Unfortunately Continually Timely

It's instructive viewing "I Am Not Your Negro," based on an unfinished manuscript by James Baldwin, a novelist who focused on racial and societal issues during mid-20th-century America, but which compares Baldwin's text and archival footage of him speaking to happenings since his death, including the then-recent events in Ferguson, Missouri, as the documentary continues to prove relevant given the racially-charged protests and unrest erupting from police violence in 2020. Indeed, one of the main touchstones of Baldwin's lecture is the assassinations of civil-rights activists Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr.

The picture does more than outline the history of racial animosity in the United States and addressing what racism does to both black and white people, too. Perhaps not surprising given it's a motion picture, the documentary may be at its best when considering the influence of cinema on race in society. Moreover, Baldwin was too intelligent to argue a simplistic tale of progress from Stepin Fetchit to Sidney Poitier, either. "The Defiant Ones" (1958) and "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" (1967), for instance, are criticized for their appeal and appeasement to white audiences at the expense of black ones. On the other hand, we also see how some Hollywood stars actively protested for civil rights while the likes of John Wayne were constructing another narrative of white supremacy on screen.

Being an incomplete book, the argument here does have the appearance of a draft at times, with some points, perhaps, not followed through on, or others not seeming quite as relevant, but the addition of the archival footage of Baldwin works well, and Samuel L. Jackson is an effective narrator. To top it off, the reflexive look at movies makes the picture's final montage of returned gazes from African Americans effective. After being lectured on how the history of film has been aimed as comforting to the ideology of the dominant culture, this ending works to undermine that history, as we're no longer ignored to the safety of our gaze upon the screen--unseen and unaccountable. No longer merely a spectator, awakened by the returned gaze, now, we must become a participant.