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

                                                                                                                                                                         James Baldwin

This powerful quote from “I Am Not Your Negro” film by Raoul Peck summarizes, in my opinion, one of the biggest challenges of humanity: how to reconcile our past, present, and aspirations for our future. The very essence of our being is a narrative, a collective knowledge of the past, which inevitably becomes the basis for our perception of present, and our projections into the future.  Our policies and laws, our dictionaries and school curriculums, our leisure style and entertainment, our entire societal fabric is made up entirely of our collective controversial knowledge of our collective controversial human experience. Every one of us is living out our own version of reality based on what circumstances we find ourselves in, and which narrative prevails. And boy, do those versions differ. The question of this staggering difference is explored throughout the film. It shows us glamorous pictures of the golden age of Hollywood juxtaposed to the appalling scenes of Lynched bodies hanging off the trees, surrounded by a cheering crowd. Truly, what a grotesque disparity: while some are enjoying the riches and opportunities, deciding between champagne and red wine, others are left for dead, abandoned, tortured, and dehumanized.

The history of humanity has no shortage of examples how we can destroy, slaughter, and conquer. And though we never stop analyzing, compartmentalizing, redefining, and recontextualizing our past, we can never get away from it far enough. The past always lingers in our present. In a way, it never really goes away, as it must live in our collective knowledge about our own world, because we cannot live in the present moment only. We must face ourselves and what we did if want to progress. The “I Am Not Your Negro” film written by James Baldwin, brings to our attention the horrific legacy of slavery in the United States, as one of the things the humanity in general, and the United States in specific has to face in order to improve its present. Although the institution of slavery had been abolished, its lingering effect on our present is as real as it gets. The term “institutionalized racism” sadly still finds its place in this country, as well as many other places on the planet. It means that there are certain groups of the population that faces discrimination embedded though laws and regulations, which results in inequality in criminal justice, housing, medical care, education, political power, employment, etc.

This present moment in time when the voiceless can find their voice online and reach millions in an instant, when most everyone has a video capturing device in their pocket, when speaking out and standing up becomes a viral effect, we have been seeing so many examples of institutionalized racism in action: police brutality, voting rights suppression, housing discrimination, and so on. It is not to say that these things are happening now more than before; it has only become more visible. Now, that most of us have an opportunity to capture and share events immediately, the speed of information availability and the amount of it is truly unprecedented. To understand where it all comes from and what the reasons may be, we must look in the past. Because without looking into the past, without acknowledging its gruesome legacy, we will never have enough context to move beyond terms, and closer together.

As James Baldwin profoundly notes in the closing remarks of the film “I Am Not Your Negro”, the term “Negro” and the meaning it has been assigned does not represent the people who were described by this term; It only represents a narrative that the oppressors invented to explain away their actions: the senseless brutalization and enslavement of a group of people. Although the term itself is not in use anymore, what is stands for, unfortunately, is still adhered to by some. The summer of 2015 showed us unrests and riots in Ferguson, Missouri; where the fatal shooting of a black teenager Michael Brown by a white police officer Darren Wilson sparked the “Black Lives Matter” movement. Last summer’s tragic and so disturbingly public death of George Floyd took the movement to the global scale. Movements are not created over night, they signify long-standing issues that do not get solved. The fact that we still have such movements in the first place, speaks for the fact that many people in our world still cannot access a fair chance in life. The system of our society was not created equal. In fact, the opposite is true. The system of societal hierarchy was created by the powerful, for the powerful; everywhere; and every country has its own complex history of inequality and oppression. To change our systems, each county must start from within, from its history, because we are our history. James Baldwin, in his turn, frames the future of this country to be “…entirely up to the American people, whether or not they are going to face, and deal with, and embrace the stranger they have maligned so long”. People are afraid of what they do not know; and the only way to overcome the fear, is to get to know it.

I also feel like I must say that my experience of living in the United States is one of an immigrant. I came to New York at the age of 21, and never lived outside of New York City since. My experience of this country started from a point of view of an observer, an outsider, and I am still learning a great deal about its history, and cannot relate to it in the same way as Americans do. However, on the human level I relate to this issue just the same. My own country, Russia, has its own horrific legacy of slavery. Russian power elites practiced feudalism, and enslaved their own people for 3 millennia, from 1600’s to late 1800’s. Certain groups of people, specifically farmers, became legally “attached” to the land, could not leave, could be bought and sold with the land, had no access to education, their children were born and raised to be slaves. They had no legal rights, could not be defended in courts, were brutalized, slaughtered, and considered sub-human. The revolution of 1917 was for the most part inspired and taken to action by the oppressed majority.

The truth is that our reality always changes, people change, our collective consciousness changes, and progress is unstoppable. There will always be those, who are afraid of the change, and those, who proliferate it. Each of us will end up on one or the other side of history, and become some part of this narrative. Where we stand now, may not be where stand tomorrow. What is important to keep in mind, is the perspective, the bigger picture. And the bigger picture can only be seen when we are able to grasp how much we still do not know. How much we do not know about each other, how much we are afraid of each other, and how much we need each other. To relate to someone different is hard, but the alternative is harder. Our differences are only superficial. It is only when all humans are able to think of the other as a friend by default, that we will be able to create just, inclusive, and fair systems. For this to happen, we must see beyond ourselves into the past, compare it with the present, and make plans for the future.