I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO – A documentary by Raoul Peck

I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO
A film about James Baldwin (1924-87)‘s life and work

A COUPLE OF MEMORABLE QUOTES:

“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”

“Freedom is not something that anybody can be given. Freedom is something people take, and people are as free as they want to be.”

“Life is tragic simply because the earth turns and the sun inexorably rises and sets, and one day, for each of us, the sun will go down for the last, last time. Perhaps the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble, is that we will sacrifice all the beauty of our lives, will imprison ourselves in totems, taboos, crosses, blood sacrifices, steeples, mosques, races, armies, flags, nations, in order to deny the fact of death, the only fact we have. It seems to me that one ought to rejoice in the fact of death–ought to decide, indeed, to earn one’s death by confronting with passion the conundrum of life. One is responsible for life: It is the small beacon in that terrifying darkness from which we come and to which we shall return.” ― In: “The Fire Next Time”

Historic debate between James Baldwin vs. William F. Buckley Jr., in 1965, at Cambridge University on the question: “Is the American Dream at the expense of the American Negro?”

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