[Peace] [OccupyCU] upcoming events: "Birth of a Nation" w/panel tonight...

[Irenka Carney]

I couldn't agree more, and that is spectacularly well put, Rachel!

On Mon, Oct 10, 2016 at 2:38 PM, Storm, Rachel Lauren via Peace <
peace at lists.chambana.net> wrote:

> *“Don’t let the manufactured outrage about what Parker may or may not have
> done as a teenager deter you from seeing this liberating film.”*
>
>
>
> I’m disappointed by this endorsement of a message/an op-ed that dismisses
> concerns about violence against women as “manufactured outrage” on a
> listserv allegedly concerned with anti-violence and peace-building. I think
> we need deeper conversations about gender and race-based violence and a
> recognition that we can’t separate war and structural violence from
> interpersonal violence.
>
>
>
> See the film, sure—but rather than dismiss outrage as “manufactured” and
> sexual assault allegations as dismissible because of a lapse in time or
> worse yet, because Parker was a “teenager,” understand that sexual assault
> survivors are frequently disbelieved, blamed for their own victimization,
> and failed by the criminal justice system. Parker’s victim, clearly
> suffering from trauma both from the assault and the aftermath, took her own
> life after no one was held accountable for the harm she experienced. As
> people committed to anti-war, anti-violence, and social justice— we must be
> able to hold our own accountable.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* Peace [mailto:peace-bounces at lists.chambana.net] *On Behalf Of *C.
> G. Estabrook via Peace
> *Sent:* Sunday, October 09, 2016 7:58 PM
> *To:* Stuart Levy
> *Cc:* Peace Discuss; occupycu; Peace
> *Subject:* Re: [Peace] [OccupyCU] upcoming events: "Birth of a Nation"
> w/panel tonight...
>
>
>
> [A good note on Birth of a Nation from the editor of CounterPunch, Jeffrey
> St Clair]
>
>
>
> Styron’s Historic Libel
>
> I never took to William Styron’s writing. He aspired to be
> Virginia’s William Faulkner, but Styron never had the master’s heart or
> humor. Behind those ornate, fractured, Cubist sentences, Faulkner was
> a writer who was haunted the barbarities of his own nation’s history and he
> had a deep feeling for those on the losing end: the blacks, the poor, the
> dispossessed and, especially, the women, all straining under the cruel
> shadow of the debased Southern aristocracy. Check out Light in August, a
> searing testament to Faulkner’s extraordinary empathy.
>
> By contrast, William Styron seemed obsessed by the failures of his own
> mind, which can make for powerful fiction in the hands of Dostoevsky. But
> Styron was no Dostoevsky, either. Styron’s self-loathing is projected onto
> his characters, nowhere more morbidly than in his book The Confessions of
> Nat Turner. Styron’s portrait of the black revolutionary is depraved. His
> Turner is almost subhuman, a kind of black Caliban driven by animal
> instincts and wild emotions that overwhelm his intellect and sense of
> morality. This is white fantasy, since we know very little about the man
> himself, except for the brutal treatment he received from the Virginia
> slave masters. Styron’s own family were slaveowners and the most generous
> reading of the novel is as a kind of psychological exercise to purge
> those ancestral demons, at the expense of one of the most heroic
> black figures in American history.
>
> My familial roots grow deep into the Virginia piedmont country and I went
> to school in DC, where I got to know many Virginia writers–novelists,
> essayists and poets. Few had any respect for Styron; some were embarrassed
> for him. Styron later blamed the hostile reaction toConfessions from black
> writers and intellectuals, such as Cecil Brown, for the onset of his
> crippling episodes of writer’s block, which seems like one more case of
> blaming the victims. Once Styron was considered one of the three Great
> White Male Hopes for the American novel, along with Gore Vidal and Norman
> Mailer. Now Styron is regarded, if at all, for Darkness Visible, his rather
> austere chronicle of his battles with depression. Perhaps there’s a measure
> of cold justice in that fate.
>
> Alexander Cockburn used to bump into the Styrons, Bill and Rose, when he
> lived on Cape Cod. He adored Rose and spoke glowingly to me of their dinner
> conversations. Alex claimed that Bill was usually plastered by 4 pm,
> babbling incoherencies deep into the evening.
>
> Nat Turner’s life and fiery uprising against the slaveowners has
> been redeemed from Styron’s libels by Nathan Parker’s powerful
> new film,Birth of a Nation. Don’t let the manufactured outrage about
> what Parker may or may not have done as a teenager deter you from
> seeing this liberating film. Watch the movie and judge it on its own
> merits. I bet that, like me, you’ll leave the theater uplifted with a
> joyous anger, rather than depressed, which is exactly the way revolutionary
> art should make you feel.
>
>
>
>
>
> On Oct 9, 2016, at 1:33 PM, Stuart Levy via OccupyCU <
> occupycu at lists.chambana.net> wrote:
>
>
> * 7pm Sun 10/9 *tonight* - "Birth of a Nation" *film at the Art Theater,
>    with panel discussion to follow.  (The film is showing at many other
> times too over the next couple of weeks, but this is the only panel.)
>
> Nate Parker's acclaimed film about Nat Turner's slave revolt addresses
> U.S. history and revolutionary violence, and raises several necessary
> specters of discussion - on & offscreen.
>
> More info: http://www.arttheater.coop/the-birth-of-a-nation/
> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.arttheater.coop_the-2Dbirth-2Dof-2Da-2Dnation_&d=DQMFaQ&c=8hUWFZcy2Z-Za5rBPlktOQ&r=qrCrurDpof7mX6mA8TYygcKOyBgPI419CfXxtOtcR_s&m=1CkqDiXcsARDC7d6RLvCevvBfm38FfABeXR3nihqGeo&s=bgJpqIjk-Vgbs6ZfsOY5Yf_oTgFdL8hagBPXM73GTFM&e=>
>
> Post-show panel:
> Malaika Mckee-Culpepper (Department of African American Studies, UIUC)
> Charisse Burden-Stelly (Department of African American Studies, UIUC)
> Robert King (Men Against Rape and Sexual Assault and the Breakfast Club)
> Lou Turner (Department of African American Studies, UIUC)
> Moderated by Sundiata Cha-Jua (Department of African-American Studies,
> UIUC)
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
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> Peace at lists.chambana.net
> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace
>
>


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