WCS 72: Why racism gets to be the lever

For your landlord's elders, this perfect Hollywood lie was the dream of life

Consensus had been that Citizen Kane is the most important film ever produced. That’s not close to being true anymore. Easily the most consequential movie in history is DW Griffith’s The Birth of Nation. A revelation in terms of how stories are told and consumed, the movie’s enormous impact on our politics has only recently crept into broad view.

Living in my head for most of the week has been a New Yorker headline from February 3, 2013. About the then-98-year-old flick, some editor wrote, “The Worst Thing About The Birth of a Nation is How Good It Is.”

Ahem. I mean, the quality of this three hour, thirteen minute silent epic is not the literal worst thing about Griffith’s movie. TBOAN’s bedrock underpinning of White supremacy is objectively its most terrible facet. I mean, the Klan is portrayed heroically. Game over, no contest.

The worst.

What that Manhattan magazine editor meant a dozen years back is that the film’s state-of-the-art, black-and-white narrative did way more than entertain. It stuck. Remember, cinema was mad young in 1915. The customer wasn’t so evolved from lore that had ’em ducking when a director put the image of a forward-moving train before them. The Griffith hit’s novel early special effects, narrative agility, complex camera work, and dramatic chops overwhelmed that impressionable public.

Repeatedly, White Americans came out to the movie house to see The Birth of a Nation, even though Griffith’s film cost double the typical 1915 feature. There was no competing TV, just this White power dream lie getting emblazoned on their retinas.

Some Redditor called POTUS The Count of Mostly Crisco, and I can’t leave that moniker alone…

As he walked out of a screening, President Woodrow Wilson was reportedly testifying to the voracity of The Birth of a Nation. It was film event of these people’s lifetimes. They told their children and grand children about the experience.

Watch the 20th-century’s first massive hit film and you’ll see that DW Griffith has Reconstruction Era-Black people eating fried chicken in the House of Representatives, with their shoes off. At the bottom of his frame is text asserting that what the viewer is seeing is factual. As brazen a lie as we will hear in 2025. The Birth of a Nation asserting its primacy of whiteness is extremely difficult to watch, but a lot of us need to do just that, to understand what we’re up against and respond accordingly.

Throughout this Black History Month, his is how I’ll be spending the front of our Friday sojourns. Dissecting + digesting. If you come across anything notable in your screenings of the flick, do feel free to drop me a line.

Flag upside down outside of the State Department courtesy of @danzu72 on Former Twitter

---

The Full Herb Caen

ESPN’s debate culture has undeniably changed how we hold onto positions and regard facts…

Sacramento fans have long wondered what it would be like to see De’Aaron Fox compete in an NBA Finals. That wish will be granted, when San Antonio peaks in a season or two…

Here’s an image from spring, when the loss to Kendrick Lamar looked like it couldn’t get any more harmful…

In two days comes the Super Bowl. Drake’s supposedly in Australia now, dodging his historically bad week. One wonders if he can hide…

Some Redditor called the POTUS The Count of Mostly Crisco, and I can’t leave that moniker alone…

A recognized novelist and a top-tier critic squared up in my Facebook feed last weekend, over how to counter 4547. The writers are women, and their conflict was lightning-fast and brutal and it foretold our digital futures…

Forever cruel, 50 Cent trolled nemesis Irv Gotti while the former Murder, Inc exec’s body was still warm…

And The Hollywood Reporter reported the trolling as tribute…

Not to insult the deceased, but way too many of these hip hop cats be dying elective deaths…

Up in Oakland last month, I told my middle son and a woman friend about the 1999 Washington disappearance of Joe Wood. Joe and I had talked about him editing my memoir, but things didn’t work out that way…

Y’all know it’s just a matter of time before American youth aren’t allowed to read about the Ku Klux Klan in textbooks. Better tell them now…

Blind patriotism is all that’s stopping us Sojourn District folk from dipping on the United States and letting them rename it Trump’s America or some such shit…

---

10 When Leonard Peltier walks out free

International social justice icon Leonard Peltier nearly lost his feet to diabetes, according to his son Chauncey, with whom I spoke last weekend. The American Indian Movement leader’s murder conviction was commuted by an exiting President Biden after Peltier spent a shade under 50 years in prison.

The younger Peltier said his father, 80, will make his way home from the Federal Correctional Complex Coleman in Florida to the Turtle Mountain Reservation, where he’ll live out his last days.
West Coast Sojourn / Columbia County Spotlight