I Am Not Your Negro Film Analysis

I Am Not Your Negro, directed by Raoul Peck, is a film that showcases the history of race in the United States. Using the words and notes written by James Baldwin about the lives and assassinations of Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King Jr, the film explores the past and future of racial tension in the United States.

A majority of the film explores and explains what it means to be black in a white world. Baldwin shares his encounter with reality by recollecting some of his childhood memories. He describes how the folk heroes, like John Wayne and Davy Crockett, were all white. The overuse of white, vengeful, heroic characters left a long lasting impression on the children who watched them. By not having enough diversity, the media discriminated against any non-white community. All the protagonists were white and almost all the antagonists

Now that they don’t need us, they’re gonna kill us all off.” Everything said in this quote is not necessarily true. James Baldwin is correct in saying that the slave trade was used as a means of production. However, he is wrong to suggest that the white community no longer needs the black community after the termination of slavery. James Baldwin appears to be playing a theoretical game of connect the dots, but it seems to me that he is missing a few numbered dots. After the end of the slave trade market in the United States, the white community didn’t know what to do. For an incredibly long time they were under the impression that the slave trade would go on forever. Now that the slave trade ceased to exist, the white community was unsure of how to interact with the black community. This led to the “separate but equal” idea. Most people try not to worry about the things- or in this case, people-they can’t see. This not necessarily true for all people, but it seemed like a good idea to the past white