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AMERICA SHOULD VIEW JAMES BALDWIN’S BEALE STREET WITH DIFFERENT OPTICS
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| By Tolson Banner |
Nationwide -- Beale Street is anywhere Black USA: rural or urban - where the 24/7 steady drumbeat of Black Lives Matter beat out justice against a pernicious rhythm of "implicit bias and unconscious discrimination". It is where Red, Black and Green fade into invisibility vis a' vis the landscape of Red and Blue United White States. It is where the pronouncements of white privilege and white entitlement emanate, as King puts it, "jangling discords of the nation."
This is where movies about race relations - streamed or projected, end the same - rendering spoiler alerts unnecessary. The black protagonist is always faced with insurmountable odds strategically placed by the white antagonist who denies at every turn their nefarious role in the arrested development of Black America.
The setting for the movie could very well be any Black USA community where the day is very much like yesterday: killings of unarmed blacks at the hands of noxious police, duplicated by staunch white racists; incarceration of innocent blacks by a rigged judicial system; profiling and arresting blacks for mundane acts of walking, driving, sitting, running, swimming, barbecuing; talking on the phone in a hotel lobby; asking to use the restroom; and simply BREATHING AIR. All charged to the same recurring theme of implicit bias.
