Speaker 1: Hey, y'all, Eve's here. I know you're ready to get
Speaker 1: into this episode, but really quick. We have been loving
Speaker 1: connecting with y'all over black storytelling, and if you've really
Speaker 1: been loving the show, then we would really appreciate it
Speaker 1: if you would leave us a rating and review, subscribe
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Speaker 1: Now time for the episode on Theme is a production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio and Fairweather Friends Media. Before we start in
Speaker 1: the show, a word of caution. Please be advised that
Speaker 1: some sensitive topics come up in today's episode around slavery
Speaker 1: and violence, so please take caution when listening to this episode.
Speaker 1: Under ordinary circumstances, as a traveler, I should have been
Speaker 1: glad to see the tavern, which was near the milestone,
Speaker 1: but as the case stood with me, I deemed it
Speaker 1: a dangerous place to pass, much less to stop at.
Speaker 1: I was therefore passing it as quietly and as rapidly
Speaker 1: as possible, when from the lot just opposite the house
Speaker 1: or signpost, I heard a coarse, stern voice cry hello.
Speaker 1: I turned my face to the left the direction from
Speaker 1: which the voice came, and observed that it proceeded from
Speaker 1: a man who was digging potatoes. I answered him politely,
Speaker 1: when the following occurred, Who do you belong to? I
Speaker 1: am free, sir. Have you got papers? No, sir, well
Speaker 1: you must stop here. By this time he had got
Speaker 1: astride the fence, making his way into the road. I said,
Speaker 1: my business is onward, sir, and I do not wish
Speaker 1: to stop. I will see then if you don't stop,
Speaker 1: you black rascal. He was now in the middle of
Speaker 1: the road, making after me in a brisk walk. I
Speaker 1: saw that a crisis was at hand. I had no
Speaker 1: weapons of any kind, not even a pocket knife. But
Speaker 1: I asked myself, shall I surrender without a struggle? The
Speaker 1: instinctive answer was no. What will you do? Continue to walk?
Speaker 1: If he runs after you run, get him as far
Speaker 1: from the house as you can, then turn suddenly and
Speaker 1: smite him on the knee with a stone that will
Speaker 1: render him at least unable to pursue you. This was
Speaker 1: a desperate scheme, but I could think of no other,
Speaker 1: and my habits as a blacksmith had given my eye
Speaker 1: in hand such mechanical skill that I felt quite sure
Speaker 1: that if I could only get a stone in my
Speaker 1: hand and have time to wield it, I should not
Speaker 1: miss his kneepand he began to breathe short. He was
Speaker 1: evidently vexed because I did not halt, and I felt
Speaker 1: more and more provoked at the idea of being thus
Speaker 1: pursued by a man to whom I had not done
Speaker 1: the least injury. I had just began to glance my
Speaker 1: eye about for a stone to grasp when he made
Speaker 1: a tiger like leap at me. This, of course, brought
Speaker 1: us to running. At this moment he yelled out, Jake Shallster.
Speaker 1: And at the next moment, the door of a small
Speaker 1: house standing to the left was opened, and out jumped
Speaker 1: a shoemaker, girded up in his leather apron. With his
Speaker 1: knife in hand. He sprang forward and seized me by
Speaker 1: the collar, while the other sees my arms behind. I
Speaker 1: was now in the grasp of two men, either of
Speaker 1: whom were larger body than myself, and one of whom
Speaker 1: was armed with a dangerous weapon. I'm Katie and I'm Eves.
Speaker 1: Today's episode do we need more slavery movies? That story
Speaker 1: you just heard was one from the life of James W. C. Pennington.
Speaker 1: His story is fascinating. James was born into slavery and
Speaker 1: Maryland in eighteen oh seven. He escaped in eighteen twenty eight,
Speaker 1: moved to the Northeast, became a minister, and eventually became
Speaker 1: the first Black American to take classes at Yale University.
Speaker 1: That riveting moment that you heard just now is from
Speaker 1: his eighteen forty nine autobiography The Fugitive Blacksmith. James is
Speaker 1: on his journey to freedom. He has just run into
Speaker 1: a white man who recommends that he stay off the
Speaker 1: road and gives him directions to a safe house. But
Speaker 1: because James loses his way and he can't find a
Speaker 1: good hiding place in the woods, he returns to the road,
Speaker 1: and this gets him caught up. He passes a tavern
Speaker 1: and runs into the man that we meet in the excerpt.
Speaker 1: That man and a few others capture James. When they
Speaker 1: ask James who he belongs to and where he came from,
Speaker 1: James faces a moral dilemma. Should he lie, tell the truth,
Speaker 1: or say nothing at all. Ultimately, the right choice is clear.
Speaker 1: Those guys don't care about his life, so telling the
Speaker 1: truth is not worth going back to the Louisiana cotton fields.
Speaker 1: Of course, they don't believe him without other evidence, so
Speaker 1: they take him to a couple of magistrates to verify
Speaker 1: his status, but the magistrates are not at home. In
Speaker 1: the end, James tells his captors a lie that's good
Speaker 1: enough to assuage them for the time being. It probably
Speaker 1: helps that he mentioned smallpox, and none of the folks
Speaker 1: gathered want anything to do with the deadly contagious disease.
Speaker 2: So did James get away?
Speaker 1: No, the saga continues. James's captors have spent their time
Speaker 1: chasing him and walking him around the neighborhood. They absolutely
Speaker 1: cannot let a negro be free if he's supposed to
Speaker 1: be in captivity, so they plan to keep him around
Speaker 1: for a few months while they sort out the situation.
Speaker 1: So that day, James escapes while a boy who's about
Speaker 1: nine years old is keeping watch over him. And it's
Speaker 1: a tense scene. It's also obviously a critical point in
Speaker 1: James's story, like it's really life or death. His narrative
Speaker 1: has like all the hallmarks of a captivating drama. It's
Speaker 1: full of conflict, spur of the moment decisions, and internal
Speaker 1: moral dilemmas. And if you read the scene I was
Speaker 1: just telling you about, you will definitely want to read more.
Speaker 1: And this might be controversial to stay in this day
Speaker 1: and age, but I do think slave narratives deserve more
Speaker 1: screen time, hmm, say more so that I know of.
Speaker 1: I don't think anyone has had beef with slavery documentaries
Speaker 1: or nonfiction. There are an overwhelming number of slave narratives
Speaker 1: told in academic and non academic books, but I think
Speaker 1: on a mass American scale, people are typically engaging with
Speaker 1: dramatized slavery films and that's where their opposition lies. People
Speaker 1: are sick of fictional and fictionalized stories about slavery, and
Speaker 1: the arguments are plentiful. Every time another slave movie comes out,
Speaker 1: it's you know, trauma porn. Also, a lot of the
Speaker 1: slavery movies are made in Hollywood, where most of the writers',
Speaker 1: producers and executive producers are white, so you know, white
Speaker 1: folks are grossly, doubly capitalizing off of our pain. And
Speaker 1: some Black people are just tired of seeing representations of
Speaker 1: black people who are struggling in media. They're tired of
Speaker 1: seeing these sob stories with negative drama at every These
Speaker 1: folks will often advocate for more black stories of triumph
Speaker 1: and success or stories where black people are living lavish,
Speaker 1: wealthy lives. They say things like we should be looking
Speaker 1: forward and not backward.
Speaker 2: And you don't agree with that.
Speaker 1: Well, I think there are problems. There is that element
Speaker 1: of positivity washing and this kind of desire to uplift
Speaker 1: only exceptional Black people. And also time is a flat circle.
Speaker 1: It doesn't really do us any favors to divorce ourselves
Speaker 1: from our past and the people who are the reason
Speaker 1: for our existence today if we are the descendants of slaves.
Speaker 1: But I think a lot of the points that people
Speaker 1: bring up against slavery movies are very valid. A lot
Speaker 1: of them do have a lot of trauma in them
Speaker 1: that are just there for trauma's sake, and a lot
Speaker 1: of them are financial endeavors. They really don't care about
Speaker 1: telling those stories. Well. But I think that even though
Speaker 1: slavery movies have their pain points, we need more of them.
Speaker 1: There are some slavery movies that have gratuitous violence to
Speaker 1: make the institution of slavery seem sufficiently horrible to skeptical
Speaker 1: or ignorant white folks. Often in these kinds of cases,
Speaker 1: the storytelling really centers white audiences. But the reality is
Speaker 1: that we are under educated in the United States. There
Speaker 1: are people of all races who don't know much about
Speaker 1: the realities of black history, let alone slavery history, and yes,
Speaker 1: that includes black people. We have so much more to
Speaker 1: learn about our history, and that info can become more
Speaker 1: palatable for people when it's presented in dramatized accounts. For
Speaker 1: US Black Americans, I think it can be really easy
Speaker 1: for us not to place emphasis on the history of
Speaker 1: enslavement and our links to it, because public school curriculums
Speaker 1: don't emphasize it, and if it's importance isn't otherwise impressed
Speaker 1: upon us, then it's easy to take for granted. Many
Speaker 1: of us who had enslaved ancestors don't know their specific histories,
Speaker 1: and I know that many of us aren't cracking open
Speaker 1: an old slave autobiography and settling into our favorite reading
Speaker 1: spot on a Sunday morning. And on top of all
Speaker 1: of that, the history of enslaved people has been purposely
Speaker 1: buried and erased. Enslaved people were people, though I'd like
Speaker 1: to know their stories. I want to know how they lived,
Speaker 1: what they smelled when they woke up in the morning,
Speaker 1: how it felt for them to see the sun shining
Speaker 1: through windows and what their favorite meals were to cook.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I empathize with people who say they're tired of
Speaker 2: slavery movies because of the ones we've been given. There
Speaker 2: is a lot of violence, and it does seem like
Speaker 2: it's there just to traumatize us, because that's what they
Speaker 2: do oftentimes. What I want to see. I think it
Speaker 2: would be really cool to see more depictions of like
Speaker 2: the Reconstruction era, because like we'll see depictions of like
Speaker 2: you know, the runaways, but like most people who are
Speaker 2: enslaver are running away, but it was like for that
Speaker 2: brief eight years during the Reconstruction era, like right after
Speaker 2: slavery was ended, there was a lot of stuff going
Speaker 2: good for black people. It didn't last, but I would
Speaker 2: like to see kind of like the end of slavery,
Speaker 2: maybe the Confederate army tried to get to fight for them,
Speaker 2: you know, turning on the people in the back of
Speaker 2: the line and shooting the Confederate soldiers and running over
Speaker 2: to the un inside and seeing how their life happened
Speaker 2: during the Reconstruction era. That's what I would like to see,
Speaker 2: And like you said, like the more nuanced stories that
Speaker 2: shows what their lives were like what their personalities were,
Speaker 2: like their relationships they had with each other, and not
Speaker 2: just the brutality.
Speaker 1: So I think about it this way sometimes that I
Speaker 1: can imagine if people had never been kidnapped from the
Speaker 1: African continent and brought to the Caribbean and the shores
Speaker 1: of the Americas, Like, would we still be trying to
Speaker 1: erase hundreds of years worth of those stories. All of
Speaker 1: those stories are compelling. There's mystery, there's intrigue. All of
Speaker 1: these people were individuals. They had cool skills, they had
Speaker 1: dangerous plans, and they executed them, and they fell in
Speaker 1: love and they deceived their loved ones. All of that
Speaker 1: is very interesting, And I just want to think about
Speaker 1: how we can acknowledge how we are hurt by these
Speaker 1: kinds of stories and all that trauma that you were
Speaker 1: talking about, and all of the slavery movies that we
Speaker 1: do have. It's very real, it's very embodied. They are
Speaker 1: all valid reactions. I am there right there with you,
Speaker 1: And I also want to ask for more rich, complex
Speaker 1: stories about slaves. Now am I asking for a lot?
Speaker 1: Is the question? Can we really get that?
Speaker 2: In a way, it feels a little counter productive to
Speaker 2: ask for fewer slavery movies. We don't want to see
Speaker 2: more stories about black trauma. And I get that, I
Speaker 2: don't want to see that either, but the call is
Speaker 2: usually in all out moratorium on these movies, like none
Speaker 2: at all, no more cut them. And that feels like,
Speaker 2: I don't know, like white people won again, Like they
Speaker 2: already have erased our history textbooks in the non fiction space,
Speaker 2: so letting them erase this long period of our history
Speaker 2: and wiping out the names and the stories and families
Speaker 2: off the face of the earth again, it's like, I
Speaker 2: don't know, it feels wrong. And like think about Roots,
Speaker 2: the nineteen seventy six novel by Alex Haley. It was
Speaker 2: a bestseller and it was soon turned into a couple
Speaker 2: of TV series and it had a real impact, Like
Speaker 2: people was gathered around that TV to watch The Roots
Speaker 2: when it came out, and it really got people of
Speaker 2: all races interested in researching their family history, but you know,
Speaker 2: particularly black people. A lot of genealogical groups were made
Speaker 2: during that time because they wanted to learn more about
Speaker 2: their ancestors who came from Africa and lived on the
Speaker 2: plantations in the United States.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Roots was maybe the most prominent example of a
Speaker 1: fictional slave narrative that was written by a black person
Speaker 1: in the last half century. I mean, Kunta Kitte was
Speaker 1: a household name. I don't know if it still is
Speaker 1: for the kids today, but from this generation standpoint, I
Speaker 1: feel like I can confidently say that, and there weren't
Speaker 1: other shows like it on television at the time. Since Roots, though,
Speaker 1: we have gotten a fair amount of major Hollywood films
Speaker 1: about slavery. Are they all good though? No, absolutely not. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: Hollywood prioritizes money and stories that'll get a lot of
Speaker 1: butts in seats. Also, movies can only be so long.
Speaker 1: They have to filter through production company standards, audience testing,
Speaker 1: the rating system, all of those kinds of things, and
Speaker 1: Hollywood has a tendency to flatten stories that could be
Speaker 1: really intricate and interesting because of people's in Hollywood and
Speaker 1: because of all of these other moles that they have
Speaker 1: to fit into. I know that there are independent creators
Speaker 1: making films about slavery who really lack a larger platform,
Speaker 1: but they tell beautiful stories. You know, it's always the
Speaker 1: case that artists outside the mainstream they take risks and
Speaker 1: they step freely. But you know, Hollywood does have a
Speaker 1: white footprint. So speaking of Hollywood, it makes me think
Speaker 1: of Antebellum. So I love Janelle Monnet, but I did
Speaker 1: not love Antebellum, which came out in twenty and twenty
Speaker 1: and it was written and directed by a black filmmaker
Speaker 1: named Gerard Bush and a white filmmaker named Christopher Wrenz.
Speaker 1: Now that movie got a lot of heat and hate
Speaker 1: when it came out, and I'm not interested in just
Speaker 1: piling on to that, but I do think it's worthwhile
Speaker 1: to mention because it illustrates some of the pitfalls of
Speaker 1: movies that include enslaved people. Well, in this case, people
Speaker 1: are not really enslaved. But more on that soon. Here's
Speaker 1: a quick summary of the film. Antebellum. Starts on a plantation,
Speaker 1: are cruel and the enslaved people are brutally harmed and killed.
Speaker 1: Monette plays Eden, a slave on the plantation, but has
Speaker 1: revealed that in modern times, Money is doctor of Veronica Henley,
Speaker 1: a successful sociologist and doctor. And while she's on book tour,
Speaker 1: she's drugged and kidnapped, and she wakes up on the plantation,
Speaker 1: which is actually not a plantation. It turns out to
Speaker 1: be a civil war reenactment park, Monette kills the people
Speaker 1: running the park and she escapes. Now, Antebellum isn't exactly
Speaker 1: a slavery movie. It's horror and is not trying to
Speaker 1: depict history accurately, but it does use the cruelty of
Speaker 1: the history of slavery to try keyword there to get
Speaker 1: its point across. So it falls victim to some of
Speaker 1: the tropes that are in slavery movies. The characters are flat,
Speaker 1: including Moname's. The concept of the soul militant savior is
Speaker 1: also at play here because Monete's rescue effort is virtually
Speaker 1: solo as her collaborators dieviolence is gratuitous and unnecessary, and
Speaker 1: there's one woman who we barely get to know who
Speaker 1: suffers horrendous trauma before she dies by suicide. It seems
Speaker 1: like the film's creators like really just want to see
Speaker 1: black women suffer. The violence against black people in this
Speaker 1: film is definitely not earned. The white folks are seemingly
Speaker 1: kidnapping the black folks because they want America to go
Speaker 1: back to the way it was. It seems like the
Speaker 1: creator's intent is to oppose this white supremacist sentiment, but
Speaker 1: the vision isn't executed well, and in the end, it
Speaker 1: gives what so many actual historical slavery movies give trauma
Speaker 1: for the sake of trauma. I will say that some
Speaker 1: people found the premise unbelievable, and that is fair, but
Speaker 1: I don't think it's a completely bad heightened interpretation of
Speaker 1: what's possible in real life, because it's not unbelievable that
Speaker 1: like a white supremacist militia group would drug, kidnap whole
Speaker 1: hostage and torture black people. It just wouldn't be in
Speaker 1: something like a reenactment part that anyone can access and
Speaker 1: leave at any time, Like this is not an exact
Speaker 1: parallel to reality, but I do think there are parts
Speaker 1: of it that could be reality.
Speaker 2: Antabellum gave like they thought they were really being provocative,
Speaker 2: you know, like in that Kanye West sounds like it's provocative.
Speaker 2: It gets the people going, like they thought like, oh,
Speaker 2: people are going to be like whoa and like get
Speaker 2: all these awards, but it just kind of like huh,
Speaker 2: It's like this is what cinema is.
Speaker 1: And sadly, Antebellum is not an example of how to
Speaker 1: make a good movie about enslaved people. We need fewer
Speaker 1: slavery movies that spoonfeed audiences, discussed shock and sympathy. But
Speaker 1: I have to say that in general, feeling tired of
Speaker 1: slavery narratives period feels like a bit of a premature reaction.
Speaker 1: And I'm just saying that because slavery movies are actually
Speaker 1: kind of few and far between.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there really aren't that many that got major attention.
Speaker 2: There was Django and chand in twenty twelve, Twelve Years
Speaker 2: of Slave in twenty thirteen, Birth of a Nation in
Speaker 2: twenty sixteen, Harriet in twenty nineteen, Alice in twenty twenty two,
Speaker 2: and Emancipation also in twenty twenty two.
Speaker 1: The reality is, the film industry isn't flooded with slave movies,
Speaker 1: so we're not really inundated with slavery related trauma porn.
Speaker 1: It just seems that way because most of the movies
Speaker 1: that we do get revel way too long in the
Speaker 1: gore and the immorality of the whites. They don't spend
Speaker 1: much time in the interior worlds of the black people.
Speaker 1: It's like this horrible atrocity is just happening to black people.
Speaker 1: People are not tired because they are literally too many
Speaker 1: slave movies. They're tired because when they are released, they
Speaker 1: do enslaved people's stories no justice. There are literally thousands
Speaker 1: of stories about enslaved people that are compelling enough to
Speaker 1: be depicted on screen, and they haven't been. Now, I
Speaker 1: don't think that every person should just love watching slavery films.
Speaker 1: That would be wild of me to say. Of course,
Speaker 1: that can still be a matter of personal preference. Even
Speaker 1: having better slavery movies might not convince you to turn
Speaker 1: one on, and that's totally fine. But if we are
Speaker 1: going to ask for more of them, then we got
Speaker 1: to be specific. If we're going to have more, we
Speaker 1: need more well done, meaningful movies about slavery that are
Speaker 1: skillfully crafted.
Speaker 2: They shouldn't center white heroes.
Speaker 1: They shouldn't cheaply use the horror and trauma that enslaved
Speaker 1: people endure it to propel the story forward.
Speaker 2: They shouldn't cater to white audience looking to be absolved
Speaker 2: of their sins.
Speaker 1: They should be sensitive to the humanity of enslaved people
Speaker 1: because they were humans. They ate, they crafted, they danced.
Speaker 1: We have so many untapped stories about slavery, and as
Speaker 1: far as I know, there is no movie about James W. C. Pennington.
Speaker 2: So somebody in your long hand make that and make it well.
Speaker 1: Yes, but y'all, I feel like we have to prove
Speaker 1: to you that we're not the only ones who might
Speaker 1: want more slavery movies. We're not completely yelling into the void. Okay.
Speaker 1: We talked to Cheney McKnight of Not Your Mama's History
Speaker 1: more after the break. Hi, Cheney, I'm Eve so yeah,
Speaker 1: excited to have you here today too. We'll get into
Speaker 1: it then. So just tell us your name and then
Speaker 1: however you like to introduce yourself.
Speaker 3: My name is Cheney McKnight. I own a company called
Speaker 3: Not Your Mama's History, and we have a YouTube channel.
Speaker 3: We also go to sites, primarily sites of the enslavement
Speaker 3: and help those sites to tell stories of black folks,
Speaker 3: whether they were enslaved or free through the eighteenth and
Speaker 3: nineteenth century. And on my social medias, I just try
Speaker 3: and tell as many stories about black folks today and
Speaker 3: in the past, and also try to look forward into
Speaker 3: the future and bring us all into a better future.
Speaker 1: So what inspired you to start that work?
Speaker 3: Growing up in Georgia in Atlanta, we would go to
Speaker 3: well at school, we would go to trips to plantations,
Speaker 3: and especially when I went to a majority white school,
Speaker 3: I was just looking around, like the interpretations they were
Speaker 3: doing and the stories they were telling. I was like,
Speaker 3: this really looks like and sounds like bullshit. So even
Speaker 3: as a young child, I was like I got a question.
Speaker 3: Like whenever the docin was like do you have a question,
Speaker 3: I was the first person to raise my hand and say,
Speaker 3: I have a lot of questions. And I was very
Speaker 3: fortunate that I was raised by people who constantly took
Speaker 3: me to exhibits on black folks throughout history.
Speaker 1: So I know you're also into all these historical things
Speaker 1: that you do in real life, but also in the
Speaker 1: fictional world. I know that you're a film fan and
Speaker 1: that you also watch a lot of historical films, and
Speaker 1: some of those historical films are films about slavery and
Speaker 1: about enslaved people. So what is your take on whether
Speaker 1: we do not need more slavery films or whether we do.
Speaker 3: Oh man, this is such a contentious topic, and for
Speaker 3: a very good reason. I think if we look at
Speaker 3: the history of movies of enslavement, we've gone through phases
Speaker 3: where when you're looking at roots, people are trying to
Speaker 3: show the whole nitty gritty truth about slavery. Going further back,
Speaker 3: it's more like mental shows. So if you're looking at
Speaker 3: Gone with a Win and Mammy's character, it's a caricature
Speaker 3: and she is. Her character was not modeled often of
Speaker 3: an actual enslaved person, so they weren't looking at primary documents.
Speaker 3: They may have looked at some real women as far
Speaker 3: as her face, but they were actually looking at mental
Speaker 3: shows to build her character out. And then of course
Speaker 3: coming into the future through Roots. I think the Roots period,
Speaker 3: I understand where we were going because we're coming from
Speaker 3: the other side, where they're showing it is lifels so
Speaker 3: happy to be slaves and they're just having a good
Speaker 3: old time. And then we're going all the way to
Speaker 3: the extreme where every enslane person, on every second of
Speaker 3: the day is being whipped. And yes, there was some
Speaker 3: diversity in the experiences of these enslaved people, but there
Speaker 3: are these very two extremes that I find both of
Speaker 3: them stripped the humanity from people. Especially when we're coming
Speaker 3: up into Amistad. There was a lot of strong storytelling,
Speaker 3: but at the same time we missed a lot of
Speaker 3: the humanity. And I think also who were these films
Speaker 3: created for? Sorry, and I just the frustration for some
Speaker 3: people is that there isn't this diversity of narratives and
Speaker 3: a true humanity of these people shown in movies about enslavement.
Speaker 3: And I look at Joker. You're able to humanize this
Speaker 3: man who is pretty abhorrent, he's going through mental crisises.
Speaker 3: But they're able to show a wide range of emotion
Speaker 3: and humanity. And yet we are unable to do that
Speaker 3: with enslaved persons who are actual, real people. And we
Speaker 3: do have quite a bit of documentation about these people.
Speaker 3: So I don't I would say, I don't want to
Speaker 3: see another enslaved movie about enslavement in this country until
Speaker 3: we see a full, well thought out story. One of
Speaker 3: the things that I think about a lot when I'm
Speaker 3: on a sight of enslavement, when I'm either sleeping at
Speaker 3: a slave dwelling or in that place where enslave persons
Speaker 3: were living. Sometimes when I'm laying in bed, I think about,
Speaker 3: what are those conversations that they were having with their
Speaker 3: loved one about their days while they're laid side by side.
Speaker 3: What are those moments in the early morning when you're
Speaker 3: you got to get out of bed and you like
Speaker 3: and the babies crying and y'all arguing about who's gonna
Speaker 3: pick up the baby. So things like that that I
Speaker 3: really I'm not seeing brought in. And then also just
Speaker 3: what about a for example, a love story of that
Speaker 3: is not centered around enslavers. So I would love to
Speaker 3: see a movie about enslaved persons that we don't see
Speaker 3: and in slaver at all, but still showing the consequences
Speaker 3: of living life as property, but not centering it on
Speaker 3: that trauma, centering it on their experiences, their personality, their
Speaker 3: interactions with one another, the relationships they build internally within
Speaker 3: slave community. Those are some of the things that I'm
Speaker 3: hoping to see, But I'm not sure if I trust
Speaker 3: most media to do it correctly. So I'm not really
Speaker 3: pushing people because I'm not trying to get my feelings hurt.
Speaker 1: Uh huh, I feel you. Yeah. That was gonna be
Speaker 1: my question to whether you think that would even be
Speaker 1: possible when we know how Hollywood treats so many of
Speaker 1: its other films in general, I.
Speaker 3: Do not believe that if it is coming from Hollywood
Speaker 3: or any of these large production houses, Absolutely not, don't.
Speaker 3: I don't want to see it because it is not
Speaker 3: for It is not for the ancestors. It is not
Speaker 3: to tell the stories of the ancestors, It is not
Speaker 3: to support the descendants. This is either trauma porn for
Speaker 3: white folks or kind of a sorry excuse of like
Speaker 3: white saviorism. So I don't think it's possible in the
Speaker 3: way that our entertainment industry is structured now. However, I
Speaker 3: am hopeful and prayerful that we will have independent companies
Speaker 3: and funders who will come forward and give storytellers a chance,
Speaker 3: writers who want to collabse break with historians like myself
Speaker 3: and other historians. It doesn't have to be me. There's
Speaker 3: wonderful historians out there and not compromise on telling these
Speaker 3: stories appropriately.
Speaker 2: So it sounds like of all the slave movies that
Speaker 2: have been put out, you're not rocking with any of them.
Speaker 2: Are there any are the ones put out by Hollywood?
Speaker 2: Are there any movies or the fictional depictions of slavery
Speaker 2: that you think did a good job?
Speaker 3: Oh? I would say the closest would come Miss Jane Pittman.
Speaker 1: Okay, I mean.
Speaker 3: It has those issues, but it really goes through her life,
Speaker 3: and I just I think that they did a very
Speaker 3: decent job of showing her full humanity as a person.
Speaker 3: So it follows the life of an enslaved woman who
Speaker 3: was born enslaved through her entire life from the nineteenth
Speaker 3: century to her challenging Jim Crow laws by drinking out
Speaker 3: of a of a white only drinking fountain. So I
Speaker 3: mean it spans a whole a whole century, and so
Speaker 3: I think that it really shows kind of the interactions,
Speaker 3: the internal interactions within black community over over decades.
Speaker 2: So did you see one with Kiki Palmer?
Speaker 3: Oh, Alice?
Speaker 2: I think Alice.
Speaker 3: I did not see Alice. Unfortunately it wasn't said.
Speaker 2: It was in like the seventies, so it was like
Speaker 2: a they were never told that slavery ended. So like
Speaker 2: the people on that plantation have been enslaves until she escaped.
Speaker 3: Which is this real, real life story. Yeah, I will definitely.
Speaker 3: I have not seen that yet. I have seen most
Speaker 3: of everything I've seen the one with Janelle.
Speaker 4: Monet ante Bellum, which I don't know if you saw
Speaker 4: my saw first of all, you've tore it down in
Speaker 4: a very meticulous way.
Speaker 2: Okay, give us some of it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh, ante Bellum. So the first thing first, it
Speaker 3: was very interesting because from the jump, I was like,
Speaker 3: this looks like a reenactment, because usually when Hollywood does
Speaker 3: nineteenth century after I would say after the eighties, there's
Speaker 3: at least proper undergarments, like the bell shape of the dresses.
Speaker 3: Just just they were using like tiki torches or the
Speaker 3: equivalent of tiki torches in the background, more modern stuff.
Speaker 3: But it looked like the stuff that reenactors choose to
Speaker 3: that feels old timy, and I was like, huh, which
Speaker 3: actually fit very well. I think that's one thing they
Speaker 3: did very well. It looked like modern people created a reenactment.
Speaker 3: And then that's where it all went wrong.
Speaker 2: And I guess that aligns with the twist of the movie.
Speaker 3: Yes it does. So the twist is that yes, she
Speaker 3: is this. They aren't actually enslaved back in the day.
Speaker 3: At first, I thought it would be more like a
Speaker 3: Kendrit so Octavia's Kendred. I know that lot of people
Speaker 3: compared the two storylines, but it's not the same. One
Speaker 3: is all set in the here and now, there's no
Speaker 3: science fiction. The other one is very much steeped in
Speaker 3: fiction and science fiction, jumping back and forth in time.
Speaker 3: I see where they were trying to go, but it
Speaker 3: was just why why it was just trauma for the
Speaker 3: sake of trauma. And I really it really discussed me
Speaker 3: when people use my ancestors just for the sake of
Speaker 3: trauma and just the sake of horror.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it also felt in that movie like they used
Speaker 1: the entire institution of slavery as a plot point, like
Speaker 1: they really didn't need to go back to the times
Speaker 1: where people were enslaved to make this point that like
Speaker 1: there are white supremacists and I don't want you to
Speaker 1: live on this earth anymore. And that meant that because
Speaker 1: they included slavery, it still fell victim to so many
Speaker 1: of the problems that other movies that are actually about
Speaker 1: slavery have. So yeah, lots of problems and trauma, lots
Speaker 1: of trauma, And I can see with movies like that
Speaker 1: and others why you wouldn't trust them. How can more
Speaker 1: of that idea of the every day and the mundane
Speaker 1: and community efforts, all those kinds of things, How can
Speaker 1: more of those be included in slavery films? And what
Speaker 1: do you think those should or could look like?
Speaker 3: I think from the jump there has got to be
Speaker 3: a lot of debunking. I cannot tell you how many
Speaker 3: black folks have argued with me about the structure of
Speaker 3: the enslaved community. This idea that light skinned people were
Speaker 3: in the house and they only worked in the house,
Speaker 3: and dark skinned people were in the field and they
Speaker 3: only worked in the field. That just was not the
Speaker 3: case for in every situation, or even the majority of situations.
Speaker 3: We get a lot of that from Thomas Jefferson from
Speaker 3: Monticello because he structured his enslaved persons the haves and
Speaker 3: the have nots. So he put up those barriers very
Speaker 3: strictly at Monticello, and of course there's a lot of
Speaker 3: interviews of people from Monticello, so that's kind of the
Speaker 3: view that we get. Also, a lot of what we
Speaker 3: know about enslaved communities comes from menstrreal shows. We don't
Speaker 3: even realize how integrated our minteal shows are still in
Speaker 3: in our modern day entertainment, even outside of movies about enslavement.
Speaker 3: So when we get to looking at community represented within
Speaker 3: movies of enslavement, the first steps would be acclimating the
Speaker 3: audience to really understanding the reality of these communities. And
Speaker 3: that's a vast diversity within the Black community so people
Speaker 3: who worked in the house would not have only worked
Speaker 3: in the house because that's a waste of resources. People
Speaker 3: who worked in the field would have had interactions with
Speaker 3: people in the house because those are their family members
Speaker 3: and their community members. I would show more events that
Speaker 3: happened through the year, more daily interactions, so when you
Speaker 3: are going to eat, there is always someone who will
Speaker 3: be like, I have extra. So when you're reading the WPA,
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, the WPA narratives, you see a lot of
Speaker 3: that where there are interactions between enslave persons, where people
Speaker 3: have more of I don't know greens and another person
Speaker 3: went hunting, and there isn't this running tab of you
Speaker 3: owe me this or you owe that. You would have
Speaker 3: just seen people dropping off greens or dropping off a
Speaker 3: hair like a rabbit or something dropping off even gator
Speaker 3: where wherever you are to help support one another. When
Speaker 3: you start looking at simple things that have been portrayed
Speaker 3: as the happy negro singing in the field, that was
Speaker 3: a community effort to protect one another. So first and foremost,
Speaker 3: if you keep pace the young folks who you know,
Speaker 3: they can outpace all of us. But if they do that,
Speaker 3: then the rest of us will never be able to
Speaker 3: keep up. It'll make and then someone will get punished.
Speaker 3: But if you can keep a pace where the slower
Speaker 3: people can move up and the people, the young folks
Speaker 3: who are you know out there, and then bring everybody
Speaker 3: into about the middle. That is what the songs are
Speaker 3: about keeping time. Also the love that the adults had
Speaker 3: for the children when they teach them the songs. This
Speaker 3: is an act of love because children started working at
Speaker 3: four and expected to independently work. How many of us
Speaker 3: have seen a four year old that can sit down
Speaker 3: and actually do something like polish silver or make nails.
Speaker 3: The nailery at Mount Vernon kids as young as six
Speaker 3: years old. So you teach them songs to keep them
Speaker 3: on task. And maybe if the adult who is monitoring
Speaker 3: them can't keep their eyes on them, but you can
Speaker 3: call out and you can hear the song continue going,
Speaker 3: so you can hear that they're still at their task,
Speaker 3: because if they aren't on task, we know what that
Speaker 3: will mean. So there are little things within the daily
Speaker 3: life of enslaved persons that have been it's represented for years.
Speaker 3: That is an act of community love and mediation for
Speaker 3: one another. Also, looking at the structure of enslaved communities.
Speaker 3: Pastors and preachers were considered very dangerous because they had
Speaker 3: a lot of power within enslaved communities. Also, African born folks,
Speaker 3: especially if they were healers, they were considered to be
Speaker 3: powerful and they held special places within Black communities. Elders
Speaker 3: held special places within Black communities. A lot of times,
Speaker 3: when we see movies where they look at the internal
Speaker 3: structure of the enslave community, they really put the perceptions
Speaker 3: of the enslavers and how they perceive the enslaved community
Speaker 3: and their leadership. So if you look at some movies,
Speaker 3: it is the black overseers that are considered to be
Speaker 3: in charge or the master's man, the butler, or the housekeeper,
Speaker 3: and that's just not the case. Black folks appointed their
Speaker 3: own leadership. And if whenever I see and I'm looking
Speaker 3: at journals or papers and if an enslaver here's about
Speaker 3: an issue that's going on within the enslaved community, there
Speaker 3: is a serious breakdown within the community, that means that
Speaker 3: through a lot of work, they could not resolve it.
Speaker 3: And so that is so rare. When I see really
Speaker 3: serious incidents make it to the enslaver's ears. That means
Speaker 3: that something's going within the community.
Speaker 1: Clearly, everything you just said, I heard conflict, you know,
Speaker 1: I heard love, I heard care, I heard organization. I mean,
Speaker 1: all of these things are parts of storytelling. So it's
Speaker 1: not like anybody can sit there and say, well, they're
Speaker 1: not interesting. Yes they are. They're people's lives. So I
Speaker 1: think I'm glad that you say it so much because
Speaker 1: it helps people understand who may not be so familiar
Speaker 1: with the history of slavery. I mean, I would guess
Speaker 1: most people aren't like you are because you study it
Speaker 1: and you work on these things. I think it really
Speaker 1: helps break down just how many more stories we need
Speaker 1: to hear. And that also, I think you made it
Speaker 1: clear that just like these films that we're seeing is
Speaker 1: just a continuation, a perpetuation of the idea that, like
Speaker 1: these histories are being written by our oppressors. Like, just
Speaker 1: how much we need to pay attention to the people
Speaker 1: who are creating these works that we are consuming, and
Speaker 1: that you know, if we're cognizant of that, then we
Speaker 1: can also understand that there are creators who can hold
Speaker 1: these things with more sensitivity and care. So are there
Speaker 1: any specific enslaved people whose stories you like? To see
Speaker 1: and created by the made by the right creators of
Speaker 1: course told well, like let's assume that they know what
Speaker 1: they're doing. They are masterful at visual storytelling. They treat
Speaker 1: the story really well. All of that. Let's assume all
Speaker 1: of that is the case. Is there any person's story
Speaker 1: you like to see on screen?
Speaker 3: There is one particular person that I have wanted to
Speaker 3: hear see the story played out on video on film,
Speaker 3: and that is Hercules Posey, chef Hercules Posey. He was
Speaker 3: enslaved by George Washington, and the foremost historian on Hercules
Speaker 3: Posy is Ramine Genish Tramp and she has made it
Speaker 3: her life's work to telling his story. There have been
Speaker 3: people who have taken advantage of that and misrepresented her
Speaker 3: work and Hercules Posy. So for me, I would love
Speaker 3: to see his full story played out. Because he was
Speaker 3: a chef, he was also considered to be a dandy.
Speaker 3: But also no matter how well he was treated, still,
Speaker 3: oh that's a good question. So someone who dresses very
Speaker 3: well and carries themselves very posh. Well, so he always
Speaker 3: had his hair on point, he always had his clothing
Speaker 3: on point. And we know that he was married, he
Speaker 3: had children, and he may have trained his son in
Speaker 3: his craft as well. His story spans from Virginia to
Speaker 3: New York, through Pennsylvania through the presidency, and it also
Speaker 3: shows what I like to continually point out to people
Speaker 3: that we have got to stop describing slavery based off
Speaker 3: of the conditions, because for every one experience that enslaved
Speaker 3: persons had, I can point to a poor white person
Speaker 3: that had a similar experience. However, the horror of slavery
Speaker 3: is really rooted in the fact that it is hereditary
Speaker 3: chattel slavery, that they will be enslaved, their children will
Speaker 3: be enslaved, their grandchildren will be enslaved, their great grandchildren
Speaker 3: will be enslaved, and so on and so forth, with
Speaker 3: no change. And so whether someone is wearing the finest
Speaker 3: clothing at one moment, George Washington showed him at the
Speaker 3: next moment, I could have you in rags, breaking rocks.
Speaker 3: So his life really spans and he also was a
Speaker 3: freedom seeker. He grabbed his own freedom, and so I
Speaker 3: love his story and I think, if ever I had
Speaker 3: a wish, I would love to see that. I would
Speaker 3: love to see Hercules posey. I would love to see
Speaker 3: the actual historians brought in primarily were me Ganishram, who
Speaker 3: dedicated her life to his story. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I just can only imagine the things he heard being
Speaker 2: George Washington's chef.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, on a judge, on a judge as well,
Speaker 3: because she she literally wore silk gowns, never was swept,
Speaker 3: laid in bed, and when she reached for her freedom
Speaker 3: and sought her freedom along with her children, and someone
Speaker 3: came to her when she was living in squalor and
Speaker 3: they were like, the Washington's will take you back, she
Speaker 3: was like, nah, I'm good, I'm good here in poverty.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So it really shows how precious freedom is.
Speaker 2: Right no matter like you said, the condition, because at
Speaker 2: the end of the day, you are considered someone's property,
Speaker 2: whether you're in a silk robe or not.
Speaker 3: Right, and they love, they love. So one of the
Speaker 3: interesting things about North American slavery that's different from the
Speaker 3: West Indies. I find in the West Indies they relied
Speaker 3: on share brutality to keep people in line, and I
Speaker 3: think it creates a different mentality because you have absolutely
Speaker 3: nothing to lose. And also they were outnumbered in the
Speaker 3: West Indies. In North America, it's really a mind game,
Speaker 3: the mental manipulation that slavery in America. It really is
Speaker 3: very fascinating and I like to see that more explicitly
Speaker 3: explored on film, because you can even see the mental
Speaker 3: mind games today, for example, when people as we're good
Speaker 3: to you, aren't we mind games?
Speaker 1: Mind game, master manipulator?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: Do you think that these kind of explorations would be
Speaker 1: more suited to other mediums versus films because we got
Speaker 1: we get films mostly, But what do you think about
Speaker 1: maybe maybe TV being more suited to it, or podcast
Speaker 1: or what other kinds of mediums?
Speaker 3: Again? I think yes, podcasts, especially when it is really
Speaker 3: directed by specific people who have the mental fortitude to
Speaker 3: say fuck you to money, to people who want to
Speaker 3: change the narrative it is. I assure you, it's really
Speaker 3: hard to say no to a lot of zero's. It
Speaker 3: was very hard. But I think it takes someone who
Speaker 3: is someone who has no self resonation or someone who's
Speaker 3: just singularly focused on telling these stories.
Speaker 1: So you're saying there's some hope, I think so, I'm
Speaker 1: just putting some stuff out into the universe.
Speaker 3: I really hope that people will want to tell our stories.
Speaker 3: I am not ashamed of being a descendant of enslaved persons.
Speaker 3: These are some of the strongest people I have ever met,
Speaker 3: because I've met them through their narratives, through the things
Speaker 3: that they've left, and I just can't help but want
Speaker 3: to introduce the world to them. Also, the majority of
Speaker 3: black folks in this country before the mid nineteenth century
Speaker 3: were enslaved, and is so frustrating when people say, why
Speaker 3: don't you tell this free person's story or this one
Speaker 3: in a million persons story instead of slight stories about slavery.
Speaker 3: And I can't help but be pissed off and annoyed
Speaker 3: that people are dismissing the majority of my ancestors because
Speaker 3: it makes them feel uncomfortable. And people are just lazy
Speaker 3: in their storytelling. Tell our stories correctly and tell them fully,
Speaker 3: That's all I ask. If they can tell the Joker
Speaker 3: as a full human being, they can tell hercules story.
Speaker 2: So now it's time for role credits, the segment where
Speaker 2: we give credit to a person, place, or thing that
Speaker 2: we encountered during the week. And we have our guests
Speaker 2: Shamey joining us. But first, Eves, who are what would
Speaker 2: you like to give credit to?
Speaker 1: Today? I want to give credit to tab managers. I
Speaker 1: know that seems very petty, but I often have a
Speaker 1: lot of tabs open, so I shouldn't because they create
Speaker 1: a lot of clutter in my brain space. But that's
Speaker 1: how I got to operate sometimes. So TAP managers have
Speaker 1: been helpful to me so particularly this week, and that's
Speaker 1: what I want to give credit to today.
Speaker 2: How about you, Cheney.
Speaker 3: I want to give credit to Jerome Outlar. He's my
Speaker 3: business partner and he's just a positive for us that
Speaker 3: is always keeping me on track. Also when I possibly
Speaker 3: want to strangle people, he has saved a few lives.
Speaker 3: I have not tried to murder anyone.
Speaker 1: I mean, by the way you describe some of the
Speaker 1: situations you're in because of your work, it seems like
Speaker 1: it could test a lot of things. So it's understandable.
Speaker 3: Jerome got my back.
Speaker 2: Got out to Jerome.
Speaker 1: Shout out to Jerome. What about you, Katie.
Speaker 2: I'd like to give credit to librarians. I spent a
Speaker 2: lot of time in libraries, and when you find a
Speaker 2: good librarian, like you can know a library back and forth,
Speaker 2: but sometimes you just have a question that you can't
Speaker 2: figure out unless you're the librarian. And it's so funny,
Speaker 2: like you'll take so long trying to figure it out
Speaker 2: and then you just ask library and they're like, oh yeah,
Speaker 2: here's the answer, and you're like, wow, I love you.
Speaker 2: So I had that I had that happened to me
Speaker 2: this week, and so I want to give credit to librarians.
Speaker 2: So where can folks find you online?
Speaker 3: Not Your Mama's History and Mama spelled m m as.
Speaker 3: You can find me on Instagram, YouTube, Facebook. I'm constantly
Speaker 3: doing things around the country, so you can also find
Speaker 3: me on that Your Mama's History dot com. So to
Speaker 3: kind of figure out where I'll be in the upcoming
Speaker 3: weeks months.
Speaker 2: Yere perfect. Thank you so much for joining us, Thank you,
Speaker 2: Thank You.
Speaker 1: On Theme is a production of iHeartRadio and Fairweather Friends Media.
Speaker 1: This episode was written by Eves Jeffco and Katie Mitchell.
Speaker 1: It was edited and produced by Tari Harrison. Follow us
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