All language subtitles for Black.Is.Black.Aint.1994.1080p.BluRay.H264.AAC-RARBG_3_English

Has anybody talked to you at all
about what we're doing?

You just got dragged here? [laughs] Yeah.

Okay, we're gonna tell you a little bit.

This is a documentary
we're doing for public television.

It's called Black Is... Black Ain't.

[Riggs] We've finally begun production
on this project.

Two hundred and twenty five.

- I thought the number would be higher...
- T-cell count slipped back down.

- ...but I don't feel well.
- Weight down too.

I'm worried, but keep this to myself.

My weight and T-cell count are the same.

What's happening to my body?

[Riggs] AIDS forces you,
because of the likelihood

that you could die at this moment —

AIDS forces you to deal with that

and to look around you and say,

"Hey, I'm wasting my time
if I'm not devoting every moment

to thinking about,
how can I communicate to Black people,

so that we start to look at each other,

we start to see each other?"

[people chanting] Black is... Black ain't.
Black is... Black ain't.

- Black is... Black ain't.
- Black is... Black ain't.

- Black is... Black ain't.
- Black is... Black ain't.

- Black is... Black ain't.
- Black is... Black ain't.

- Black is... Black ain't.
- Black is... Black ain't.

- Black is... Black ain't.
- Black is... Black ain't.

- Black is... Black ain't.
- Black is... Black ain't.

- Black is... Black ain't.
- Black is... Black ain't.

- Black is... Black ain't.
- Black is... Black ain't.

- Black is... Black ain't.
- Black is... Black ain't.

- Black is... Black ain't.
- Black is... Black ain't.

[chanting fades]

[man] ♪ Well ♪

- [woman] Oh! Come on, now. Come on!
- [man] Hallelujah!

- [woman] Yes, now! Tell it!
- [congregation chattering]

♪ I say, Black is ♪

♪ And Black ain't ♪

♪ Black is ♪

♪ And Black ain't ♪

- ♪ Black is blue ♪
- [congregation shouting]

♪ Black is red ♪

- ♪ And Black is tan ♪
- [woman] Black will get you!

♪ And Black is light ♪

- ♪ And Black will leave you alone ♪
- [congregation continues shouting]

♪ Black can get you over ♪

♪ Black can set you down ♪

♪ Black can let you move forward ♪

♪ And Black will make you stumble around ♪

Black is so high!

And Black is so low.

Black can say yes!

- And Black can say no.
- Black can be your best friend!

- Be cozy as the night!
- [man] Tell it!

♪ Black can do you in ♪

♪ Make you fuss and cuss and fight ♪

- ♪ Black is Black ♪
- [man] Preach now!

- ♪ And Black is blue ♪
- [man] Tell the truth!

- ♪ Black is bright ♪
- [congregation continues shouting]

♪ Black is you ♪

- [piano: upbeat blues music playing]
- [congregation continues shouting]

[Riggs] To tell the truth,
there's nothing better in this world

than my Big Mama's gumbo.

I guess it's because it's got
a little bit of everything in it.

Well, there goes the gumbo.

[Riggs] Everything that you can imagine
can be put into gumbo —

shrimp, crayfish,

sausage, alligator sausage,

pork sausage, crab.

[woman] What does Black mean?

It seems very difficult to define
in any absolute sense

what it means to be Black.

[Riggs] Seasoned just nicely.

You don't want the broth
to overpower the roux.

Cook it, and it just has a nice
sort of aromatic flavor with the spices.

[man] The most definitive identity
any Black person has is Blackness.

[Riggs] If it gets too thick,
it's like you're tasting that,

but you can't really get
to the ingredients that make the gumbo.

[woman] There are as many kind
of Black people

as there are Black people to be.

There are so many variations on the theme.

[Riggs] Cooks all night and all day.
Ooh, it's wonderful.

And it's just inviting.
You walk in and it's like... [gasps]

Mmm!

Come on here to the kitchen.

[laughs]

[police siren wailing]

When I was a boy,
the nation was in turmoil.

Though, to be honest,

much of what was going on
was at the periphery of my life.

Still, I was aware enough of the changes

to try to convince
one of my friends one day

that it was time for him
to stop using the word "colored."

"Edward Lee," I said,
"you ain't colored no mo'.

You Black."

"No, I ain't," he shot back.

"Yes, you is," I said.

"No, I ain't," he insisted.

Now, to be real, Edward Lee was so dark

he could have passed
as one of the original Africans.

But back then it was an insult
to call somebody "African" or "Black,"

so I knew why he was upset.

Still, I wanted him to see the new light.

"Edward Lee, you Black."

"Colored — No one is colored anymo'.

'Colored' is the white man's word.

You Black and should be proud."

"Take it back," he said.

"No, I'm not."

"Take it back," he repeated, tense.

"For what? It's the truth!"

"Take it back,

or I'll beat yo' Black ass."

"Uh-oh."

Edward Lee was big.

I started moving backwards.

"Edward Lee, I don't know why you so mad.

Ain't nothing to get mad about.

Black is b-beautiful.

You Black. I'm Black. My mama's Black."

Now that stopped him.

Anybody so willing to insult his own mama
must be serious.

That day, I escaped Edward Lee's punches

and held my own all at the same time.

I was proud.

["Say It Loud (I'm Black and I'm Proud)"
playing]

[announcer] I think Norman of Australia
leads with John Carlos.

[man] At the award ceremony

came the symbolic protest
by Smith and Carlos,

each wearing a black glove,

holding fists aloft and bowing their heads
during the anthem.

Later, they were dismissed from the team
and sent home by the US Olympic Committee.

[Riggs] For the longest, of course,

being Black wasn't always so beautiful.

["The Star-Spangled Banner" playing]

A 16th-century Oxford dictionary

provides a clue to the word's meaning
before we redefined it.

[woman 1]
"Black: deeply stained with dirt.

Soiled, dirty, foul."

[man 1] "Having dark
or deadly purposes, malignant."

[woman 2] "Black:
pertaining to, or involving death.

Deadly, baneful, disastrous, sinister."

[man 2]
"Iniquitous, atrocious, horrible, wicked."

- [Riggs] "Black."
- [all] Black!

[Riggs] "Indicating disgrace,

censure, liability to punishment."

And remember the children's rhymes?

♪ Jump back, Jack ♪

♪ Your hands too black ♪

♪ Look like you been working
On a railroad track ♪

[kids] ♪ Clickety-clack
Clickety-clack, clickety-clack ♪

♪ Jump back, Jack
Your hands too black ♪

♪ Look like you working
On a railroad track ♪

♪ Clickety-clack, clickety-clack
Clickety-clack ♪

♪ If you're red, go ahead ♪

♪ If you're brown, stick around ♪

♪ If you're Black, get back ♪

♪ If you're yellow, you're mellow ♪

♪ If you're white, you're right ♪

♪ If you're Black, get back ♪

♪ If you're red, go ahead
If you're brown, stick around ♪

♪ If you're Black, get back ♪

♪ If you're yellow, you're mellow ♪

♪ If you're white, you're right ♪

♪ If you're Black, get back ♪

[woman] People used all kinds of terms

to avoid saying "Black."

You could be dark brown, medium brown —
ridiculous things.

But definitely there was not the concept

of "Black is beautiful"
that later evolved.

When I was growing up,
as was your experience,

you didn't call anybody Black
unless you were ready to fight.

And the very worst thing you could
call somebody was a Black African.

[laughing] Right?
"You Black African." Oh, yeah.

That was a fighting piece.
"Don't call me Black. I don't like that."

Why I didn't like it?

Because...

people in my community
of a different color

made me feel so inferior.

"Why your hair so kinky?"

- "Why your lips so big?"
- [kids] ♪ If you're red, go ahead ♪

- ♪ If you're brown, stick around ♪
- "Why your nose is so big?"

♪ If you're Black, get back
If you're yellow, you're mellow ♪

♪ If you're white, you're right
If you're Black, get back ♪

♪ Black is beautiful
Free Huey ♪

♪ Said I want him free
Free Huey ♪

♪ Black is beautiful
Free Huey ♪

[Davis] In the '60s,
we began to say Black was beautiful.

That was a slogan that indicated
a politics of struggle.

♪ Said I want him free
Free Huey ♪

But later on in life, I learned that
this nose was good and pretty.

One guy came along,
name of Stokely Carmichael,

said, "Black is beautiful."

And then we realized
that Black is beautiful.

This kinky hair could go
in all kinds of ways.

This nice, brown chocolate skin,

looks so nice, could be
all kinds of color, you know?

And then we begin to realize that,
I am somebody.

[woman] How does it feel
to be back in the hospital?

I'm not happy to be back here, you know.

It's hard. It's boring.

It's like one week of it
and I'm just bored.

It's like, how did I endure
six months of it last year,

you know, from November to May or so?

And already here, now, I wanna get out.

[upbeat zydeco music playing]

[Riggs] When I was a boy,
every year we took a trip to Louisiana,

where most of my cousins lived.

It was a journey
I always looked forward to.

My family ranged from every shade.

Every shade you could imagine.

Now, in Baton Rouge,
all of us were a little bit darker.

But if you crossed the river
to New Orleans,

all of the family was lighter.

In fact, some of them so light,
they could pass as white.

But I just — You know,
I didn't even think about it.

[zydeco music continues playing]

[man] ♪ Yeah, I wanna go home
But I can't get back ♪

♪ I wanna get back... ♪

[man]
I grew up very confused. I really did.

You know, I never really
talk about this much,

but I did grow up confused

because I didn't exactly know
where I actually fit in in the world.

Because we were never taught
to consider ourselves to be Black.

[woman] When we reach the mulatto group,
we begin to get two extreme types,

which, for convenience,
we shall call dominants and recessives,

and a third type,
which we shall call intermediate.

[people chanting] Black is... Black ain't.
Black is... Black ain't.

[man] I could not use the word "Black"
to describe my father.

If I ever called my father Black,

you know, I would have got
a spanking or possibly worse,

because he did not consider
himself to be Black.

He did not want to be Black.
He was Creole.

[chanting continues]

[Borders] When I was growing up,
I heard people who were white

call themselves Creole.

I heard people who were Black
call themselves Creole.

I heard these people speak
to each other every day in Creole,

and the people
who called themselves Creole

ranged the whole color gamut.

[man 1 speaking Creole]

- [man 2 speaking Creole]
- [man 1 in English] How much?

[both speaking Creole]

- [man 1] You speak it also?
- [man 2] Yeah.

[man 3] I speak
a little Italian and French.

- [man 1] Are you a Creole?
- Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm supposed to be.

[man 1] You're supposed to be?
What does that mean?

- Well, that's what my people told me.
- [man 1] That's what they told you?

- What does it mean?
- What?

- What does that mean, "Creole"?
- That means a little French, and then...

kind of mixed up, a little French.

- [man 1] Really?
- Mm-hmm.

Does it have anything to do with being

a light-skinned
or a dark-skinned Black person?

Oh, no, no. They got people
darker than you that's Creole.

[Borders] And later, as I grew up
and started being able

to move a little bit
beyond my neighborhood,

I learned about some people

who had concepts of Creole
as something other than cultural,

who had concepts of Creole
as maybe being a racial

or a biological heritage.

[man rapping] ♪ This fable of elements ♪

♪ Which classify order
Species, subspecies ♪

♪ Genus, phyla, animal, vegetable ♪

♪ Illegal chemical, socialist ♪

♪ Democrat, Republican ♪

♪ Yuppie, buppy, guppy, proud racist ♪

♪ Black, white, African ♪

♪ Native American, Irish and German ♪

My family used to have
picnics out in the country,

and they would turn
dark-skinned Black people away.

They would not let them come in.

My grandfather had a first cousin
who was blind who lived in Baton Rouge,

and they would seat him at the door.

But he would take a comb,

and if he couldn't pass
the comb through your hair,

you couldn't come in.

[woman] In this study,
six degrees of curvature,

or types of hair form, are recognized:

straight, low waves, deep waves,
curly, frizzly and woolly.

My friends used to tease me and my hair.

One of the things I do remember

was going to a Brownie camp
or Girl Scout camp,

um, outside of Birmingham,
and it started to rain.

You know, all the girls who had probably

just had their hair straightened
for camp, right,

uh, started to run.

And, um, I didn't run

'cause my mother
wouldn't let me straighten my hair,

as much as I wanted to.

And I remember the girls teasing me —

"Oh, you just think you got good hair.
You don't have to get out of the rain."

[Borders] The good hair was the hair
that didn't require the straightening,

and the bad hair was the hair
that did require the straightening.

[woman] I just didn't like setting my hair
and pampering myself like that,

so I decided to go natural.

Mama would say,
"What you gonna do with your hair?"

Uh, I'd say,
"I'm gonna leave it like it is.

This is my natural hair."

One of my aunts said,
"You look like an African."

So I start making gyrations,
you know, start dancing. [grunting]

[Smalls]
When I came along, it was "Negro."

Later on, it changed to "Black."

Later on, it changed to "Afro-American."

I don't know what we gonna change to next,

but we've been changing so fast

I don't think we know
what we are ourselves.

I think we have such an obsession
with naming ourselves

because during most of our history
we've been named by somebody else.

I am Black, female,

Catholic, colored,

Negro, African, American.

So it is all those things together.

[Riggs] All of those words,
when we took them into our own culture,

became, I think,
affirmations of who we are,

rather than ways by which
society at large put us down.

- [phone ringing]
- [woman on PA, indistinct]

[Riggs] AIDS is central to the catalyst

that's pushing me to deal with identity
on the global perspective.

The connection between
AIDS and Black folks

and Black folks' identity is metaphoric.

Both of them are
a struggle against the odds

in the face of adversity,

in the face of possible extinction.

How do we keep ourselves
together as a people

in the face of all our differences?

How do we maintain a sense
of communal selfhood, if you will?

Who's in the community and who's not?

I mean, there has been a history
of excluding other Black folk

from community in this country

to the detriment, I think,
of our empowerment as an overall people.

Okay, you may begin.

[chorus] ♪ To be young, gifted and Black ♪

♪ Oh, what a lovely, precious dream... ♪

My picture's about when I am a doctor

and I'm about to go to dinner
at the hospital,

which they have in the lunchroom.

- [squealing, laughing]
- [song continues playing]

[Riggs] The song provokes painful...

Health, innocence,

the feeling of possibilities.

Weren't we all so eager and capable then,

each one of us, to uplift the race?

Jubilation.

- We want Black power.
- [crowd shouting]

We want Black power. We want Black power.

- We want Black power.
- [crowd] Black power!

[Riggs] Contradiction.

All the time we were saying it loud

and proclaiming
the beauty of our Blackness,

a deep wedge of silence
divided me from my father.

We didn't talk. Literally.

Like so many other Black boys
and their fathers,

we confronted each other
across a chasm of silence.

[man 1] "If there were seven blind men

[man 2] "One of them unable to speak

[man 1]
"Unable to hear, would be my father

[man 2] "My father

[man 1] "He would be the one
promising to deliver

- [man 2] "Promising to deliver
- [man 1] "What never arrives

"He would be the bridge, which on one side
I stand feeling doomed

- [man 2] "Unable to speak
- [man 1] "To never forgive him

- [man 2] "Unable to hear
- [man 1] "For the violence in our pasts

[man 2] "Forgive him

[man 1] "While on the other side,
he vigorously waves to me to cross over

[man 2] "Promising to deliver

- [man 1] "But he doesn't know
- [man 2] "Forgive him

[man 1] "The bridge has fallen through

"If there were seven blind men,
the one unable to hear

- [man 2] "He would be the one
- [man 1] "Would be my father

"The one unable to speak

- [man 2] "Feeling doomed
- [man 1] His son."

[woman singing]

[Riggs] At that time, to be a Black man

required this code of silence.

You didn't express feelings.

You weren't hurt.

You couldn't acknowledge hurt and pain
and rage and anger.

And what that engendered was silence.

No one talked to each other,

'cause that would have been
admitting vulnerability,

and vulnerability was associated
with being feminine.

Black masculinity, Black manhood.

Isn't that ultimately
what it became all about?

The redemption
of an emasculated male identity.

[woman] When we translate the history
of Black oppression sexually,

especially through the writings
of George Jackson, Eldridge Cleaver,

it's all sexualized
into emasculation and castration,

so the reclamation of the Black race
gets translated into "it's a dick thing."

That's why I'm fond of saying,

"If the Black thing is really
a dick thing in disguise,

we're in serious trouble."

Because it is like a kind
of worship of the phallus.

You can buy into the popular stereotypes
and run around holding your dick

and thinking you gotta fuck
everything in sight

to prove that you are a man,

to prove that you have
that stamina and that virility

and you're not to be fucked with.

- We are men. All men do it.
- [audience cheering]

We have to do it. We are men.
It is a man thing.

Men must find and conquer
as much pussy as they can get.

Do not think for two seconds
that you're the only one...

[hooks] That's why, for example,
Eddie Murphy's Raw fascinated me.

I mean, when he says in that film

that a woman doesn't want
to hear that you love her,

she wants to know
you will fuck her to death.

And he's doing that — You know.

And in the audience when I saw that,
Black men were giving Black power salutes,

and I was thinking,
"Damn, this is just so serious,

this idea that, you know,

we need to reclaim the space
of that erect, brutalizing phallus

as our identity as a people."

[man] The dominant conception
of being a Black male today

is still one in which
the body is highly sexualized,

in which one identifies
with a certain kind of sexual prowess,

in which one does, in fact,

feel as if one is an object of fear,

at times, disgust,

not just from white America —
much of white America —

but from Black America as well.

And hence, I think it's very difficult,

uh, you know, being a Black male,
getting in contact with one's humanity.

It's very, very difficult.

[Hemphill] What about the heart?

What about his mind?
What about his vision?

[man 1] Couldn't be sensitive,
couldn't cry, couldn't be afraid

because of these notions I had
about what it meant to be a Black man.

[Hemphill] I didn't like
being pounded into the ground.

That wasn't my idea of becoming a man.

[man 2] I know that for myself,
in growing up, a lot of times,

it was just a survival technique
to be able to put on that toughness.

♪ 'Cause it ain't nothing like suburbia ♪

♪ 'Cause in my hood a young soldier
Might murder ya ♪

♪ It's kinda sick when you're watching
Your partner get killed... ♪

[Hemphill] I'll play some basketball.
I'll play some football. Get some pussy.

You know, I'll beat up a few people.
I'll run in a gang. Just be a boy.

You know, that's — that's —
Be a boy on his way to being a man.

[boy] I'm a young man,
but I ain't a man yet.

'Cause there's still some stuff
I'm not responsible for.

I don't take responsibility
for some of my actions,

so I guess I ain't a man yet, you know.

I'm a young man.

That's how I see myself.

[Riggs] What about you all?

I'm a young man, too.

[Riggs] What does manhood
mean to you, though?

Well...

I don't know.

[Riggs] Black manhood.

Black masculinity.

Historical sore spots.

For centuries,
American culture had regarded us

as playful eunuchs,

laughing, singing sambos,

childlike in our disposition.

While Black women were seen as strong

and often, because of this, unwomanly,

our men were considered weak.

Is there any wonder then

that when Black men
finally achieved public voice,

the top priority was restoring

what society
had repeatedly stolen from us?

[man 1] The Black man must rise.

[man 2] The time has come for the
Black man to take his place at the head.

- Off the pigs!
- [voices continue overlapping]

[man 3] The world's course would change

the day that African heritage people
come together as brothers.

The Black man in America
has no knowledge of his true identity...

In World War II, 850,000 Black men fought

and we were promised freedom
and we didn't get it.

[man 3]
The Black man will define Black power.

[man 2] The Talented Tenth
shows the promise of Black men.

The only thing that's gonna free Huey
is gunpowder.

We came to this country
as Black men and as Africans.

[man 2] ...to stand up and take his place.

[man 1] It's time, brother.

[Riggs] With so many words about
the Black man, one had to wonder —

- Where were all of our women?
- Free Huey!

[Riggs] And what of their redemption?

[Davis] When we said "Black is beautiful"
in the late '60s,

that meant "the Black man is beautiful."

There is this tendency now

to want to constantly rehabilitate
the Black man as patriarch...

and I have problems with positing that
as the goal of the community.

Yes, I struggle with and for my brother.

I speak with and for my brother.

But I think my brother
has an equal responsibility

to speak with and for me.

[woman] I entered graduate school
the same year I finished college.

That was 1969.
One of those apocryphal years, you know?

And I really thought that
I would never be politically active again,

because nationalism was so deep.

If there was any time in my life
when I felt like a persona non grata,

just like out in the stratosphere,

was in those first years
of graduate school.

I didn't think I was any less capable

of making decisions
and doing positive work than anyone,

regardless of gender.

I didn't think that because I was female
that I was supposed to somehow get stupid.

[Davis] Twenty-five years ago,
there was someone in this organization

who argued that the role of women
was to wear long African dresses...

to organize cocktail parties

and to convince rich men
to donate money to the organization.

And this particular person
actually came in

and dismantled
the whole structure that we had

because he felt that the women
had too much power.

Let me see if I've got
the consequences of this.

In addition to all this, the Black —

In addition to the myth
of the Black macho man,

we also have the myth
of the super Black woman.

You're strong, you can take anything.
Boy, look at her caring for those kids.

And that's the way we got ripped off.
That was the way we got ripped off.

Because we had always been strong
and we didn't suffer, we didn't have pain.

- So the myth went.
- We didn't suffer the way that they did.

Because we had all the jobs
and it was easy for us,

and we were just laying up
with the slave master.

I mean, all sorts of ridiculousness
was said and was believed

by not just Black men,
but Black women and by America at large.

I just think that Black feminists

have not been good at critiquing
Black male sexism,

um, because of the oppression
that we suffer as a people.

I think it just becomes the job
no one wants to do.

You know, everybody knows about it.
It's well known.

It's well understood
by Black women and Black men,

and yet, um...

nobody is supposed
to speak about it publicly.

I did so.

Um, and I think that that was, you know,
sort of the significant departure.

- [Riggs] And you were punished.
- And I was punished for that, yes.

Yes, I was punished.

That's true.
Still being punished actually, I think.

[Smith] Black women can be
and have been resistant to Black feminism

because they're concerned
about losing approval from Black men.

This is not an unfounded fear

because often, to speak out
about difficult issues

is to be ostracized, is to be criticized.

But I think that there
are some Black women, including myself,

who feel that speaking truth to power
is far, far, far more valuable

than bowing and taking it.

There's a cure
for what ails us as a people,

and that is for us to talk to each other.

We've got to start talking about the ways
in which we hurt each other,

and the ways in which we hurt each other
is also through silence.

Because nobody can unload
the pain or the shame or the guilt

by not speaking.

[female chorus vocalizing]

"In my loneliest gestures

"Learning to live with less is less

"I never wanted to be your son

"You never made the choice

"To be my father

"What we have learned from no textbook

"How to live without one another

"How to evade the stainless truth

"How to store our waste
in tombs beneath the heart

"Knowing at any moment it could leak out

"Do we expect to survive?

"What are we prepared for?

"Trenched off

"Communications down

"Angry in alien tongues

"We use extreme weapons
to ward off one another

"Some nights our opposing reports

"Are heard as we dream

"Silence is our deadliest weapon

"We both use it

"Precisely

Often."

[chorus continues vocalizing]

[slow blues music playing]

[man singing, indistinct]

[man 1] We have basically everything,

you know, everything
all the other states have.

But we have a little blues, you know.
We have more blues.

Because Mississippi is the heart of blues.

Greats such as B.B. King and Z.Z. Hill.

[man 2] All blues songs to me
have meaning to 'em.

'Cause they're talking about
where they're coming from,

and their nature and things like that.

[woman] I feel that the blues
have a lot of meaning to 'em.

Like, regular songs around, you know,

you can't really find
the meaning in some songs.

But in blues, they have a lot of meaning.

- [Riggs] You listen to blues?
- [man 3] No, sir.

- [laughter]
- [Riggs] Why not?

It's too moody. Blues is too moody for me.

I like — I listen to R & B
and I listen to reggae

and I listen to rap music.

- [Riggs] Black music.
- [woman] What's it all about?

[Riggs] What's it all about?

These are the profiles
of Black musical composers

who have maintained higher standards

throughout the years.

They have brought us from slavery.

♪ Swing low, sweet chariot ♪

[vocalizing]

♪ I woke up this morning
With my mind sta... ♪

♪ My baby's gone
And don't know what to do ♪

[vocalizing]

♪ Turn this mother out ♪

♪ We gonna turn this mother... ♪

[vocalizing]

[man] What's the sign for "cut"?

- [laughter]
- [man] Use it.

[laughing]

[blues music playing]

[Riggs] You know, what's Black music?

The music of this world.

And that music has been so influential.

In fact, without it you can't even imagine
what music might be on this earth.

[playing lively piano melody]

It's been such a crucial part
of our heritage.

I mean, beyond the entertainment value,

it too is what binds us
together as a people,

that creation and recreation,
from generation to generation.

[overlapping musical styles playing]

♪ Baby, baby, baby, I love you ♪

♪ Ain't no doubt about it
Baby, I love you ♪

[overlapping singing voices continue]

♪ We can stop being washed away ♪

♪ We can stop being washed away ♪

♪ We can stop being washed away ♪

♪ We can stop ♪

♪ We can stop being washed away ♪

♪ We can stop being washed away ♪

♪ We can stop being washed away ♪

♪ Sand grain by sand grain ♪

♪ Pebble by pebble... ♪

[man 1]
Understand, I hate history, period,

because I don't like studying on things
that people did before, you know.

It's all about what's going on now.
People gotta do now.

They can't keep looking back
on stuff that happened a long time ago.

You see, to me history is important
because you have to look back.

History repeats itself, you know.

Maybe you can look back on something

that happened a long time ago
and it could help you out now.

History repeats itself.

- [man 1] All right, Whitney.
- [woman laughs]

[man 2] It's all right to know who
Martin Luther King and Harriet Tubman —

you know, know what they done
and all that.

But, like he said,
history, ain't no need for that.

You better look for the future.

That's what you should be studying,
the future, you know,

them computers and technology
and all that stuff.

Chains tied on your ankles and stuff,
that ain't gonna help you.

You better try to learn that
IBM computer or something.

- [laughter]
- On the real, for real, you know.

[woman] History is more
than chains on your ankle

and knowing this Black leader
and knowing that Black leader.

It's much more to history than that.

I mean, the thing with Black people is,

if you wanna be Black, you don't want
to know your Black history?

You wanna forget about your Black history?

[man 2] It's all right to know about
them people and what they done.

But what Martin Luther King
gonna do for you now?

What Harriet Tubman
gonna do for you right now?

It's not only Harriet.

She don't make history.
Malcolm don't make history.

Is he gonna come fix you dinner?

Is he gonna come buy your kids
some shoes next month?

[man 1] Is he gonna get you that job
on the interview tomorrow?

No, that's not it. That's not it.

[man 2] I'm thankful for what they done,

and for how Martin Luther King
fought all them struggles and all that.

[man 3] You're saying,
"Thank you, but to hell with you."

[woman] Yeah.
"Thank you, but no thank you."

[man 2] No, I'm saying —
I'm saying I'm thankful for it.

But what is it gonna do for you now?

[man 1] What good it gon' do for you now?

[Smalls] We seek after knowledge,

and if knowledge is kept from you,

then I would say
you're kind of dumb, you know.

But that's why our white brothers
didn't tell us

about all these heroes and heroines
that we have had in our race,

because that is knowledge.

And they don't want you
to become too knowledgeable.

[Borders] Africans were represented
as people from the dark continent

and they were always represented
as superstitious, savage.

[man] Remember,
we have an identity crisis, brother.

At one time, you call a brother
an African, he wanna get mad with you.

You call a brother Black,
he wanna fight you.

Now, we're coming to the focal point
that we're Black and we're African.

And we're from African descent.

We are Black people.

And so now we're starting to adopt
the true identity of who we really are.

[Borders] When the Ethiopian
and Italian war of the '30s occurred,

there were people who then developed

a feeling of affinity to Africa.

I imagine they knew all along
they were Africans,

but that war kind of brought it out,

because some Blacks actually went over
to help the Ethiopians.

They identified with the Ethiopians.

When I hear the word "Africa,"

what it means to me is it brings me back

and it makes my mind go back
to my ancestors.

[girl] I have a vision of Africa
as a very nice place

where I would like to go.

I like that my ancestors
came from that place,

and I don't like that my ancestors
were taken away from that place.

When I hear about my ancestors,
it gives me strength

to know that they did very good
and they survived —

most of them survived slavery.

So that gives me courage to go on.

If you don't have a knowledge
of who your ancestors are,

then of course you're lost.

[rooster crows]

Who are your ancestors?
What is your true root?

[man] I'm His Royal Highness
Oba Oseijeman Adefunmi I —

oba, or king, of Oyotunji...

the only African Village in America,
or at least the first.

I am Her Royal Grace Iya Orite Olasowo
of the Oyotunji African Village,

located in Beaufort County,
South Carolina.

We realized that we could not really
develop African civilization and culture

to its fullest degree in an American city,

so it became necessary then
to leave the urban areas

and found our own community.

[man] This village means, first of all,

a reaffirmation of self,
my personal self identity.

This village also means to me
a restoration and a preservation

of some of the very, very ancient customs
and traditions of our ancestry.

I would say to those Afro-Americans

who have somewhat lost their identity —

Because if they've changed
to another lifestyle,

or they've patterned themselves
after another race

and picked up the values
and the customs of another race,

then I would say to them
that they're not really living

within the confines
of their true identity.

[Davis] I love kente cloth.

I have kente cloth in my house
and I wear kente cloth,

but I don't confuse that with my identity.

Because I can wear
kente cloth if I want to,

but I can also put on a pair of jeans

and I feel just as Black as I did
when I had the kente cloth on.

Putting on our kentes and whatever cloths
and importing from West Africa,

all of that's really wonderful.

I say all of that's really wonderful.

Whatever makes, you know,
your spirit rise,

I say, by all means,
nurture it in that way,

if that's what it takes for you,
if that's the affirmation it takes.

But that doesn't then
give you the privilege

to beat someone else down

just because they don't
wanna change their name

or wear African cloths
or stay in the inner city.

[people chanting] Black is... Black ain't.
Black is... Black ain't.

[man] An African proverb says,
"No matter how well a house is built

and no matter how high it stands,
it must stand on something."

And that something is our tradition.

So that appreciation for tradition

evolves into the modern conversation
called Afrocentricity,

which means centeredness in Africa.

Most young brothers, all they know
is they come from slavery.

But if they knew about
the antiquities of old,

the Egyptian civilization,
how we ruled 10,000 years

before the Greeks came in and conquered,

if we was to know we were
descendants of kings and queens —

[man] We're not taught about Imhotep.

Imhotep, who was
a chief physician, a grand vizier,

a poet magician and a pyramid builder
for the king Djoser.

So we got to study the in-depth,

like my brother said, the antiquity.

Learn about we have
great people of that stature.

Then we will build a pride
and an enrichment of ourselves.

Then we're like, "Hey, I am somebody,"
as Jesse Jackson would say.

Then you know you're real.

There is no decolonization process

that doesn't require us
to reclaim our past.

So there is, to me,
something very positive

in having Black people
who used to despise the word "Africa"

find a way to lay claim to
that diasporic connection and experience.

When it comes into
the kind of fundamentalism

that wants to make that Africa superior —

You know, these Black folks who tell me,

"We don't have to deal with sexism,

because don't you think
that in ancient — in Africa

we were kings and queens, we were equal?"

I mean, that is some bullshit.
Like, let's get real.

[Smith] One of the things that we do here
is to mythologize our African past,

since it was snatched away from us,

and make assertions about that past
that are not necessarily true.

We don't know for a fact
that there was not

lesbian and gay, uh, existence in Africa.

In fact, anthropological
research indicates

that indeed there was.

So, like, to be condemned
on the basis of myths,

that's really very difficult for me.

[Riggs] Six months ago,

I weighed 140 pounds, 145.

I weighed 110
when I went into the hospital.

My T-Cell count,

I know it was around 125, 135,

which is low, but still,
it was enough to make me feel

I had a little meat to my cells.

Uh, I've dropped to ten T-cells.

And then I just stopped counting
because it became irrelevant.

More important was, how do I feel?

[slow jazz music playing]

♪ U-N-I-T-Y... ♪

My father used to come home
from work humming a tune.

And, I mean, that tune
was like a terroristic threat.

♪ Who you callin' a bitch ♪

In every society, the male and the female
had a specific, designated role.

All of us have our roles to play.

When we heard
that tune hitting those steps,

we knew that we had
to get ourselves in order, right?

And always, you will find that the males
were put in a more authoritative position.

My dad didn't have to speak, honey.
He had to hum his tune.

This is the way the gods
had ordered things.

He didn't have to come in and say,
"Do this, do that. I'm the ruler here."

It was all taking place.

The Bible teaches us
that the head of Christ is God,

and the head of man is Christ,

and the head of woman is man.

Now, who am I to change that?

Once, you know,
I think that my father heard

that my mother was having
an affair with somebody,

and he came home from work
and he got his gun.

There is no way.

I say there's just no way that the woman
can be first partaker of the fruit.

And I remember my father
screaming, "I will kill you!"

That very night he said, you know,
"This is my house. I will not have this!"

And she had to pack her bags.

You're bringing a hawk
into the chicken yard...

[laughter]

...and wondering why
the chicken got eaten up.

It's like when you're a kid
and you think your parents are equal.

But when I saw my mother
weeping and packing her bags

and throwing her shit into suitcases
and I thought,

"He has the power to do this."

You bring Mike to a beauty contest,

and all these fine foxes
just parading in front of Mike.

[laughter]

And Mike's eyes begin to dance
like a hungry man

looking at a Wendy's beef burger
or something.

When my uncles came to get her,
the other patriarchs came to get her,

I expected there would be some discussion,

that they would try to convince my father
that you can't do this,

you can't throw her out
of what is her house as well.

But it was like one patriarch has spoken

and the other patriarchs
had nodded their head.

If the woman has done wrong,
you gotta punish her.

She said, "No, Mike, no."

I mean how many times, sisters,
have you said no

- and you mean yes all the time?
- [laughter, cheering]

Wait, wait, wait.
I'm talking to women now.

- We going to talk now.
- [man] Yeah!

- You see, the day of the BS is all over.
- [man] Yes, sir!

You're not dealing with a man
that don't know you...

["U.N.I.T.Y." playing]

...and the damned deceitful
games that you play.

This man is saying
he's gonna kill our mama,

who takes care of us every day,

and we're just gonna go up
and go to bed and go to sleep?

And I never forgave
my sisters and brothers for a long time

for the fact that they actually went up
and went to bed and went to sleep.

Where I was like,
"No, I can't go upstairs and go to sleep.

I've got to witness this."

[echoing] Witness this. Witness this.

Witness this. Witness this.

[Riggs] It's not so much for me

manhood that we're trying to reach,
that we're emulating.

It's, rather, human and all
the complexities of being human,

which includes being feminine.

That when men can be
feminine as well as manly,

whatever those terms mean to you,

but when you can be both comfortably,

then you've achieved what it is —
I think it is —

to be a man, which is to be human.

When you think of yourself,
is there a woman within you?

[Bill T. Jones]
Oh, yeah, yeah. Many. Many.

[Riggs] Describe the women within.

[Jones] Mmm. They're Black.

She is Black.

She is, uh — She's got stature.

She swaggers and sways when she walks.

She is strong,
great sense of humor, spiritual.

She sings beautifully.

She loves the man in me, who is Black...

sensitive, strapping.

He's a good parent, good brother.

He dances, he leaps.

He's wild when he moves, when he leaps.

He and she walk together,
and they run together,

like two animals running.

And they roll around together.

And they become one. And that's Bill.

[woman singing spiritual]

[Riggs] When you see the scenes of me
naked, running through the woods,

which I will hope you will use
an abundance of,

those things had a powerful image for me

in terms of searching
through clutter in my life,

searching through the clutter
of the project,

searching through
the attempts by society at large

to cover you and to confine you
into some space

in which you're not seen
for the naked truth of who you are.

Those scenes are critical
in their metaphoric importance.

Well, I mean it's easy
for me to make the parallels

of being confined and lost in the woods

and a community confined
by its own limited notions of identity.

- You see?
- [woman] Mm-hmm.

- That's not a great leap for me.
- Mm-hmm.

And I can say that
or write it actually as text,

'cause I don't know if I want
to record more narration.

[woman] Well, we've been recording this.

- [Riggs] Mm-hmm.
- We can, you know — We can work with it.

[Riggs] Just the woods, the rivers,

you know, the steamboats, all of that.

My own living memory.

The moss trees and old shacks and...

[people chanting] Black is... Black ain't.
Black is... Black ain't.

Black is... Black ain't...

Many people would say that I am not
a member of the Black community.

In fact, many of the people
who are viewing this would say,

"She says she's a lesbian?
Oh, no, that doesn't cut it."

But the thing is, I know
I'm a part of the Black community

in every single way that is important.

[Riggs] It's obvious,

because of our sexuality,

we've been treated as outcasts.

To be gay or to be lesbian
is not to be Black.

To be Black is to be heterosexual.

This idea that somehow my Blackness

is diminished because I love a man

is purely out of that sense
that Black men have been chatteled,

Black men have been lynched,
Black men have been shot,

beaten, brutalized by the police,
the government,

every which way, et cetera.

So that some people
view Black homosexuality

as the final break in masculinity

and don't see the love,
don't see the empowerment,

don't see the caring, the sharing,
don't see the contributions.

[Riggs] A gay man organized
the 1963 March on Washington —

Bayard Rustin.

Could he come out at that time?

No.

What happened to him
after that singular event?

He was drummed out of
the civil rights movement

by Black preachers who didn't want
to be associated with anybody homosexual.

And yet, what brought them to that march
wouldn't have happened without him.

[crowd] ♪ We shall overcome ♪

♪ We shall overcome someday... ♪

[Riggs] Jason. Dear Jason.

Because some of them
that looking like girls, they ain't girls.

I mean, they got some drag queens
in Harlem that are together.

I mean, they coming out
and they got fur coats

and collars and wigs for days.

And I mean, they don't slouch
down the avenue

like no East Side maid.

These broads tip, you know what I mean?

[Riggs] Dear Jason,
when the people sang the freedom songs...

Mama said, "You know,
that's Mama's children up there.

You all a little funny,
but you can't help it.

You know, somebody got
to give you a break."

It escapes you for a while.

[Riggs] When the people
sang the freedom songs,

do you think they also sang them for you?

Yeah, it gets next to you
that you're living some bullshit

that really shouldn't exist,

but you're saying,
"I guess this is my life, you know,

and I am going to swing with it."

[Riggs] How long, Jason?

How long have they sung about the freedom

and the righteousness
and the beauty of the Black man,

and ignored you?

How long?

["We Shall Overcome" continues]

[Riggs]
Oh, dear fathers, tell me what to do.

I search for ancestral affirmation

to find only this:

pathos,

or worse, historic erasure.

How much longer
can I walk this winding road?

- [singers vocalizing]
- ♪ I cannot go home, I cannot go home ♪

♪ I cannot go home as who I am, it seems ♪

♪ Unredeemed by what blood lost ♪

♪ Unsaved by what grace ♪

♪ And unnatural by whose standard ♪

♪ They say ♪

♪ That this is not true ♪

♪ Manifold wonder ♪

♪ They say hold tight ♪

♪ And, oh, yes
My, my, my lord, have mercy, and try ♪

♪ Try, I try, I try ♪

♪ I cannot go home as who I am ♪

[singers continue vocalizing]

♪ Past are the notions ♪

♪ Past what was past ♪

♪ Remembrance past ♪

♪ Honey child ♪

♪ Say what to laughing ♪

♪ Me, oh, my, oh, my, oh, my, oh, my ♪

♪ And I cannot go home as who I am ♪

[preacher] Now, Lord, we're down here
calling on your name

for we realize we can't do nothing
until you come.

Please, sir, have mercy now.

Bless everyone that's in this building.

[Riggs] As a child,
the church did offer a sense of belonging.

You know? I mean, a sense of community.

And that's important, I think,
for anyone who wants to be nurtured

in an environment of support and love
and coming together.

I am very religious

because I go to church
every Wednesday, Friday and Sunday.

And I believe that religion should play
a very important part in everyone's life.

Here in Mississippi, religion,
it's often exaggerated

to a point where the child is...
the child is enclosed.

You know, you can't even —

Some people I know, some females I know,

they can't even, you know,
hardly come outside

or watch videos or anything like that.

And for punishment,
they either get beat with a Bible,

or they have to stand in the corner
with a Bible in their arm.

And that kind of makes me —

that kind of makes me turn my head,
you know, to some religions.

♪ Freedom ♪

[Riggs] There's no way that one could look

at the progress of Black people
in this county, from slavery on,

without acknowledging the wonderful role
that the church has played.

I mean, the church was
the beacon toward freedom.

But it remains, unfortunately,
structured in this way,

in which people are denied freedom

and the opportunity to explain
their greater humanity.

God loves the individual,

but God does not love the homosexual part.

You see what I'm saying?

The sin that is involved,
God does not love.

But God —
As a person, God loves the individual.

I think that recent homophobic initiatives
being led by the Black church,

that's not about community.

That's the opposite.

Religion is to bring mankind together,

not to disperse mankind.

So when you find something
that we call religion

that's dividing and separating mankind,

it's not religion.

It's better not to have it.

- [women singing hymn]
- If you love, then you will do love,

regardless to what's happening.

You don't show resentment.

Because love don't show hostility.

Love don't give you the mind

to get back at a person
who has mistreated you,

because you're so busy looking forward...

and waiting for the guidance
of the Lord in your life,

that love will just guide you.

No more chitlins and ribs and...

- [exclaims]
- [congregation clamoring]

No more bacon fried,

Sunday morning on the way to church.

Pork chop!

Look out! No more — No!

Pork chops, girl, pork chops!

[all laughing]

No more pork chops.

Well, the Black church just closed down.

I chose this church primarily
because it's a gay and lesbian church.

[choir singing gospel music]

Over the years growing up in the South

and being a product
of the Southern Baptist church,

it was very restrictive to me,
as far as being a Black woman.

And here at Unity, I can bring all of me
whenever I come on Sunday.

[woman] It was okay.

And such a small word
that meant so much — "Okay."

I was okay.
After an hour of service, I was home.

This is the place that I belong.

I felt natural,
I felt myself, I felt love.

[preacher] There is a place
where we can rejoice, where I can rejoice.

I try as best I can
to always get my parishioners

to look at how we are all really alike.

And once you do that,

we can then give and receive healing,
one from the other.

- ♪ I'm so glad he prays ♪
- ♪ Are you glad? ♪

- ♪ I'm so glad he prays ♪
- ♪ Are you glad? ♪

- ♪ I'm so glad he prays ♪
- ♪ Are you glad? ♪

- ♪ I'm so glad he prays ♪
- ♪ I'm glad ♪

- ♪ I'm so glad he prays ♪
- ♪ I'm glad ♪

- ♪ I'm so glad he prays ♪
- ♪ I'm glad ♪

- ♪ I'm so glad he prays ♪
- ♪ I'm glad ♪

- ♪ I'm so glad he prays ♪
- ♪ I'm glad ♪

♪ I'm so glad he prays for me ♪

- [woman] How are you feeling, Marlon?
- I feel a little sort of under today.

My stomach is queasy,
but it's getting better.

[woman] 'Cause I think it might —

People need to know
why I'm interviewing you

- and you're lying down in your bed.
- Mm-hmm.

Yeah, it's like when I eat,
if I eat too fast,

my stomach gets bloated
and I stop digesting my food.

And I have this sort of
bloated, queasy feeling.

So I'm here with a hot pad on my stomach.

That's helping
'cause it's starting to growl and digest.

- How many children did you have?
- Fifteen.

- [Riggs] Fifteen?
- Yeah, I run out.

[both laughing]

[Riggs] Are you serious? Fifteen children?

Uh-huh, 15. Mother of 15.

[Riggs] Hmm. How did you raise
that many children?

Oh, they wasn't nothing to raise,

'cause people was planting
and raising corn

and sweet potatoes,
white potatoes and cane...

and everything they wanted then,
they was raising it,

all but the flour.

I raised hogs, cows, chickens,

geese, ducks...

guineas.

- [Riggs] What was that — Uh-oh.
- I got him that time.

[Riggs] You got him that time.
About time you grabbed him.

I knowed he had to be slow.

- [Riggs] You gonna keep him?
- Yeah, he'll make a great steak.

- [Riggs] Yeah, I know.
- [both laughing]

You know, I...

[woman] When you asked about family,

ask these kids here, "Who am I?"

I'm their cousin, I'm his cousin,
his father is my uncle,

but he raised me
so they call me their sister.

Their children call me their auntie,
which I'm not.

But this is how close we are.

He calls me Auntie. I'm not his aunt.

His father is my first cousin,

but we come up as loving each other
and it brings —

We're all a different generation here.

We're coming together today to celebrate
Daddy's tenth anniversary of his death.

And because Mtumishi is
the oldest of the family,

Mtumishi is going to give us
the cepha, the libation.

It is the tradition of our ancestors

to always give praise to those
who have gone before us.

So let us start.

May we always remember Harold St. Julien
and all those who have gone before us.

[man 1] My father was a good man,

had a sense of humor, a great storyteller.

[woman] The person
who loved me the most as a kid,

I felt, was my grandfather.

[Riggs] Big Mama Vi is dead.

But I remember her so well.

Oh, she was so — She was shorter than me.

[woman] His smells fill my nostrils
with the scent of happiness.

May our children
and our children's children

carry forth with pride
the nobility of our history and tradition.

[all murmuring]

- [all clapping]
- [Mtumishi] Let's eat.

[woman 1] Family is love.

[man 1] We all trust each other
and love each other like that.

[woman 2] Family to me
is just love and support.

[man 2] It's just love.
Just someone that's there for you.

It don't have to be a mother or a father.

It could be
your next-door neighbor's grandmama.

[laughs] For real, it could.

Back then we had a family
in the whole community.

We looked out for each other.

If someone butchered a pig,
the close people around them,

they would send them a piece of meat.

If their cow's giving milk,
or their cow quit giving milk,

they would call over and say,

"Send that boy ahead
to get a quart of milk,"

or some eggs, or some peas,
or some potatoes.

Now, that is family.
That's another family.

My father grew up in
Marengo County, Alabama,

um, on the border of Mississippi.

And as a child, I spent summers

with my uncles and aunts
who still lived on that land.

- [children laughing]
- I just had so much fun, you know.

Never had to put on a shoe.

We could run for acres and miles

and still be on land that was ours,
that was my uncle's and aunt's.

My uncle grew cotton. He grew watermelons.
He grew all kinds of greens.

[man] Handed down
from generation to generation.

My great-grandfather owned
this land from slavery.

Got this land — 40 acres and a mule?
This is part of his 40 acres.

It's in your blood.

It's in your blood.
You love it, every minute of it.

If you didn't like it,
you wouldn't be bothered with this.

It's not just the money,

'cause farming is one of
the lowest-paying jobs around.

You're doing it because you like it.

- Love it, not like it. Love it.
- [man singing blues song]

[Davis] I think that
rural life symbolizes,

for many of us, backwardness,

that perhaps there is a tendency
to want to distance ourselves

from, uh, rural, agrarian ways of living

because of its association,
for African Americans, with slavery.

But there's also something else there.

There are memories there.
There's joy there.

There's, um...

a willingness to remember.

[monitor beeping]

[Riggs] The project, in part,
deals with my struggle with AIDS.

And I'm struggling in a deep way now.

Once, when I was visiting
my cousins in Baton Rouge,

a friend of theirs upbraided me
for trying to talk "proper."

"He don't talk proper,"
my cousins defended.

"He just from Texas."

[Smalls]
When I was a kid, they spoke a language

which we are now trying to preserve,

and they call it Gullah.

It's a part of the English language...

and then again it is different.

If I take you to Land's End right now,
some people say,

"Pork it, pit that bat,
sho, sho the boy yea."

In Land's End,
"Sho the boy yea, sho the boy."

No one can take that from you,

that Gullah language
that is with the people who speaks Gullah.

I enjoyed speaking to a young man
that was from Africa.

He was here, we sat
and drank coffee, we chatted,

and I like the way he spoke
because he speak like I do.

Not like I'm doing now.

I mean, in the accent
of how our people speak

and myself before.

[Riggs] When I listen to the voices
within my family,

I hear the evolution
of rhythms and cadences

from generation to generation.

Big Mama still sounds country.

Oh, Lordy, isn't that a shame.
How come she don't buy her some...

[Riggs] Mama sounds Black,
but not country.

I never cooked as a kid, right?

Never got in the kitchen or anything.

[Riggs] My sister
could easily pass for white.

And my boss's daughter is having a baby,

and her daughter's birthday is the 27th
and the baby's expected on the 27th.

[Riggs] At Harvard, people often marked me
for the difference in my voice.

I didn't sound country,
I didn't sound white,

but just as much, I didn't sound Black,

in the way so-called Black English

was spoken at Harvard or elsewhere.

- What's happenin'?
- [man 1] What it is?

- [woman 1] What it be like?
- [man 2] It's all you, my brother.

- [man 3] Give me five.
- [man 4] Right on.

- [woman 2] Peace out.
- [woman 3] Girl, I heard that.

- [man 5] Stay cool.
- [woman 4] Ain't it the truth?

- [man 6] Yo, yo, yo.
- [man 7] Work that booty.

[man 8] Bring your tired, Black ass
over here.

[woman 5] Get down, get down.

[man 9] You no-count,
frog-faced, lizard-lipped baboon.

- [woman 6] Give me some skin.
- [man 10] It's a Black thang.

Can't you understand? It's a Black thang.
Can't you understand?

[Smith] I was very committed
to the civil rights movement,

but I was constantly getting the message
that I was not Black enough.

You know how they did that back
in those days? They probably still do.

I was not Black enough
because I was at an elite school.

I was not Black enough

because I spoke, you know,
fairly standard English.

[Wallace]
You're acting white, or you're imitating.

You're mindlessly imitating whites,
is the critique.

You know, you're doing an Amos 'n' Andy,
you're doing a Stepin Fetchit.

There was a time
when I felt ashamed almost

of the fact that I had studied in France
and studied in Germany, right?

Because we were supposed
to be talking about Africa, not Europe.

It's something you can always pull out.
I mean, "Why are you wearing shorts?

That's — White people wear shorts."

I mean, you can always use that.

And I know the way I act
and the way I talk and the way I think

reflects all the places that I've been,
and I've been a lot of places.

There's a sense in which everything
we've ever done as Afro-Americans

can be interpreted in that vein,

and so it gets to a point where that
critique just doesn't make any sense.

I mean, after all, we are speaking
the King's English right now.

When I start speaking, you know...

[speaking French]

You're gonna say to me,
"Well, you're not really African."

And then when I go down the block

and talk to my man Umbake,
who's from Senegal,

and we're both speaking French,

and he is African —
he was born in Africa —

and you with your African self
can't speak French,

then who's African,
and who's African American?

Who's legit and who ain't?

I've heard questions of Blackness raised
when Blacks moved into the suburbs, okay.

Um, as we've moved up
in the economic system in this country,

some of us, there have been charges —

Well, you know,
that person's no longer Black.

They don't come through the hood.
They don't even live here.

They live out, you know,
50 miles outside of the city.

They commute in every day. Their kids
are going to school with white kids.

"Listen to how their kids talk."

[hip-hop music playing]

♪ Livin' way out, niggas go home... ♪

[man] There are those who would feel

that some members of
the African American middle class

no longer identify with being Black.

But I think when
you define what being Black has to do —

It has nothing to do with —

It's not about economics.

It is not about economics.
It's really about values.

[woman] We know where we've been.
We know what we've come from.

We know what we have to contribute.

It's a matter of constantly saying,

how can you in your small way,
whatever you do —

It may not be as significant
as a Malcolm X or a Martin Luther King,

but what have you done
to give back to the Black community?

Perhaps the standard,
frightening as it may be,

is the inner city
for defining what Blackness is,

that you've got to,
you know, constantly be up

on the changes in the hip language,
the hip Black language,

the hip Black fashions,
the hip Black music.

You've got to use your ghetto experience
as, you know, your American Express card.

[Ice Cube rapping]
♪ You only got yourself to blame ♪

♪ Get a grip, Oreo ♪

♪ And be true to the gang ♪

[man] Like, I'm a born, bred,
raised Harlemite.

I knew what the hood was probably
before most of these kids were born.

And the reality is,
do you live your life in struggle

around trying to prove a point

to someone that doesn't really give a damn
about your reality,

or do you determine
what's important to you?

I will pull out my Blackness
and you pull out yours.

I have no problem in defending mine.

And I think I speak for a lot of people
in the African American middle class.

Um, you know, you can't live
in this society and not be Black.

The society won't let you forget
you're Black,

but you don't want to forget you're Black.

[woman on PA, indistinct]

[Riggs] Fatigue, nausea, fever, chills.

Strange how we adapt so easily

to extraordinary circumstances.

I've experienced an array
of illnesses and infections.

Oral hairy cell leukoplakia, pneumonia,

gastrointestinal bleeding, herpes,
anemia, systemic blood infection,

gallstones, respiratory failure,
renal failure, heart failure.

The list goes on, and yet I am alive.

[slow jazz music playing]

[male newscaster] Good morning.

At least 30 fires
are burning in Los Angeles

after a night of rage
in the city's Black community.

Angry mobs set swarms of fires

in the predominantly Black
South Central part of the city.

There were so many blazes,

the fire department couldn't respond
to all of the calls

and just let some buildings
burn to the ground.

[newscaster voices overlapping]

At least two firefighters were wounded.

Looting broke out in many neighborhoods
before police moved in

and began rounding up suspects.

The show of force began this morning,

as National Guardsmen took up positions
in the streets of Los Angeles.

[newscaster voices continue overlapping]

[boy] We gotta make a living.

We gotta make a living
the best way we can.

If that means by selling dope,
I guess we gotta sell dope.

Ain't nobody rich in the ghetto.

Nobody rich in the ghetto.

If we was rich, we wouldn't be here.

I ain't gonna be out here every day,
out here gangbanging, man.

After I graduate from high school,
I'm going somewhere.

I ain't gonna be out here every day.

There ain't shit out here but pain.
Fuck this shit.

If I had a chance to start over again...

I wouldn't —
I wouldn't turn down that wrong path.

I'd try to go the right way,
get my education.

I wouldn't be here today.

I'd be here today,
but I'd be in a right mind.

I wouldn't be gangbanging.

I'd be telling y'all
a whole different story about a good life.

It'd be a whole different story.
I'd go to this school right here.

See, 'cause right now,
I be going to school every day.

Right now, I do not miss school a day.
You know what I'm saying?

'Cause I gotta have that education, man.

'Cause the white man
is not gonna let you do shit.

A high school diploma
ain't nothing no more.

You gotta have a —
You gotta master in something.

A high school diploma
ain't nothing no more, man.

You can't even work at McDonald's
with a high school diploma.

That's why, you know,
I'ma try to be something.

And when I get up, I'ma take them with me.

'Cause I don't wanna leave none
of my friends or family in the ghetto,

'cause there ain't shit in the ghetto.

Gotta tell the little generation
how to grow.

See, nobody told us,
"That ain't good for you."

No, they let us grow up to gangbang.
It's too late now.

- I ain't saying it's too late —
- [boy] It ain't never too late.

Yeah, it ain't never too late,
but we gotta tell the next generation

before they grow up and be like us,
and that ain't even it.

[man]
"Don't let it be loneliness that kills us

"If we must die on the front line

"Let us die loved by both sexes

"Don't let it be envy that drives us
to suck our thumbs

"Or shoot each other dead over snake eyes

"Let us not be dancing with the wind
on heavy corners

"Tattered by doom

"Let us not accept partial justice

"If we believe our lives are priceless

"We can't be conquered

"If we must die on the front line

Don't let loneliness kill us."

[audience clapping]

This sets the tone
for what we're accomplishing.

Bloods and Crips being able
to shake hands, go to parks together...

[man 1] What you're seeing right here
is history in the making,

and the tying
of the red and the blue knot,

is a significant indication
that these brothers and sisters

- want an opportunity to see 1993.
- Peace in the neighborhood.

[man 2] Okay, it took the riot, it took
all this and the police beating King

to bring us together,
to realize that we just killing ourselves.

[woman]
We gotta learn to trust to each other.

You know, like they say,
this truce, that's where it's gotta begin.

We gotta learn to say,
"Okay, man, I know we're done.

Let's start trusting each other.

Let's take that wall down.

Let me help you, my brother. All right?"

But we don't even got no unity yet, man.

You know?

I go to church every Sunday
and we talk about unity,

and it's hard to get Christians
to have unity.

So, you know, we got
to have togetherness, man.

We got to be Black people as one.

We have too many evil allies,
I believe myself.

That's why we can't get unity
within the Black nation.

I always get this sort of feeling

that when Black people talk
about unity and community,

you know, that it's kind
of like a turf war thing.

We're gonna get together
and this is gonna be our block,

and if you come on our block,
we're gonna kick your ass.

And I always think I'm gonna be the one
whose ass is gonna get kicked.

[children singing]

[Riggs] I think all Black people
have to reconcile themselves

to each other,

to our differences,

and we have to get over the notion
that you can only be unified as a people

as long as everybody agrees.

You know, we don't achieve freedom
by those means.

Well, one, we've got to conceive
of new forms of community,

that we have multiple identities

and we're moving out of various
communities all at the same time.

There's no one grand Black community.

[hooks] It seems to me that
we would do well as Black folks

to replace the notion of unity
with the notion of communion.

The root meaning of it would suggest

that our union is
fundamentally based on a notion

that we must be willing and able
to communicate with one another.

Because I think that so often,
when Black folks evoke unity,

again, it's the flattening out
of differences,

the sweeping certain things under the rug
so that we can appear to be alike,

that we hold one stand,
that we have one position.

I think communion,

and its connection
to the notion of community,

um, might give us greater strength
and possibility.

[singers vocalizing]

[woman] Marlon, what kind of dreams
have you been having lately?

[Riggs] Um...

dreams about dialysis. [laughs]

Um, sometimes dreams
in which they're not dreams.

It's like MTV.

I just watch it sort of flashing,
different things flashing.

[woman] What about this dream
that you were having not too long ago,

when you were dreaming
about Harriet Tubman?

[Riggs] Mm-hmm.

This is when I was feeling really sick
in the ER and so forth.

Um, just her coming and standing by me,
not saying anything,

so I had to become aware of her presence.

And then just looking into my eyes,

and then looking
at the river in front of us.

- [woman] Where were you?
- [Riggs] I don't know.

Some dark foresty place
with a river running through it.

Um, and kind of running pretty fiercely.

Um, yeah, she didn't say anything.
It was with her eyes.

She just looked at me
and then turned and looked at the river,

and we started walking.

Harriet and I walked across the river.

[singers continue vocalizing]

[woman] And what do you think
that dream was about?

[Riggs] Overcoming the present crisis.

I mean, you know, there's gonna be more.
I know that.

I'm gonna be laid up
in the hospital again.

But as long as I have Harriet

and Black Is... Black Ain't
to go traveling with,

I'm gonna cross that river.

If I have work, then I'm not gonna die,

'cause work is a living spirit in me...

that which wants to connect
with other people

and pass on something to them

that they can use
in their own lives and grow from.

[woman] ♪ I shall not ♪

I know there'll come a time

when I won't be able
to get up out of this bed,

and all we can do is just take me home
and let me lie in my bed,

and I can look out the window.

And then it may reach a point
where I can't even open up my eyes,

and I'm just, I'm lying there,

and I want my mother
and I want my grandmother

and Jack to be there

to hold my hand
and to rub my head and feet

and let me die.

[woman] ♪ I shall not ♪

♪ Be ♪

♪ Removed ♪

[upbeat piano music playing]

[Riggs] If a people is like gumbo,
then you might ask, what is the roux?

That special element that binds
and gives everything its distinct flavor.

[Davis] Well, you take some color —

a dash or a big dollop, it don't matter —

and you blend it with an assortment
of physical features

that reflect every face you might possibly
encounter on this great earth,

mix that up with a culture that just loves

to improvise, signify, reclaim,

renew and read,

and you've got it —
the recipe for Black folk.

[woman] So I wonder, why is there
still so much commotion

when we add a few
salt-looking people to the stew.

Black folk been looking like white folk
since the first traveler from Europe

bred with the first African woman
he encountered.

You let people of different colors
and cultures come together,

and they're bound to intermix.

And since nobody is
racially pure around here,

what sense does it make for us
to split hairs and genes

trying to figure out
who's got the true Black blood?

[man 1] Still, some folks wanna go off

about this one acting too white
or that one not being Black enough.

But, honey, let me ask you, what's enough?

And who's to judge?

Haven't we had enough
of folks telling other folks

what's proper, how to talk, who to love,

how to dress, wear your hair,

eat, drink, pray, make love, dance?

[man 2]
It is time, my sisters and brethren,

to wake up to a new day,

a new day of community

where what unites us
are not some obsolete fictions about race,

but our common purpose of social struggle,

a new day, my beloveds,
of good will and communion

and hope and always laughter.

The time is nigh, sisters and brothers!

[Riggs] The statement I would like
to leave as my own personal legacy

would be one of faith,

to have faith in each other
that we will come through adversities,

whatever they might be.

And here, the adversity is really...

our ability to maintain
a sense of communal self.

So, my faith is the belief
that we will achieve that...

that, against all odds,
we'll come through.

[woman vocalizing melody]

[Riggs]
You wanna know my recipe for gumbo?

- [woman] Better be good.
- [man] Don't waste my time now.

[Riggs]
Well, I cut up my onions and my celery,

get out a couple of bay leaves
and drop them in the broth.

Put some basil and black pepper
in there too.

Then I go to the chicken
and begin seasoning it.

Cut up some hot pepper sausage
and brown it along with the chicken,

then shell some shrimp.

Chicken and sausage go into the broth,

and I let things simmer.

- [woman] Ooh, baby! Stop.
- [Riggs] Then I turn to my roux.

Now, every person has a secret
about their roux,

and I have mine too,
so we'll leave it at that.

After finishing the roux,
I mix it in with the simmering chicken,

stirring all the while
until the brew begins to thicken.

Then I just go away for a time
and let things cook.

About an hour or so,
I put in my shelled shrimp,

some oysters, some crabs

and any other seafood I might like
until it's all done.

- [piano joins with singers]
- Now that's gumbo.

[chorus] ♪ Lift every voice and sing ♪

♪ Till earth and heaven ring ♪

♪ Ring with the harmonies ♪

♪ Of liberty ♪

♪ Let our rejoicing rise ♪

♪ High as the listening sky ♪

♪ Let it resound ♪

♪ Loud as the rolling sea ♪

♪ Sing a song ♪

♪ Full of the faith
That the dark past has taught us ♪

♪ Sing a song ♪

♪ Full of the hope that the present ♪

♪ Has brought ♪

♪ Us ♪

♪ Facing the rising sun ♪

♪ Of our new day begun ♪

♪ Let us march on ♪

♪ Till victory ♪

♪ Is won ♪