I refuse to endorse films profiting off of Black history that are directed by non-Black people centering non-fiction African descendant of slaves as main characters because it feels more like puppeteering than storytelling. This is the reason why I have yet to see popular Black history inspired movies like Hidden Figures, directed by a white American film producer named Theodore Melfi and written by Allison Schroeder, a white American woman known for her work as a writer in Mean Girls 2 and Pineapple Express. Whether we realize it or not Black History films push narratives and promote messages that could help to conform the masses to accept our social justice agenda. However when we allow our stories to be told by white people, and pay them to tell it, we notice alternative facts and whitewashed characters. When we take our friends, peers and children to watch these films, whether for education or entertainment, we disservice ourselves by degrading the legitimacy of the events that contribute to the institutionalized racist systems that plague us today.
The February premier of Judas and the Black Messiah staring Daniel Kaluuya as Fred Hampton and LaKeith Stanfield as Bill O’Neal did not disappoint. The film directed by Shaka King, a Black screenwriter and film producer from New York City, embodied the relentless passion of a targeted revolutionary leader agitating police occupation in the predominantly Black city of Oakland, CA where the BPP was founded. I appreciate the film because it’s as educational as it is factual, while it’s not a documentary style it is a historical film with more accurate representations and also includes excerpts from a documentary interview with Bill O’Neal, the ‘Judas’ of the 1960s Black Liberation Movement led by the Black Messiah of Oakland, Fred Hampton.
4 FALSE Western American Ideologies highlighted in the film that continue to influence or society 50 years later
- “Badges are scarier than guns” – Bill O’Neal explains to Officer Roy after his initial arrest for impersonating an officer
- White people’s (self-perceived) role in the United States is to manage people of color: having the authority to determine right vs. wrong resulting in their synonymizing the BPP with the KKK
- Black people cannot be trusted to protect and serve in their own communities, not because they’re incapable but because community building is an empowering process that threatens the fabric of Amerikkka
- All assaults carried about by police forces are absorbed by the state to legitimize and protect the idea of white supremacy, any Black lives lost in the process are an insignificant casualty of war
Oppression is Expensive, for both Parties
Why would the police invest so much time and money into suppressing a community to the point of killing someone who inspires, heals and provides resources where they’ve underfunded and neglected? The state should respond grateful to any group willing to pick up their slack rather than make community organizers’ work more difficult by raiding their spaces and arresting their leaders. The only reason that the state wouldn’t respond positively to anyone dedicated to community service, would be if serving and uplifting that communtiy had destructive results. The impact of BPPs service included hundreds of children being fed in the mornings so that they could be engaged in school, surveilling the police in instances of state violence against Black people as well as providing a space for Black organizers to collaborate and educate one another.
Actress Dominique Fishblack did an amazing job portraying Hampton’s partner, Deborah Johnson, a poet and relentless BPP member who discovered she was pregnant with Freds child during his incarceration. After his release she physically shielded him from gunshots while with child as their home was raided by police. O’Neal’s final act of sedating Hampton at a new member BPP gathering resulted in his being shot while asleep after Johnson was removed from his body. Police did not even wait for her to exit the home before they shot him dead with her and his unborn child less than a few yards away. Deborah was unable to share her pregnancy with Hampton for months while he was incarcerated, their letters were intercepted by corrupt prison mailrooms, but without ever receiving his responses back from her letters she continued her involvement in the organization until his release. The inclusion of their love story in the film highlighted the power that Black Love has to strengthen and reorient organizers in self love as they struggle together, their love grows foe one another and deepens their shared passion for Black liberation.
Hate Rome Not Judas
In Christianity Judas is not a hated character, while his act of unwarranted betrayal against Jesus, a man who dedicated his life to service of the people, is recognized as detestable, Judas is perceived as an inevitable component of God’s plan for eternal salvation. Understanding that without Judas bringing the Roman soldiers to Jesus (while he was praying unarmed and vulnerable) there would not have been a cause for Jesus’ arrest that night and his later crucifixion. Jesus’ public assassination was required as the only pure sacrifice that would atone for the sins of God’s children for generations to come. Like Fred, Jesus was constantly surveilled by the state, had a police informant planted in his organizing circle and was killed unjustifiably during his most vulnerable moment in an attempt to suppress the hope of the community that he served. Both Jesus and Hampton were aware of their imminent mortality, them being watched and targeted for the upheaval they inspired in the second class citizens they served but their love extinguished their fear. They’re passion inspired beyond the steps they physically took, their words are still studied today and the events that led to their assassination highlight the evils of this society and amplify their movements: Christianity and the Black Liberation movement, which are inextricably intertwined.
The state’s negative response to community empowerment aided by the BPP expose the fact that their perspective of the BPP’s services would disrupt the fabric of American society, the strength of the U.S. economy depends on the oppression of Black people. When Black people win, America loses, we see this over and over again throughout history from the murder of Hampton to the bombing of Tulsa. A Black Messiah who would service Blacks by filling the gaps maintained by the state’s lack of resources is a serious threat because Blacks would no longer be forced to endure oppression for access to housing, food, water and other state resources. This simply motivates me to continue to elevate Black organizing and Black led organizations.
Rather than fearing the proliferation of Judas in your organizing work, understand that Judas’ presence is an indication of the organization’s strength. The potential of a Judas is not a deterrent to a revolutionary, understanding that we live within a Judas-cial society thats committed to disorienting, dividing and creating chaos for communities of color. The message of this movie was powerful. Judas didn’t win in his case against Jesus, he tried to return the money has was paid for his false testimony after learning about Jesus crucification and hung himself in a Valley of Hinnom (also known as the field of Blood). Similarly, O’Neal was reluctant to accept the final payment he received after Hampton’s death. In both cases Judas is someone who feels alone, ostracized and desperate. The film illustrated this in the closer O’Neal got to BPP members, the more difficult it became for him to work with police trying on several occasions to walk away. We can cut off police access by embracing members who feel marginalized within our groups because we can provide belonging in a way that the state’s men are completely incapable. No matter how much Officer Roy Mitchell paid O’Neal, invited him to his home, took him out to dinner or gave him gifts there’s always an underlying fear enveloped in desperation that forced O’Neal to participate in te cause against himself. Judas wasn’t the bad guy in either scenario, he was simply a tool. It’s actually the actions of the state provoking him that we should recognize as the Messiah’s true antagonist.
