I really enjoyed this discussion with Jamal Joseph. His life, of course, exceeds even the aspirations of his film characters: Black Panther, prisoner, and finally filmmaker and college professor.
Was his view of the world wrong as a Black Panther? It doesn't seem as if his politics have changed that much, just his tactics for fighting racism and social injustice. Jamal suggested that I read Malcolm X's talk at Oxford University. Here is the speech in full.
The movie, according to Jamal, was made to reflect Black experiences in the United States, not to point out what whites should be doing about it. That was a response to my question about why the film didn't show more of the racism and social injustice that has left people of color at the bottom of our economic system.
White people watching Jamal's film will be aware of the forces that have diminished Black Peoples' chances of success: the segregated neighborhoods, the lucrative prison/industrial complex, and the long history of racial injustice. Here is how Black People in Harlem cope, and how they find meaning in a system that has perpetually kept them down. In fact, the white people in Chapter and Verse are for the most part kind and trustworthy. It is the racist system that is broken in this county, and both whites and Blacks must join forces to fix it if we are going to have the true peace that comes from justice.
