REVIEW: ‘JUDAS AND THE BLACK MESSIAH’
I’m giving myself some time off to gather up all the corners of me and shake the Sarah stuff back to the center again. I had gotten stretched out, bruised, spread thin, lost who I am at my core. I’m re-finding and re-defining her. TBD. ;)
Meanwhile, I am reading, watching, learning, resting. Hungry for art to teach me, excited to share what I learn.
I’ll drop a review of “Know my Name,” as soon as I’m done reading it- spoiler alert: it’s a stellar, must-read and I can’t believe Chanel Miller, the author, gave us all this gift.
Robb and I went to the drive-in movies on Friday night because my cousins kept the kids overnight (PRAISE THEM AND ALL THE GODS). We ate vegan cajun food and watched “Judas and the Black Messiah.”
This is a story that needs to be known, made into a gorgeous film, and released at the exact perfect time (which is always, and now). It is a true story, written in historical fiction movie form by Shaka King and Will Berson. If you’re like me, and had a v. white (supremacy)-washed education and are only catching up on real life now, you know next to nothing about the real history of the Black Panther leadership, the impact they had on the communities they served, or how the US government organized against them. I was left in my youth with a vague sense that the Black Panthers were violent incendiaries, the other side of the peaceful MLK coin, a problem, a stain, a threat.
So, in Chicago in the 1960’s, Fred Hampton (played by Daniel Kaluuya, ‘Get Out,’ ‘Black Panther’) was the chairman of an Illinois branch of the Black Panthers. The movie is set in 1969, when he and his team were feeding thousands of local kids in a free breakfast program, creating a medical clinic for the Black community (which would be instrumental in understanding diagnosing/treating Sickle Cell Anemia), providing legal aide to those being harassed and jailed by police, and working to organize various disenfranchised communities against police brutality.
This is after the assassinations of MLK Jr (1968) and Malcolm X (1965), and many, many other civil rights leaders. J. Edgar Hoover (played by Martin Sheen, ‘The West Wing’), was the head of the FBI at the time and he decided that the Black Panthers were the biggest threat to America ( COINTELPRO “aimed at disrupting the growing political power of the Black Panther Party and other leftist political groups”), and preached about how if their intent was met, it would negatively impact ‘our entire way of life.’
To infiltrate the Black Panthers and destroy the leadership, and ultimately murder Fred Hampton, he employed FBI agent, Roy Mitchell, (played by Jesse Plemons, ‘Friday Night Lights’) who used an informant, Bill O’Neil, (played by LaKeith Stanfield, ‘Sorry to Bother You,’ ‘Get Out’) in an indetured servitude sort of threat/bribe way (removing a prison sentence, but holding it constantly over his head). Mr. O’Neil acted as informant for decades, and eventually revealed all in a documentary, committing suicide the night it aired on TV in the late 1980s.
This movie shows the powers that be doing whatever it takes to maintain that power- murdering, lying, falsely accusing, spinning the narrative. They made it seem like this group, defending, feeding, empowering a community that was otherwise being neglected and abused by the larger society, exposing those harming them…it made them out to be the threat. Like the Black Panthers were the violent ones. Like their revolution was the disruption. I can’t think of a more worthy cause than standing up for and beside the oppressed and injured, but we’re taught THEY were the toxic ones, they were kept violently in their place, vilified in media and memory.
When ultimately Fred Hampton was shot during an FBI raid, killed point black in his bed while he slept, after having been drugged by O’Neil….one shot was fired from the gun of a dying Panther, while 99 shots were fired by the raiders…yet, charges were filed against the Panthers who lived to be arrested. They did what it took to protect, support, enhance their community, and in doing so, they threatened the status quo. In dismantling white supremacy, and also patriarchy. Women in the Panthers were equal comrades to men. They were armed, they were at negotiations, they were always at the table.
The movie is stylish- cigarette-stained, brown/mustard 60s and 70s colors, big clothes, glasses, cars. The writing and acting is incredible. There is urgency in the message, but it is patiently delivered. It feels like now my learning needs to begin. So many books and documentaries to tackle. So much re-learning to do.
