Review of I Am Not Your Negro (2017) by Matt C — 30 Jul 2017

Racism is always a thorny subject, but it is undoubtably more heightened given today's social and political climate. It's easy for a lot people to say how much things have changed, and while some things have, it's important to face the progress yet to be made in order to truly move forward.

This is the overarching message of I Am Not Your Negro, told maturely and astutely with more than enough knowledge on the subject matter, and although there are a few structural and pacing issues, this material makes for a necessary viewing, as it points out the obvious and everyday that is ignored.

Directed by Raoul Peck and narrated by Samuel L. Jackson, the documentary is based on writer James Baldwin's unfinished manuscript, Remember This House, in which he looks back on racism in America and the effects, similarities, and differences of Martin Luther King, Jr.

, Malcolm X, and Medgar Evans, as well as society's institutionalized and outright suppression of black people and culture. At 95 minutes, it could be looked at a crash course in paying attention to the obvious issues that so many people turn a blind eye to, but what makes it stand out is the depth and sense of intimacy at its core.

Baldwin's writing as read by Jackson includes personal anecdotes and a plethora of historical and cultural benchmarks to refer to, and Peck and his editor Alexandra Strauss do good jobs compiling everything into a loose timeline culminating the statement that there hasn't been a ton of change and there isn't enough of a new stasis nowadays compared to in the 1950s to slow down fighting.

Juxtapositions abound, cutting between archival footage of 1960s riots with footage of Ferguson or Rodney King being matched with the onslaught of current racially motivated police brutality. The thing is that it isn't done so in an over-the-top or angry way.

The few issues with I Am Not Your Negro stem from pacing and structure, but not in a distracting way. The first is that there are a few times where the shift in ideas don't seem to flow as well as they could have, and the movie feels a tad choppy as a result.

The second is that there are some topics--such as the media taking black people's sexualities away from them or how American culture's obsession with media plays a role in hatred--that should have been elaborated upon.

Nonetheless, this is still a great documentary that shows how saddening it can be for something to be considered timeless. 8.4/10, great, B+, definitely above average, etc.