This is kind of a two-part commentary, but stick with me if you can. Trust me, the two parts are related. Because even though I’m starting off with ‘that movie’, we’re likely to end up in Flint, which lands us right back in Detroit.
Here we go…
So, for the past couple weeks a lot of people here in Detroit have been chatting about this new movie that dares to name itself after our own city. I’ve heard comments from both sides of the spectrum, although, admittedly, most of them have been negative. More than a few folks urged me – either directly or via Facebook posts – not to go see it. For a variety of reasons.
Honestly, cards on the table, I had been planning on seeing the movie anyway. I confess this up front (no doubt to the disappointment of at least several of my friends). But I’m a movie fanatic and this looked like a good movie to me. Subject matter was intriguing for obvious reasons, and the trailers were gripping, at least to me. But after all the chatter? Well, now I had to go see it.
So now I’ve seen it. And I admit that commenting on the back end probably isn’t playing fair since I got to hear what everybody else said first. That being said…
Here’s the thing, and I’ll make this brief; if you want to learn your history? You need to read books. You need to study. You will never, ever learn the truth about anything sitting in a large dark room full of strangers with a handful of popcorn watching a movie screen for two hours, or however long. It just doesn’t work that way.
Research and study is a long, arduous, but ultimately rewarding task that only grants that reward to those merry few determined to find out the truth about a matter. Movies? Movies are sheer entertainment, enslaved to the profit motive. If a movie doesn’t make a profit, it is a failure. Pure and simple. It’s all about that box office. Which means that the job of those who make those big screen movies is to try their best to make a film that will be entertaining enough to draw lots of people to the box office and make lots of money. This rule applies to movies like Detroit, JFK, and Nixon, just as much as it does to Batman and Superman. Just because a movie advertises itself as ‘based on a true story’ means next to nothing. That’s marketing. Period.
Doesn’t mean a movie can’t deliver a powerful message or really make you think. Movies are actually quite good at that. But don’t ever go to a movie ‘based on a true story’ expecting it to be a true story, or to get all the facts straight, or to not take artistic license, or to include historical references you think are essential, or to portray all real-life characters exactly as they were in real life. Because who so-and-so was in real life might not be exciting enough to sell tickets. Or it might not quite fit the script or the overall message. The only way to judge a movie is how it fares as entertainment. Once you try to raise that bar, and you consistently ram your ahead against the wall demanding more, you will forever be disappointed.
So.
Did I like the movie? Overall, yes. I did. Do I think it would have been better if a black man/woman made the film rather than a white woman? It’s easy to think so, but that doesn’t make it so. Which means maybe yes, maybe not. When Spike Lee made ‘X’, about the life of Malcolm X, and a film which I thought was incredible, Spike was not universally praised by black folk for his efforts. Oh sure, everybody loved Denzel because we always love Denzel. And it truly was one of the best – if not the absolute best – performance of his career. But Spike was taken to task for pretty much the same thing that Kathryn Bigelow is being lambasted for, namely that she is taking too many liberties, is omitting essential information and events, and is basically telling a true story her own way. In other words, she was criticized because her portrayal veered away from the whole truth.
Of course it did. It’s a movie. A movie about a very real time in a very real place where much of America was introduced to what can result when the simmering effects of structural racism are crammed into a tightly confined space and then left to overheat and, eventually, explode. It’s about a horrible, bloody night at the Algiers Hotel when police brutality broke loose from its chain and went completely crazy, which is saying something for those times. Because overboard police brutality was pretty much the norm in Detroit during those days.
Which is why I think it’s interesting that despite the film’s flaws, the folks who I have heard openly recommend that people see this movie include some of the folks who I might have thought would be the first to dismiss it. Folks like former City Councilwoman Sheila Cockrel, who was certainly in a front row seat to all the goings on back then, retired Detroit police chief Ike McKinnon, who actually dodged bullets from white police officers during the rebellion while he was in uniform, and Detroit historian extraordinaire Jamon Jordan.
Reportedly the movie is not doing well at the box office, but I hardly think this should come as a shock. This is a movie about the brutal effects of white racism. It’s about police brutality. It’s about white police officers brutally beating and torturing young black men, as well as young white women. Young white women who were cozying up to those young black men. In a motel. In 1967.
So you remember what I said about entertainment, right? How many folks do you think consider all of this entertaining?
Which kind of makes me wonder how the upcoming Lifetime network movie entitled Flint, is going to do, and what the reaction will be. I’m talking about that movie scheduled to debut on October 28.
Oh. You hadn’t heard?
…Because the upcoming Flint movie will be a movie too.
I won’t take the time here to recount everything that happened in Flint over the past few years with the drinking water. I’m going to take a leap of faith and assume that you already know most of it. If you don’t already know, stop reading this because it’s time to do some of that research and study I was talking about earlier.
And please don’t wait for the Lifetime movie. It may be great, but still.
In February of this year, the Michigan Civil Rights Commission issued the Flint Water Crisis Report. But instead of discussing the technicalities of who made which wrong decision when, the report focuses on how much structural racism, racism built into the system, was responsible for what happened. Michigan Department of Civil Rights Director Dr. Agustin Arbulu, in a recent interview, said the purpose of the report was to get to the actual root of the problem – the same root that led to the rebellion of 1967 in Detroit, the Detroit race riot on Belle Isle of 1943, the race riot outside of Dr. Ossian Sweet’s house when he dared to move into a white neighborhood in 1925, and the Detroit race riot of 1863.
As you can see, that root runs deep.
From the report:
“The Commission recognizes that there have been numerous articles, hearings, studies, reports and investigations into Flint’s water crisis. Many focused on the technical aspects of the water crisis: What anti-corrosive materials should have been added? What about testing for lead in the water? Is the current lead and copper rule sufficient? …
“The Michigan Civil Rights Commission (MCRC or Commission) believes that to properly and completely assess the causes of the Flint water crisis, we must look back much further. We believe the underlying issue is historical and systemic, dates back nearly a century, and has at its foundation race and segregation of the Flint community. These historical policies, practices, laws and norms fostered and perpetuated separation of race, wealth and opportunity.
“We are not suggesting that those making decisions related to this crisis were racists, or meant to treat Flint any differently because it is a community primarily made up by people of color. Rather, the disparate response is the result of systemic racism that was built into the foundation and growth of Flint, its industry and the suburban area surrounding it. This is revealed through the story of housing, employment, tax base and regionalization which are interconnected in creating the legacy of Flint.”
What Arbulu thinks is the major takeaway from the report is the necessity to re-evaluate the law as it relates to the effects of racism and racial discrimination. Currently the law is weighted on the side of intent, meaning the aggrieved party has to prove that the accused party actually intended to be racially discriminatory, or to cause harm for reasons related to race. A crime such as lynching, just as an example, is pretty easy to prove when it comes to intent. So is burning a cross on a lawn.
But when it comes to poison drinking water that disproportionately endangers a predominantly black and poor population? Not so easy anymore. Which is why the law should be focused more on impact, not intent. Because the impact of all those years of structural racism in Flint (and in Detroit, and so many other urban areas) is clear as day. But trying to prove intent is next to impossible, because it’s highly unlikely that anyone intended to poison poor black people in Flint. But to say it was simply an unfortunate accident doesn’t cut it.
The following is a condensed version of what Dr. Arbulu had to say:
“We think about the importance around implicit bias and structural racism. ..There was a time, especially in the early 1960s, we dealt with overt racism. We’ve always dealt with intent. But in today’s environment we still talk about intent and we forget about the impact. And it’s very hard to address intent, but it’s much easier to observe the impact. Implicit bias, I think, is a game-changer. How our systems and our structures and our processes serve to create these concepts of people that belong and people that are other.
“We have to move from intent to impact. We have to begin to look at what is the impact on education, what is the impact on health, what is the impact on housing, what is the impact on wealth creation, in community and quality of life?
“The emergency manager laws really are a reflection of lack of representation and lack of voice. If you want to make better decisions, government needs an educated community and a community that will provide input. So that you have all those voices providing their contribution to the discussion so you can make better informed decisions. I don’t think that happened when it came to Flint, and when it comes to the way the current emergency manager laws are written. It doesn’t allow for voice from the community and in that regard we take exception to the way the Emergency Manager laws are written today.”
“You have to look to address these inequities that exist where communities do not have a voice in the process. I think you have to have built into the EM laws participation from community. The voices of the residents is critical.
“I think we have to look at how we view local government in isolation. The reality is that we’re part of a larger community. Detroit is part of WC. Detroit is part of the tri-county. How do we all work together to make the entire community a better community for all of us?”