You cannot be responsible for Jim Crow. You can not be responsible for racism. This is much more a problem for the person exercising racism.You are confronted with the reality of racism when you go in the streets, when the eyes of others come upon you. [James] Baldwin goes back with you to all the experiences you went through and gives a name to them, and explains why it is like this.

Raoul Peck

Categorized in : Reality Exercise Eye

Face your reality. You, black or white, are not innocent anymore. Either you have the courage to face it or you will go down together with the whole idea of the American Dream.

dream reality ideas

From a young age, [James Baldwin] was watching all those different films. He's watching John Wayne killing off the Indians. He came to the point that the Indians were him. You had to educate yourself because the movies were not educating you. The movies were giving you a reflection of you that was not the truth. That's the trick. The movie was also giving a reflection of what the country is. Basically, a country that wanted itself to be innocent. That's the ambivalence of Hollywood.

reflection giving country

Just try to be yourself and resist complacency and ignorance. All you can do is work, work; work and be disciplined.

being-yourself ignorance trying

James Baldwin had an unrivaled understanding of politics and history and, above all, the human condition. His prose is laser sharp. His onslaught is massive and leaves no room for response. Every sentence is an immediate cocked grenade. You pick it up, then realize that it is too late. It just blows up in your face. And yet he still managed to stay human, tender, accessible.

lasers understanding blow

I started to read James Baldwin very early on in my life. At a time, as a young adult in the Sixties, when there were not that many authors in whom I could recognize myself, he was an important guide and mentor to me as he was to many others. He helped me understand who I was and decipher the world around me. He gave me the words to defend myself and the argumentative rhetoric to master discussions with others.

mentor adults important

[James] Baldwin was a revelation for me, the kind of revelation that follows you all your life because you can go back to it. It's not just about stories. It's about philosophy. It's about criticizing the world. It's about deconstructing the world around you.

stories philosophy world

I felt that the world, and in particular this country, were going in circles. What had happened 40 or 50 years ago was happening again, but even in a worse form - that we were sinking into a lot of ignorance and a lot of superficial change.

circles ignorance country

You need to react. That's the absurdity of Twitter. You can react... by Raoul Peck

You need to react. That's the absurdity of Twitter. You can react without thinking now.

absurdity needs thinking

Today, I don't even think that people like [James Baldwin] are possible. He would not have that much room.

today people thinking

[James] Baldwin was a celebrity. A TV show like Kenneth Clark could put him aside of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. He was, at least, one of the three most important spokesmen of the movement and of the black community.

tv-shows community kings

There are only one or two geniuses every century. by Raoul Peck

There are only one or two geniuses every century.

century genius two

[James] Baldwin "was one of greatest intellectuals of his time. He was an important voice, period, not an important black voice."

black voice important

Can you imagine in 2016 there is a discussion about #OscarsSoWhite? Is it a novelty we've just discovered that the whole production machine is dominated by only one type of human being, excluding women, excluding gays, excluding minorities? This is not new.

novelty minorities gay

I just hope that my films will survive me. by Raoul Peck

I just hope that my films will survive me.

film

It was really always about bringing back [James] Baldwin's words in all their rawness, in all their impact - in the way he analyzes not only this country but also the history of this country, the images that this country is fabricating through Hollywood, and what consequence that has in our imagination.

impact imagination country

[James] Baldwin explained that you have your own history, and that you cannot be responsible, for example, for slavery.

slavery responsible example

The role James Baldwin played in my life is incommensurable as stated above. He helped, along with a few others, to shape the man that I am today. My debt to him is invaluable.

debt roles men

James Baldwin is one of the greatest, North American writers of the second half of the Twentieth Century. A prolific writer and a brilliant social critic, he foreshadowed the destructive trends happening now in the whole Western world and beyond, while always maintaining a sense of humanistic hope and dignity. He explored palpable, yet unspoken, intricacies of racial, sexual, and class distinctions in Western societies and the inevitable, if unnameable, tensions with personal identity, assumptions, uncertainties, yearning, and questing.

identity class world

I think that James Baldwin is, for sure, one of the most important American writer/thinkers of his time... not just African-American. He singled-handily revolutionized the political, artistic and historical discourses about America. He created his particular and original language.

political america thinking

[James] Baldwin is needed even more today because he helps you focus to the essential, to what is important.

essentials focus important