So after sitting through Django, a movie that I admittedly went into with the wrong mindset (I was expecting something more historical considering all the people that I have heard from that said they learned something).  I realized something, not only was this country effectively distancing itself from one of the most horrendous periods in human history let alone American History, but it had also begun to slide down a slope that effectively takes the bite out of slavery.

I can’t help but think about other despicable times in human history or specifically American History and wonder if they had been suffering the same fate as American Slavery.  The first situation I analyzed were both the twin towers incident and the Pearl Harbor incident. I know they aren’t along the same lines as slavery, for all intents and purposes slavery was far worse.  But I am not looking at them from the perspective of the lives lost because slavery has them both beaten hands down, what I am looking at is the disenfranchisement of a people because of an erroneous preconceived notion.  Pearl Harbor created a hell in America for Japanese Americans and the twin towers reinforced an already present, prevalent, and building disdain for Arabs in general.  Of course no piece of literature about the destruction of a people would be complete without the Native American.

In the case of the Japanese Americans we have managed to distance ourselves so far from history that the fact that American citizens were abducted from their homes and thrown in concentration camps because of their heritage isn’t a part of the national dialogue or the educational establishment pretty much at all.  In order to learn that you have to go to college, or find it on your own.  It has been effectively erased from the countries memory of its history, however, it has not lost its sting, we haven’t allowed the comedians to go to work just yet which would change the tone of the story to one of light-hearted laughter.  There have been no comedies, jokes or anything of the sort on a national level that I could find regarding this incident.  Henceforth even though this incident has been forgotten, the memory of it still burns, the Japanese Americans are not going to forget easy, or allow change to the emotion easy.

In the case of the Arabs, there are loads of different theories about why they are disliked in America.  Everything stemming from the fact that they are sitting on huge oil reserves to the fact that America is 70% Christian, in the 1960’s that number was up around 90%.  Such a good job has been done distancing Americans from the cause of this hatred that it is systematic at this point, it is almost an industry.  However this particular level of disenfranchisement is kept alive and controlled through a very deliberate and careful stream of propaganda.  Think about the bad guys in the movies of the 90’s and 2000’s think about the bad guys in real life in the 90’s and 2000’s.  We are constantly fed a stream of anti Arab information; the AA gun against the planes of unity between 2 of the biggest religions in the world.  Interesting note about Arabs (Middle Easterners), they will NOT tolerate disrespect.  They know who they are, they know what they are, and they are very much unified by that knowledge.  This disdain serves a purpose as all people seem to need an enemy and the enemy of Americans has been successfully cast as Arabs.  Of course I could be wrong and they could really be the bad guys.  But the sting of this won’t fade anytime soon as the events are still very much active and alive.  Even if they were to dissipate, we have seen that Arabs do not take kindly to being made fun of.

Finally we have the Native American, such a horrible fate that they have met.  They haven’t necessarily been disenfranchised in today’s age they have actually been somewhat empowered.  Of course that empowerment came to the few that survived their utter decimation.  Americans spent a great number of decades distancing itself from the fact that it had stolen land from people that it was in the process of exterminating.  People nowadays are well aware of what has happened to the Native American but it doesn’t have the sting that it should on our national conscious because it has been cast in a new light.  It is either a joke not worth any real thought, or it is seen as the settlers defending themselves from savages.  Interesting to note that very rarely do you hear people talking about this particular subject, ALL of the sting has been removed from this discussion and most discussions concerning Natives end in some sort of joke, or some sort of agreement that they have been reimbursed and are doing just fine.

So what does this have to do with slavery and black people?  Well, the standard for slavery in America’s consciousness right now is Roots and has been Roots for the last 40 years.  The subject has never been readdressed in a public forum, and is a sign of the distance that is being put between America and its history.  Even Jesus got a modern day facelift with Passions of Christ, the severity of the crucifixion burned into our heads causing many to recommit to Christianity.  However when it comes to slavery and the dark skinned American, we have been convinced we don’t need to see or that we couldn’t handle seeing.  40 years is a long time not to readdress a subject like slavery, the freedoms of the modern times could convey an image that would most definitely spark national dialogue on the subject of equality and the long term ramifications of slavery and second class citizenship.  But aside from the distance is the comedic steam that building.  Now all of a sudden it is seemingly becoming more and more popular to poke fun at slaves and slavery.  To infuse that time with blatant fictions, and comedians have begun telling jokes in mass; something that started around 10 years ago, movies like Django I fear will open the door to a fully fledged onslaught of what has largely been considered a taboo subject.  Slavery has already been losing its sting do to a lack of attention by the descendants of those enslaved, but if you infused that lack of knowledge and innocent ignorance with comedy and falsehoods you sap it completely.  A movie like Django creates more disturbances in a river that is already raging.  My issue I would like to say isn’t with the movie so much as it is with the people who don’t know their history and will believe this to be it.  We have to blame ourselves and our elders for not educating and we also cannot allow distance to be created between where we are and where we came from.  That distance is part of the reason we have not moved forward in the last 50 years.  We don’t need to continuously relive the past, but we do need to be aware of it in all its gruesomeness to maintain perspective on where we are going and what we need to being doing to not go in reverse.

This post is of course just my opinion, what’s yours?  Is America trying to distance itself for slavery?  Should we be laughing at it?  Should we know better than to believe the movies anyway?  Why don’t we?