of whiteness through film and TV clips of Doris Day and the like. I'm not big fan of Doris Day, but I also know enough about whiteness to know that she is not its only manifestation, and from Doris to the hate crimes of the people responsible for Medgar Evers's murder is a stretch. Peck aspires to define whiteness as intrinsically the denial of blackness, but there are many shades of white, and even John Ford's westerns were more subtle in their politics than Peck is willing to acknowledge here.

That said, the movie is essential, and Baldwin is too. As Darryl Pinckney wrote in his review of the film, I Am Not Your Negro "is a kind of tone poem to a freedom movement not yet finished." Now streaming on a service near you.