I’ve been taught we have to meet people where they are if you expect to engage them. If i’m any good, I might move those people a little bit closer to my position. Right now, the people i’m interested in engaging seem to be caught up on the newest slave movie sensation, “12 Years A Slave”.

The movie is a true story of a black man, written by a black man, directed by a black man, widely touted by the black community, and even Oscar’ed by Hollywood, yet I can’t stand the movie. I’m tired of the slave genre particularly when it only serves to dampen the devastation of enslaving a people.

I know what you are thinking, this was one of the raw, brutal views of slavery times with emphasis put on the evils of the so called slave masters.

Still, I can’t stand it, but don’t want to hold this post captive with my disgust. I want to use the movie to make a very rich point that must be expressed to our people.

I feel movies like 12 Years take away from the gravity of time when it comes to enslaving a people.

My goal is to put slavery in terms you can understand so you can feel the power, depth, destruction of it all.

Since we are all drooling over this movie, 12 Years A Slave, let’s talk in slavery in terms of the movie and give you some real perspective on the horror, destruction known as slavery in the Western world.

• 134 Minutes is the length of the movie 12 Years A Slave
• 1 Year is equal to 8765.81 hours.
• There are 525,948.60 minutes in a year.  (Hours in year X 60)
• You could watch 12 Years a Slave 3,924.98955 or 3,925 times in a year. (mins per yr / 134 mins)
• Or you could watch the movie 1,570,000 times to match the 400 years of torture that decimated black people. (3,925 x 400)

Your land, history, knowledge base, confidence, and culture was decimated. These movies we glorify don’t bring home the gravity of this reality.