I saw a new documentary called “William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe,” about the civil rights lawyer. the film was made by his two daughters from his second marriage, Sarah and Emily Kunstler. it was interesting and much of the film was about racism, although none of the promotional materials hint at this. In this way, it’s much like the documentary “The Weather Underground,” which also focuses a good deal on racism.
One of the things that struck me most profoundly about the Kunstler film was the way that the language about institutional racism in the late 1960s early 1970s is so strikingly different from the way we talk about race and racism today. What I mean about the language around institutional racism is that Kunstler would say things like, “the white power structure” or “the racist court system” and “all whites are racist” and “we (whites) are responsible for letting this racist power structure continue.”
This language and way of talking about racism is all in the category of “stuff you just don’t hear anymore.”
The power of calling out the white power structure and the way that individual whites participate in this racism was clearest for me in the film when they were exploring the issue of the uprising at Attica Correctional Facility in upstate New York. Kunstler got called in as a negotiator for the prisoners. This attempt failed and dozens of people – both inmates and guards – were killed by the state who went in and shot them. after the uprising was put down, there’s this amazing archival footage of one of the white soldiers (national guard?) who went in to the prison, and he’s got his fist in the air, pumping it victoriously and he says, “Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about…. white power!” it’s just a chilling moment that also perfectly illustrates what Kunstler’s been saying throughout the film.
Following soon after that, Kunstler went to the seige at Wounded Knee to serve as a negotiator for Native Americans in AIM who were staging a protest there, demanding that the U.S. Government honor centuries of broken treaties. Kunstler was able to help avoid a massacre there and successfully defended Russell Banks and Dennis Banks, two of the leaders of the protest, at their subsequent trial in federal court.
Kunstler’s daughters (the filmmakers) were thoughtful about racism and their father’s struggle against it. I especially liked when they went back and tried to find out how their dad began to be conscious about racism. They included a brief section in the film that addressed this issue, noting that Kunstler’s race consciousness certainly didn’t come from his parents, who had black servants that used separate toilets and ate apart from the family in the kitchen. This is illustrated by home-movie footage of one of the nameless-black-servants in the family serving the grandmother and one of the filmmakers when she was a child.
The filmmakers were less thoughtful, in my view, in exploring their own racism around their objection to their father’s defending Yusef Salaam, one of the alleged “Central Park jogger rapists.” Years later, of course, Salaam’s conviction was overturned, and thus Kunstler’s defense of him was vindicated, but I wish the filmmakers had done more with this.
Returning to my point about the language around racism, the way the film is advertised and promoted and discussed (i heard a long interview with the filmmakers in which they never mentioned racism even once) is more typical of the way racism gets addressed today, which is in this oblique, passive-voice kind of way.
Today, to the extent that experts and non-experts even acknowledge racism, they may refer to “structural racism” or (in the world of public health where I work) “racial disparites.” But these all happen in the passive voice. Racial disparities just “happen.” There are no actors in today’s language of racial inequality. In Kunstler’s heydey (the civil rights era), there were clearly people who were responsible for the oppression of people of color, and it was white people acting in the interest of a white power structure. Losing that language, we’ve lost some clarity about what is at the root of racial inequality. Today, it seems, no one’s responsible as we live in this ‘racism without racists’ post-civil rights era.
Written Above: (I heard a long interview with the filmmakers in which they never mentioned racism even once) is more typical of the way racism gets addressed today, which is in this oblique, passive-voice kind of way.
That’s what Rachel Maddow does. Exactly. She just looks at the cameras with a quizzical eye-brows-up expression and cocks her head to one side. That’s it folks. Jimmy Carter was one of the few white public figures recently who came right out and said that he thinks America is pushing back so hard against the Obama admin because they think a black man can’t lead this country. Carter always had a good heart I think. Of course, he is white, which means he’s part of the Oppressor Machine.
“The way the film is advertised and promoted and discussed (i heard a long interview with the filmmakers in which they never mentioned racism even once) is more typical of the way racism gets addressed today, which is in this oblique, passive-voice kind of way.”
Your observations about the documentary are especially interesting when looking at other “blockbusters.”
I read an interesting article that analyzes race in the new movie Avatar. Race is definitely a passive subject in the movie, but as the article claims, it is definitely present.
The article claims that:
“These [Avatar, District 9, Dune, Enemy Mine, Dancing with Wolves, and others] are movies about white guilt. Our main white characters realize that they are complicit in a system which is destroying aliens, AKA people of color – their cultures, their habitats, and their populations. The whites realize this …when they begin to assimilate into the “alien” cultures and see things from a new perspective. To purge their overwhelming sense of guilt, they switch sides, become “race traitors,” and fight against their old comrades. But then they go beyond assimilation and become leaders of the people they once oppressed. This is the essence of the white guilt fantasy, laid bare. [….] Avatar is a fantasy about ceasing to be white, giving up the old human meatsack to join the blue people, but never losing white privilege. ”
Article found at: http://io9.com/5422666/when-will-white-people-stop-making-movies-like-avatar
What is up with that? Why is it that even in movies where whites are fighting racism, they’re always the heros? Sandra Bullock’s latest movie is a prime example. How does she becomes the main star in a movie that’s supposed to detail the journey of a black NFL player from homelessness to the pros? Even in AMISTAD!
Though, just a thought a few minutes before I fall flat asleep, could this be why even liberal whites have such a hard time recognizing racism: white Americans are conditioned to think they can maintain privilege without the immorality of oppression? As though this privileged position is natural.
At least in PLEASANTVILLE
sorry
But the entire cast is white in PLEASANTVILLE.
Then again, even in that movie, Tobey McGuire initially wanted everything to stay the same until he too came to lead the “colored.”
Good post Jessie. I’ve wondered that myself and you’re absolutely rigt that language plays a huge part in the muddying of the waters. People who rail against a “white power structure” are ridiculed, not matter how much evidence there is that supports their claims. Additionally, the last summary of a study I read indicated only 7% of (white) people are absolutely devoid of racial bias, so yes there’s a power structure that benefits whites being maintained by whites. When you think about it, you see (or at least I do) a sort of inherent contradition in the way a whole lot of whites think of racism and institutional structure. They effortlessly talk about the amorphous, unfeeling “government” in terms of taxes and healthcare reform; but can’t seen to grasp “institutional” racism, even though it absolves, to some extent, the individual.
If we’re going to compare/contrast different eras, I think it’s a least fair to point out that they had the “benefit” of the media showing images of dogs and firehoses being set loose on peaceful people. We don’t quite have that image today. White Americans today don’t have to face their racism; and even then, “racism” was limited to its Southern manifestation.
Hey KState–
Do you have the title of that study (the one that indicates 7% of whites as free from racial bias) or a link? As a sociologist, I’m always curious how others measure things, such as racism, where respondents are usually less than forthcoming about it…
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/09/070924122814.htm
Hernan Vera and Gordon have a great book Screen Saviors that shows this ‘white savior’ theme now in Hollywood movies for a century. Bullock is just following a very old theme. From Birth of a Nation (one of the most extreme racist movies) to Bullock’s paternalistic, much less openly racist movie whites are portrayed the same, as the heroes…..
It is very interesting too, as Jessie points out, that very very rarely are whites (names as ‘white’) put into the subject position in sentences about racial matters as the negative and determining actors. Instead, “society discriminates,” or the passive tense is used: “Latinos have long been the victims of discrimination in this society.” I have thought of doing a book on this subject, of, what shall we call it, “implied whiteness”?
Is this sort of “disembodied oppression” the reason so many think the argument that “white people aren’t holding black people back” is a credible argument?