Bobby E. Mills, PhD
Selma is a historical documentary about American history, not just another movie. It is a documentary that every American should see; especially White Americans. It’s mindboggling that the 87th Academy Award Nomination Committee disrespected the movie Selma. At last, Hollywood has shown its true colors and demonstrated to the world that they cater to whiteness. The Academy Committee lacks moral-intellectual integrity because Hollywood does not honor talent and creativity but whiteness. Now the world knows who Hollywood is because of the snubbing of the movie Selma. It is a sad day in American society when a documentary film of this historic magnitude is not recognized for its epic contributions to the Civil Rights Movement. Selma has everything individuals love in a movie: drama, suspense, intrigue, and mayhem and violence in all of its raw racist ugliness.
Twenty-first century America has a Black president and he cannot protect the Civil Rights legislation that President Johnson passed in 1964 and the Voting Rights Act passed in 1965; because of political partisan polarization (Congress and Supreme Court). For ungodly reasons The Supreme Court recently stripped the 1965 Voting Rights Act of key provisions.
“For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.” (2 Timothy 4:3). The right to vote is the very foundation of American democracy and of course the U.S. Constitution guarantees it. Yet history tells a different story about voting rights for Blacks in America, they have never been “free” to vote without it tainted with malice in “the land of the free and the home of the brave.”
Make no mistake about it, I am not a professional movie critic, but Selma refueled and triggered memories from my theological training. In 1964, I was a young seminarian at Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School (CRCDS) in Rochester, New York. Two weeks before the scheduled Selma March, the seminary invited Malcolm X as a guest lecturer to an annual convocation event. Then, there were only twenty Black seminarians enrolled in CRCDS. I can vividly recall listening to Malcolm X speak the truth about race relations in America. I was in awe listening to Malcolm X as he evoked tears of God-fearing redemption from both whites and Blacks at a predominantly white seminary.
After hearing Malcolm X’s speech and watching the media continuously play the horrific images of violence heaped on the bodies of Americans seeking their constitutionally declared voting rights, my classmates and I felt it was time we joined the movement. My fellow Black classmates, Wilson Fallin, Bobby Joe Saucer, Archie Allen, Edward Jackson, and I jumped in our car and headed to Selma. We remained in Selma for a few days, waiting with expectation to take part in this historic event only to have the March cancelled. As a result, of those circumstances; we had no other choice but to return to CRCDS. The March from Selma to Montgomery took place three months later.
Without a doubt, any God-fearing American that views this documentary movie cannot sit through the movie without shedding tears. I cried many times. Viewing Selma reiterates to all Americans; especially Black Americans who do not exercise their constitutional right to vote, that they do a disservice not only to themselves, but those individuals who suffered life threating injuries as well as those who died for the right of all Americans to vote. The U.S. Constitution is an almost perfectly written document. It is a document the world has not seen before, not even the Magna Carta included everyone. However, the legal enforcement of the document is mired in race and ethnicity, social class and gender discrimination.
In the 21st century, Blacks must also understand the cause and effect that is mirrored in the results of their own behavior regarding their socio-economic plight. Selma clearly demonstrates the behavior of some whites has been notoriously ungodly over the almost 400 years that Blacks have been in America. They have set a distorted example of Christianity for the world because God hates racism. Hollywood just set a bad example. Of course, this is why we still have institutional racism in the 21st century some whites in high places set bad examples for others. We may not have racism by law, but racism still exists in individual mindsets and institutional power resources. To be sure, shame, shame, and more shame on Hollywood elites.
Allow me to paraphrase the Weeping Prophet Jeremiah: “Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for Hollywood.” (Jeremiah 9: 1). So where is there hope for the perilous plight Black Americans face even after 400 years of contempt?
To conclude the matter I leave this scripture for all God-fearing Americans to ponder: “What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us?” So be it.
