I am not your Negro, but I am...

Hellooooo! Yes, I saw the film over the weekend.

James Baldwin's appearances and words really made the documentary. It was good to learn about him and his thought.

The director's choices to tie Baldwin's words from the Civil Rights movement to the current political situation and Black Lives Matter seemed a little forced to me. We are no longer in the era of MLK and Malcolm X. Some problems are the same, but other key issues are totally different. It's a related, but different, historical moment. To take words from the 60s or 70s and put them over modern footage seemed ahistorical and de-contextualized.

If the director had wanted to make a non-narrative, cut-up collage-style film (like Atomic Cafe, for instance), it might have worked. But this was supposed to be about Baldwin and his work (or so I thought).

You are not my Negro, but you are my nigga!

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