Finally, after nearly two years with barely any acknowledgment or appreciation, six African-American-themed films, and at least 10 black actors and filmmakers, are able to shout, “Say it Proud – I’m Black and I’m LOUD.” Some in Hollywood and all around the world should be shouting from the rooftops.
And we should be finished permanently, I hope, with the Blaxploitation movies, and other films that depict blacks as violent, clowns and synonymous with rudeness and stupidity. Flicks such as Boyz In the Hood, Colors, Trouble Man, Super Fly, Shaft, Coffy, The Mack, Sweet Sweetback, Dolemite, Cotton Comes to Harlem, The Spook Who Sat By The Door, Five on The Black Hand Side Three the Hard Way, Black Caesar, Five on the Black Hand Side, Cleopatra Jones and so many more too numerous to name.
The actors in those pictures boasted that they were working, but the images they left us with were devastating. Have we passed the Blaxploitation era? After the turmoil surrounding last year’s Oscars, some in the industry, especially African Americans, seem to think a true ray of hope has come to African-American cultural production.
We have come a long way on an arduous, challenging and troublesome journey, and this transformation is testament to the movies that we see this year. An internal power assessment that was undertaken by movie industry professionals and movie goers has brought major progress to an area that previously experienced civil unrest and poor performance. Is the movie and performing arts industry coming into race consciousness?
Are more African-American writers, directors, producers and actors more aware of themselves? According to Metapedia, racial consciousness or racial awareness is the understanding of the uniqueness of one’s race compared to other races. In particular, a racially conscious person is aware of the physical characteristics, history, culture, traditions, and mores of his own race and how those things differ from other races.
Are the motion pictures When the Bough Breaks, Moonlight, Hidden Figures, Fences, Queen of Katwe, I Am Not Your Negro and The Birth of A Nation an illustration or paradigm of race consciousness?
The emergence of the Black Consciousness movement in the 1970s produced the Blaxploitation era. Perhaps a race consciousness movement in 2017 will bring more awareness and realization.
C.J. Jung write, “There is no coming to consciousness without pain. People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own soul. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.”
Fifty-two years ago, Dr. Marti Luther King Jr. said, “Today I want to tell the city of Selma, today I want to say to the state of Alabama, today I want to say to the people of America and the nations of the world, that we are not about to turn around. We are on the move now.”
Is Hollywood on the move? Are we on the move?
Please watch the Bernie Hayes TV program Saturday night at 10 p.m. and Sunday evenings at 5:30 p.m. on KNLC-TV Ch. 24. I can be reached by fax at 314-837-3369, e-mail at berhay@swbell.net or on Twitter @berhay.
