Precious Politics

We're certainly going to be the people, if we keep trying." Chester Himes

Since the release of the film Precious, a searing debate has been raging in the African-American community over images, creative freedom and the political nature of art. This is not a new debate but it is one with a decidedly new and wholly unexpected twist in the age of Obama.

This Blog concerns itself principally with a form of racism known as gentrification. My first novel, War Anthem (which has found a publisher and will be in a bookstore near you for 2010), concerns itself with the corporeal (physical) form of gentrification. My novel in progress, addresses the lingering spiritual aspects and the last in the trilogy, the psychological effects; but as I left the theater a week ago after viewing Precious, I had the distinct feeling that I had been beaten to the punch, but in a strangely contorted way.

Minutes into the film, to my everlasting horror, in a case of what I consider cultural fratricide, the physical, intellectual and spiritual death of Black America was being projected before my eyes. It was only made worse by the knowledge that the negative stereotypes being rehashed in theaters throughout America, came not from the diseased bowels of KKK headquarters or the sinister mind of Rush Limbaugh, but by educated, wealthy and in the case of Oprah Winfrey, highly revered Black people.

Full of dazzling cinematic tricks and finely acted portrayals, the film boasts some breakout performances by Monique and newcomer Gabourey Sidibe. The screenplay is inventive and the casting choices impressive. There was even a Monster-esque performance by the usually glamorous Mariah Carey as a homely but sympathetic Jewish social worker. I have no quarrel with the technical execution, but am infuriated that a film with such malevolent content was ever conceived.

For centuries, Africans the world over have suffered the gross indignity of cultural denigration. From the exploitation of the Hottentot Venus, to minstrel shows, to Stepin Fetchit, an entire industry was created around shuckin, jivein, and cooning, meant not only to entertain but to reinforce the ugly stereotypes employed as the philosophical underpinning for white supremacy. These were cultural cues, which the propagandists of the time, used to cement the idea that Africans throughout the Diaspora were ignorant, violence prone, sexually deviant and animalistic; not to mention morally bankrupt and mentally weak.

For generations, in the face of this cultural onslaught, African-Americans have largely maintained the moral high ground, in spite of the fact that so many of us performed in these farces. We could say with heads held high that, we applauded the superlative performances of the great Black actors who had limited venues to display their art; but we did not sanction these carnivals of the absurd because we did not have a hand in producing them.

We dismissed the negative characterizations out of hand and proudly proclaimed that a day would come when we could control our own images. Moreover, African-Americans have long maintained that once we assumed posts of leadership in this country, once we were given equal rights under the law, that there would be a new day; a day of jubilee allowing us to live life on our own terms and fully express our humanity without the weighty burdens of racism.

Well, that day has come and for decades we have had a plethora of Black writers, producers, directors and financiers that have taken it as their sacred honor to produced a cinema which reflects the real Black America. (Spike Lee, John Singleton and Julie Dash to name a few). We have reveled in their glorious representations of the heroic, the simple, the sacred and profane aspects of the Black experience.

Yes, our new day has come, but the arrival of Precious is a sad day in our creative and socio-political history. It's a film that says to Black America, devil take the hindmost and every man for himself and God for us all, we will deign to make money on the misery and worn out stereotypes that racists use as bedtime stories for the next David Duke and Sarah Palin. After generations of stalwart people that would rather be lynched than betray the race, after a civil rights movement, a Black Liberation movement and a Black Arts movement, we still find cases of artistic Stockholm Syndrome, doing the same cultural damage to ourselves that has been done by others since the days of Little Black Sambo and Birth of A Nation.

Many of us know people that have endured horrors similar to those that befall poor Precious in the film and I do not deny that the story of Precious is one story of Black America, but I will always bristle at caricature presented as realism, especially where my people are concerned. What's more, the film expands on the theme of Black suffering to a degree unprecedented in few films that I have ever seen. You'd have to screen Roots again to become more incensed, more disgusted; but like so many films that came before it, there is only one socially redeeming Black character in the entire movie (*spoiler alert), the teacher who lovingly protects and educates this tragic child, a laughable cliche if it were only funny.

The litany of horrible things that befall Precious do become almost satirical, representing a expansive laundry list of antiquated racist descriptions. There's the overweight welfare Queen - check; the morbidly obese illiterate child - check, the filthy run down apartment- check, the physical and sexual abuse- check, and so on.

We have many stories; so many ways to be Black in the age of Obama, but Oprah and Tyler (last name omitted do to shame) chose to present these disgusting images as something to be applauded and financially supported by African Americans -- again. It has “heart and spirit" say the critics, and I agree. It possesses a spirit of oppression and it's empty heart is born of cynicism and self hatred.

To Oprah and Tyler I say: tell the teacher's story or that of the founder of the alternative school in Harlem (who would no doubt be African-American) where Precious finds her redemption. Show how they made a way out of no way, as so many of us do every day. Do not tread on the putrid earth where for so long, racists sowed the seeds of hate.

African-Americans have been conditioned by years of oppression to support nearly everything a famous Black person does. It is a knee-jerk form of racial solidarity, which had great utility in the gloomy days when few of us could rise to such national prominence or acclaim. The arts and sports were our beachheads to public fame and we were fortunate, because the stakes were high and we always seemed to send our best. In return, our heroes had our backs, almost never made us look bad. Gone are those days.

Art is political, always will be and for those involved with this film to release Precious, in 2009, is to spit on the cradle of our long awaited new day. Our history documents the path we took out of the wilderness. It's a history of resistance to the destructive images films like Precious celebrate as enlightened entertainment. For my money, a documentary on the history of poverty and racial oppression in America would have been a far nobler endeavor, followed by a city-by-city community organizing campaign against the abuses that flow from them; but I am under no delusions, producers don't really raise money for stuff like that and that the proceeds from this film won't go to such an end. Thus, I am left with one final polemic to hurl at the makers of this movie, these traitors to history: "have you no decency...at long last, have you no decency".