With Black History Month in full swing, I was reminded recently of an odd “documentary” (really more of a time capsule piece) that I first watched over a decade ago now.
A thread on Black Power Mixtape.
This revisit was spurned by an editorial playlist that was advertised to me on Spotify (topical, in more ways than one). The music from the playlist is good; yes, I am a classic soul respecter. The promotion of the playlist made sense, given the upcoming month.
I don’t think the same could be said of the film, however. Even watching it at the time, as a young uninitiated normie, I remember finding it odd.
Obama was still in his first term. We had been sold the notion of a golden age of American racial recompense.
In some undeniably symbolic way, many felt a bill had been repaid.
A film pushed through the festival circuit with a clear sentiment of “so far to go” seemed like an activist gaslight. As we have come to learn, the tenor of the conversation was being nudged.
Looking at the release date, I can’t help but see a parallel between the suspicious uptick in the media focus on “Black Lives Matter” during election cycles. This seems oddly close to the start of the 2012 Presidential campaign, as well as the early-2012 Trayvon Martin hysteria.