Director Roberto Minervini and Producer Denise Ping Lee
WHAT YOU GONNA DO WHEN THE WORLD’S ON FIRE? B+
USA France Italy
(123 mi) 2018 d: Roberto Minervini
This is what living under oppression looks and feels like. It’s a remarkable documentary, shot in black
and white by cinéma vérité cinematographer Diego Romero Suarez-Llanos,
accentuating the graphic realism of the subject matter, though it’s often
confusing, much like his earlier film The
Other Side (2015), both focusing the camera’s attention on a small group of
characters living on the margins, moving back and forth intermittently, with no
narration or explanation identifying who they are, yet the intimacy granted to
the filmmaker is essential in his personalized style of filmmaking, which is as
raw and unfiltered as it gets. Unlike
the right-wing Obama bashing of his earlier film, peeling away the layers of a
backwoods culture of incendiary racial bigotry in West Monroe, Louisiana, with
militia groups using Obama’s photo for target practice, this film moves around
four different subjects, not really connected, yet thematically interrelated,
which in this case features the lives of black citizens in New Orleans and Jackson,
Mississippi in the summer of 2017 following Trump’s election. The stark difference in tone between the two
films is staggering, as the white world is full of toxic aggression, free to
flaunt their bigotry openly and without fear, while the black world has to deal
with the unending onslaught of that white toxic aggression, with blacks
targeted by police or subjects of hate crimes in disproportionate measures to
their percentage of the population. But
this film goes further, and while it’s made by a white Italian immigrant living
in Texas, it actually gets under the psychological mindset of the constant
barrage of unending hostility, where the powers that be continually threaten
the underprivileged, where the police killers of unarmed blacks get away scot
free, while the vicious perpetrators of hate crimes targeting innocent blacks
get away as well, as the police never seem to solve these cases. With Trump in office (whose father Fred
participated in a KKK march through Queens, New York in 1927), this was never
more apparent, where one of his first official acts was removing white
supremacist organizations from the FBI terror watch list (Why
Aren't White Supremacists on the Terror Watch List? - The Ro), even as white
supremacists were responsible for 100% of the race-based domestic terror attacks
in 2018 (Trump's
DOJ hid shocking report on growing terror threat from whi). There is no black equivalent to the KKK, no
white lynchings, house burnings, or terror campaigns targeting whites, yet that
doesn’t prevent whites (Megyn Kelly on Fox
News) from fabricating stories about black terror groups attacking whites
attempting to vote, basically stirring up white resentment, presenting utter
fiction as facts. The point being, white
culture is suffused with race hatred, mistakenly believing blacks think the
same way, transferring that hatred into a black narrative even when it doesn’t
exist, as there is no historical precedent for that other than isolated
instances of slave revolts. Historically,
the root of a white supremacist terror campaign comes from white slave
plantation owners who believed they needed to instill violence and
psychological terror to break the will of black slaves, where the root of
slavery was instilling a legacy of fear.
Blacks living in an environment with a history of unsolved KKK
atrocities begin to believe conspiracy theories about how the police and
justice departments are in cahoots with the KKK, as blacks have been the target
of white wrath for centuries. Whites
rarely think about these historical connections, or the psychological distress
of growing up black in America, and while this film is hardly perfect, it’s a
start in the right direction, as it actually attempts to understand how blacks
are affected by racial injustice, as it’s more of a life or death matter,
carrying a sense of dire urgency, while it barely matters at all to most
whites, who simply aren’t concerned, as it doesn’t affect them personally in
the same way it threatens every single black family.
Recalling the worst imaginable suffering in Spike Lee’s
massive documentation of the aftereffects of Hurricane Katrina, When
the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts (2005), showing a separate and
unequal racially divided city of New Orleans adversely affecting black
citizens, it’s important to understand there is a greater disparity between the
rich and poor in Louisiana than in South Africa during Apartheid, with
Minervini bringing a poetic vividness to poverty that few others can
capture. The film opens and closes on
Kevin Goodman, the Big Chief of Mardi Gras, leader of the Flaming Arrows, including
the constant percussive beat and chants that are associated with his Carnival-style
march through the streets of New Orleans, proudly adorned in flamboyant
hand-stitched costumes that include white feathers and intricate patterns of ornate
embroidery woven into the outfit, with matching fur boots, strutting in
sequence, prancing to the beat, calling out to the neighborhood citizens in the
same way they’ve been doing for hundreds of years. Since the founding of New Orleans in 1718 (Mardi Gras History | Mardi
Gras New Orleans), the city has kept this tradition alive, emblematic of
the mixed-race ethnic culture, blending African, Indian, and French with Cajun and
creole folklore, customs, and cuisine, as runaway slaves were embraced and
protected by Indian tribes during the plantation era. Mardi Gras is synonymous with the city of New
Orleans, bringing in an enormous boost to the economy through massive tourism,
yet that is in the safe and exclusively wealthy section of New Orleans centered
around Bourbon Street and the French Quarter.
The Big Chief, on the other hand, dances to smaller crowds through an
exclusively black neighborhood, where it’s less commercial, no floats or
throwing of the beads, just a simple procession through the narrow streets of
the neighborhood, more akin to the jazz funeral, a
quintessential New Orleans art form that’s associated with the birth of jazz,
complete with the second line tradition that allows followers
to join in marching behind. Moving
freely between four subjects, another segment features two brothers, Ronaldo
King (whose father is in prison) and the younger Titus Turner, ages 14 and 9, seemingly
inseparable as they explore the run-down Mississippi neighborhood and play,
innocents in a crime-riddled neighborhood, losing themselves in a mountain of
tires, playing hide and seek, with Ronaldo upset after he gives up but Titus
remains hidden, growing more fearful he may have suffered an accident. Meanwhile, Ronaldo schools Titus on the
difference between skin color and race, suggesting there are differing racial
complexions from dark to light skin, yet the underlying message is that their
race is black, conveying at an early age an essential truth. While these kids are adorable, their mother
Ashlei has a different perspective, having to give him the speech about what to
do when stopped by police, but also how to stay out of trouble, as it’s about
his age when most teenage kids start experimenting with drugs or committing petty
crimes, teaching him not to indulge, even as others do, and not to place
himself in a position where he could be sent to jail. Viewers are reminded that most white parents
don’t have talks like this with their children.
And sure enough, sometime later, Ronaldo is getting into trouble at
school, mostly out of boredom, but his mother is incessant in drilling into his
head that he needs to listen to and respect authority figures, as he’s an
influence on his little brother, who watches his every move, where the negative
consequences awaiting them both are alarming.
A quarter of the 40 million blacks in America live below the poverty
line, 10% are unemployed, with over a million incarcerated, while in Louisiana,
nearly half (48.9%) of all black children are living in poverty.
Easily the heart of the film is Judy Hill, a 50-year old singer
who bares her soul before the camera, sharing her life experiences, which are
simply a series of unending trauma, where her open wounds are still exposed,
yet she runs a neighborhood joint called the Ooh Poo Pah Doo Bar in Tremé, the
oldest black neighborhood in New Orleans, named after the hit record by New
Orleans legend Jessie Hill in 1960, Ooh Poo Pah Doo Part 1 -
Jesse Hill - YouTube (2:23), Judy being his daughter. It’s here she can kick back with friends,
sing some of her favorite doo-wop songs, and just hang out with a selective
crowd that she calls her own, all free to express themselves as they please. While it’s clear this is her safe place, the
root of her identity, authorities shut it down for coming up short on the rent,
though she feels developers wanted it all along, entering into a discussion
about not having the necessary papers, problems that have plagued blacks in the
South since Emancipation, as obtaining papers, oftentimes nefariously, is how
whites steal their land and property right out from under them, with the courts
always siding against poor blacks, leaving her without options, seen clearing
out all her stuff and shutting off the electricity. Perhaps the most harrowing scene is one of sheer
heartbreak, sharing her personal story with a rape victim, acknowledging she’s
a victim of abuse herself and a recovering addict, using piercingly raw
language to convey the power of hurt that remains, with viewers finding
themselves right in the mix, capturing every frazzled nerve, leading to an
eruption of tears, becoming an emotional catharsis, where this sympathetic communion
of souls at such a catastrophic time of need is utterly convincing and
believable, as this kind of raw intimacy is rare in cinema, where you can’t
script moments like this, yet it’s such an essential component in the history
of black women, raped and sexually abused during slavery, yet the pattern
persists, with black women disproportionately experiencing violence at home, at
school, on the job, and in their neighborhoods (only Native Americans
experience worse), continually forced to confront their worst fears (Violence
Against Black Women – Many Types, Far-reaching Effects). The most visual presence is Krystal Muhammad
leading the New Black Panther Party in Jackson, Mississippi, dressed all in
black, raising their fists in black power salutes, demonstrating solidarity in
their ranks, chanting slogans or calling for direct action, basically fighting
to alleviate black fears in a community with a rich history of racial
antagonism from the KKK. Initially seen handing
out food and water to the homeless, or flagging cars on the street, just
generating a community presence, they are called into action when a black man’s
head (30-year old Jerome Jackson) is decapitated and left on a neighborhood
doorstep, going door to door visiting the neighbors afterwards (with automatic
weapons in plain view), attempting to unravel clues of what happened, yet
they’re convinced it’s the actions of the KKK, spray-painting “nigger” all over
several houses and cars, including the signpost of a church community center,
yet the police have no answers. They
take their protests directly to the police and to the State Capitol building (which
they assert was built by slaves), claiming they’re all aligned with the KKK, as
this is the continuing history of blacks living in Mississippi, from lynchings
to a continuing line of unsolved murders, and now beheadings, all meant to
terrorize and instill fear. Why the
police don’t arrest anyone or act to prevent this kind of blatantly savage hate
violence is their highest priority, fighting to create a safer reality, yet the
police continue targeting innocent blacks instead (69 black men killed by
police in just the first four months of 2018), where nothing ever changes. The tragedy occurring here is transparent, vividly
real, yet also apparently endless, with no solution in sight. Not as powerful as Raoul Peck’s more
thought-provoking 2017
Top Ten List #3 I Am Not Your Negro, yet this is empathetic filmmaking,
revealing what it feels like to be poor and powerless, successfully placing
viewers in the shoes of the black subjects, basically asking what would you do
in similar circumstances?
A
Black Mississippi Judge's Breathtaking Speech To 3 White ... - NPR February 13, 2015
Here’s an astonishing
speech by U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves, who in 2010 became the second
African-American appointed as federal judge in Mississippi. He read it to three
young white men before sentencing them for the death of a 48-year-old black man
named James Craig Anderson in a parking lot in Jackson, Mississippi, one night
in 2011. They were part of a group that beat Anderson and then killed him by running
over his body with a truck, yelling “white power” as they drove off.
The speech is long;
Reeves asked the young men to sit down while he read it aloud in the courtroom.
And it’s breathtaking, in both the moral force of its arguments and the
palpable sadness with which they are delivered. We have decided to publish the
speech, which we got from the blog Breach of Peace,
in its entirety below. A warning to readers: He uses the word “nigger” 11
times.
One of my former history professors, Dennis Mitchell,
recently released a history book entitled, A
New History of Mississippi. “Mississippi,” he says, “is a place and a state
of mind. The name evokes strong reactions from those who live here and from
those who do not, but who think they know something about its people and their
past.” Because of its past, as described by Anthony Walton in his book, Mississippi: An American Journey,
Mississippi “can be considered one of the most prominent scars on the map” of
these United States. Walton goes on to explain that “there is something
different about Mississippi; something almost unspeakably primal and vicious;
something savage unleashed there that has yet to come to rest.” To prove his
point, he notes that, “[o]f the 40 martyrs whose names are inscribed in the
national Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, AL, 19 were killed in
Mississippi.” “How was it,” Walton asks, “that half who died did so in one
state?” — my Mississippi, your Mississippi and our Mississippi.
Mississippi has expressed its savagery in a number of ways
throughout its history — slavery being the cruelest example, but a close second
being Mississippi’s infatuation with lynchings. Lynchings were prevalent,
prominent and participatory. A lynching was a public ritual — even
carnival-like — within many states in our great nation. While other states
engaged in these atrocities, those in the Deep South took a leadership role,
especially that scar on the map of America — those 82 counties between the
Tennessee line and the Gulf of Mexico and bordered by Louisiana, Arkansas and
Alabama.
Vivid accounts of brutal and terrifying lynchings in
Mississippi are chronicled in various sources: Ralph Ginzburg’s 100 Years of Lynching and Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in
America, just to name two. But I note that today, the Equal Justice
Initiative released Lynching
in America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror; apparently, it too is
a must-read.
In Without Sanctuary,
historian Leon Litwack writes that between 1882 and 1968 an estimated 4,742
blacks met their deaths at the hands of lynch mobs. The impact this campaign of
terror had on black families is impossible to explain so many years later. That
number contrasts with the 1,401 prisoners who have been executed legally in the
United States since 1976. In modern terms, that number represents more than
those killed in Operation Iraqi Freedom and more than twice the number of
American casualties in Operation Enduring Freedom — the Afghanistan conflict.
Turning to home, this number also represents 1,700 more than who were killed on
Sept. 11. Those who died at the hands of mobs, Litwack notes, some were the
victims of “legal” lynchings — having been accused of a crime, subjected to a
“speedy” trial and even speedier execution. Some were victims of private white
violence and some were merely the victims of “nigger hunts” — murdered by a
variety of means in isolated rural sections and dumped into rivers and creeks.
“Back in those days,” according to black Mississippians describing the violence
of the 1930s, “to kill a Negro wasn’t nothing. It was like killing a chicken or
killing a snake. The whites would say, ‘niggers jest supposed to die, ain’t no
damn good anyway — so jest go an’ kill ‘em.’ ... They had to have a license to
kill anything but a nigger. We was always in season.” Said one white
Mississippian, “A white man ain’t a-going to be able to live in this country if
we let niggers start getting biggity.” And, even when lynchings had decreased
in and around Oxford, one white resident told a visitor of the reaffirming
quality of lynchings: “It’s about time to have another [one],” he explained, “[w]hen
the niggers get so that they are afraid of being lynched, it is time to put the
fear in them.”
How could hate, fear or whatever it was transform genteel,
God-fearing, God-loving Mississippians into mindless murderers and sadistic
torturers? I ask that same question about the events which bring us together on
this day. Those crimes of the past, as well as these, have so damaged the
psyche and reputation of this great state.
Mississippi soil has been stained with the blood of folk
whose names have become synonymous with the civil rights movement like Emmett
Till, Willie McGee, James Cheney, Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner, Vernon
Dahmer, George W. Lee, Medgar Evers and Mack Charles Parker. But the blood of
the lesser-known people like Luther Holbert and his wife, Elmo Curl, Lloyd
Clay, John Hartfield, Nelse Patton, Lamar Smith, Clinton Melton, Ben Chester
White, Wharlest Jackson and countless others, saturates these 48,434 square
miles of Mississippi soil. On June 26, 2011, four days short of his 49th
birthday, the blood of James Anderson was added to Mississippi’s soil.
The common denominator of the deaths of these individuals
was not their race. It was not that they all were engaged in freedom fighting.
It was not that they had been engaged in criminal activity, trumped up or
otherwise. No, the common denominator was that the last thing that each of
these individuals saw was the inhumanity of racism. The last thing that each
felt was the audacity and agony of hate, senseless hate: crippling, maiming
them and finally taking away their lives.
Mississippi has a tortured past, and it has struggled
mightily to reinvent itself and become a New Mississippi. New generations have
attempted to pull Mississippi from the abyss of moral depravity in which it
once so proudly floundered in. Despite much progress and the efforts of the new
generations, these three defendants are before me today: Deryl Paul Dedmon,
Dylan Wade Butler and John Aaron Rice. They and their co-conspirators ripped
off the scab of the healing scars of Mississippi ... causing her (our
Mississippi) to bleed again.
Hate comes in all shapes, sizes, colors, and from this case,
we know it comes in different sexes and ages. A toxic mix of alcohol,
foolishness and unadulterated hatred caused these young people to resurrect the
nightmarish specter of lynchings and lynch mobs from the Mississippi we long to
forget. Like the marauders of ages past, these young folk conspired, planned,
and coordinated a plan of attack on certain neighborhoods in the city of
Jackson for the sole purpose of harassing, terrorizing, physically assaulting
and causing bodily injury to black folk. They punched and kicked them about
their bodies — their heads, their faces. They prowled. They came ready to hurt.
They used dangerous weapons; they targeted the weak; they recruited and
encouraged others to join in the coordinated chaos; and they boasted about
their shameful activity. This was a 2011 version of the nigger hunts.
Though the media and the public attention of these crimes
have been focused almost exclusively on the early morning hours of June 26,
2011, the defendants’ terror campaign is not limited to this one incident.
There were many scenes and many actors in this sordid tale which played out
over days, weeks and months. There are unknown victims like the John Doe at the
golf course who begged for his life and the John Doe at the service station.
Like a lynching, for these young folk going out to “Jafrica” was like a
carnival outing. It was funny to them — an excursion which culminated in the
death of innocent, African-American James Craig Anderson. On June 26, 2011, the
fun ended.
But even after Anderson’s murder, the conspiracy continued
... And, only because of a video, which told a different story from that which
had been concocted by these defendants, and the investigation of law
enforcement — state and federal law enforcement working together — was the
truth uncovered.
What is so disturbing ... so shocking ... so numbing ... is
that these nigger hunts were perpetrated by our children ... students who live
among us ... educated in our public schools ... in our private academies ...
students who played football lined up on the same side of scrimmage line with
black teammates ... average students and honor students. Kids who worked during
school and in the summers; kids who now had full-time jobs and some of whom
were even unemployed. Some were pursuing higher education and the Court
believes they each had dreams to pursue. These children were from two-parent
homes and some of whom were the children of divorced parents, and yes some even
raised by a single parent. No doubt, they all had loving parents and loving
families.
In letters received on his behalf, Dylan Butler, whose
outing on the night of June 26 was not his first, has been described as “a fine
young man,” “a caring person,” “a well mannered man” who is truly remorseful
and wants to move on with his life ... a very respectful ... a good man ... a
good person ... a lovable, kindhearted teddy bear who stands in front of
bullies ... and who is now ashamed of what he did. Butler’s family is a
mixed-race family: For the last 15 years, it has consisted of an
African-American stepfather and stepsister, plus his mother and two sisters.
The family, according to the stepfather, understandably is “saddened and
heartbroken.”
These were everyday students like John Aaron Rice, who got
out of his truck, struck James Anderson in the face and kept him occupied until
others arrived. ... Rice was involved in multiple excursions to so-called
“Jafrica,” but he, for some time, according to him and his mother, and an
African-American friend shared his home address.
And, sadly, Deryl Dedmon, who straddled James Anderson and
struck him repeatedly in the face and head with his closed fists. He too was a
“normal” young man indistinguishable in so many ways from his peers. Not
completely satisfied with the punishment to which he subjected James Anderson,
he “deliberately used his vehicle to run over James Anderson — killing him.”
Dedmon now acknowledges he was filled with anger.
I asked the question earlier, but what could transform these
young adults into the violent creatures their victims saw? It was nothing the
victims did ... they were not championing any cause ... political ... social
... economic ... nothing they did ... not a wolf whistle ... not a supposed
crime ... nothing they did. There is absolutely no doubt that in the view of
the court the victims were targeted because of their race.
The simple fact is that what turned these children into
criminal defendants was their joint decision to act on racial hatred. In the
eyes of these defendants (and their co-conspirators) the victims were doomed at
birth. ... Their genetic makeup made them targets.
In the name of White Power, these young folk went to “Jafrica”
to “fuck with some niggers!” — echoes of Mississippi’s past. White Power!
Nigger! According to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, that word, nigger, is
the “universally recognized opprobrium, stigmatizing African-Americans because
of their race.” It’s the nuclear bomb of racial epithets — as Farai Chideya has
described the term. With their words, with their actions — “I just ran that
nigger over” — there is no doubt that these crimes were motivated by the race
of the victims. And from his own pen, Dedmon, sadly and regretfully wrote that
he did it out of “hatred and bigotry.”
The court must respond to one letter it received from one
identified as a youth leader in Dylan Butler’s church — a mentor, he says — and
who describes Dylan as “a good person.” The point that “[t]here are plenty of
criminals that deserve to be incarcerated,” is well taken. Your point that
Dylan is not one of them — not a criminal ... is belied by the facts and the
law. Dylan was an active participant in this activity, and he deserves to be incarcerated
under the law. What these defendants did was ugly ... it was painful ... it is
sad ... and it is indeed criminal.
In the Mississippi we have tried to bury, when there was a
jury verdict for those who perpetrated crimes and committed lynchings in the
name of White Power ... that verdict typically said that the victim died at the
hands of persons unknown. The legal and criminal justice system operated with
ruthless efficiency in upholding what these defendants would call White Power.
Today, though, the criminal justice system (state and
federal) has proceeded methodically, patiently and deliberately seeking
justice. Today we learned the identities of the persons unknown ... they stand
here publicly today. The sadness of this day also has an element of irony to
it: Each defendant was escorted into court by agents of an African-American
United States Marshal, having been prosecuted by a team of lawyers which
includes an African-American AUSA from an office headed by an African-American
U.S. attorney — all under the direction of an African-American attorney
general, for sentencing before a judge who is African-American, whose final act
will be to turn over the care and custody of these individuals to the BOP
[Federal Bureau of Prisons] — an agency headed by an African-American.
Today we take another step away from Mississippi’s tortured
past ... we move farther away from the abyss. Indeed, Mississippi is a place
and a state of mind. And those who think they know about her people and her
past will also understand that her story has not been completely written.
Mississippi has a present and a future. That present and future has promise. As
demonstrated by the work of the officers within these state and federal
agencies — black and white, male and female, in this Mississippi they work
together to advance the rule of law. Having learned from Mississippi’s
inglorious past, these officials know that in advancing the rule of law, the
criminal justice system must operate without regard to race, creed or color. This
is the strongest way Mississippi can reject those notions — those ideas which
brought us here today.
At their guilty plea hearings, Deryl Paul Dedmon, Dylan Wade
Butler and John Aaron Rice told the world exactly what their roles were ... it
is ugly ... it is painful ... it is sad ... it is criminal.
The court now sentences the defendants as follows: [The
specific sentences are not part of the judge’s prepared remarks.]
The court has considered the advisory guidelines
computations and the sentencing factors under 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a). The court
has considered the defendants–‘history and characteristics.’ The court has also
considered unusual circumstances — the extraordinary circumstances — and the
peculiar seriousness and gravity of those offenses. I have paid special
attention to the plea agreements and the recommendations of the United States.
I have read the letters received on behalf of the defendants. I believe these
sentences provide just punishment to each of these defendants and equally
important, I believe they serve as adequate deterrence to others and I hope
that these sentences will discourage others from heading down a similar
life-altering path. I have considered the sentencing guidelines and the policy
statements and the law. These sentences are the result of much thought and
deliberation.
These sentences will not bring back James Craig Anderson nor
will they restore the lives they enjoyed prior to 2011. The court knows that
James Anderson’s mother, who is now 89 years old, lived through the horrors of
the Old Mississippi, and the court hopes that she and her family can find peace
in knowing that with these sentences, in the New Mississippi, justice is truly
blind. Justice, however, will not be complete unless these defendants use the
remainder of their lives to learn from this experience and fully commit to
making a positive difference in the New Mississippi. And, finally, the court
wishes that the defendants also can find peace.
