THE  GREAT  DEBATERS  AND  THE  TOPICS  FOR  DEBATE

The Great Debaters highlights an action of the greatest importance relative to progress or the lack thereof in the U.S. of A. That is the organized action of the oppressed against their oppressors, across racial lines. Melvin B. Tolson, the Denzel Washington character, does the most meaningful oratory in this film, under the cover of darkness, in a secret meeting of sharecroppers—white, black and others—daring to unite for a common cause.

The plug in the dyke of American history is the ability of the rich to own and control the major organs of power and wealth; while craftily dividing and conquering the people along racial and class lines. The Great Debaters reminds us that unions, such as the one for which Tolson organized, did exist and that wanton violence was used to prevent the significant development of the same.

Except for wardrobe, The Great Debaters excels in all the technical areas: cinematography, editing, lighting (a balanced dose of low and high key light) sound effects, music, a couple of short but riveting dance sequences, acting, especially acting. The Great Debaters, at its heart, is a cornucopia of fine acting.

Denzel Washington and Forest Whitaker set the screen on fire as college teacher and administrator respectively and they lock horns in the greatest debate of this movie over perceived responsibility/worldview. Journee Smollette exquisitely sizzles in every scene she is in as Samantha Booke, the lone female debater and Nate Parker and Denzel Whitaker (no relation to Denzel Washington or Forrest Whitaker) are perfectly cast and hold down their part of the fort. Wardrobe? Sorry, but people just didn’t dress that well during the great depression.

This movie review is the first movie review of ArtinCight. ArtinCight is an anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist cultural arts movement that supports the struggles of the masses of people in the U. S. and world-wide against exploitation and oppression. ArtinCight stands for art and culture of, by and for the people and in order for people’s art to remain free of control by the rich, it must rely on the initiative and financial resources of the masses not government institutions, foundations or rich sugar daddies or sugar mamas.

Denzel Washington, the director of The Great Debaters, wanted only to direct this movie but while Oprah Winfrey and others produced it, the Chicago Tribune (December 25, 2007) reports that the other co-producers, the powerful Weinstein Brothers, formerly of Miramax, insisted that Denzel Washington also star in the movie in order to get their support. A decision like who is going to star in a movie is a major, critical decision and given this kind of power, is there any doubt that the Weinstein Brothers had input on the content of the movie.

At the end of the day of big-time filmmaking, traditional distribution is the linchpin and distribution is where the power of the Weinstein Brothers resides. Their chief concern with art and culture is the capitalist accumulation of wealth. Therefore, then, if the people are to develop un-bought, un-bossed quality films and art projects, generally, ArtinCight and the people must develop our own distribution systems.

Recently, I saw an Arthur Miller play, The Crucible at Steppenwolf Theater Company here in Chicago. This play, about the Salem Witch Hunts, was written in the 1950s in opposition to the McCarthy era political witch hunts and has been revived in 2007 in opposition to all the illegal wiretapping and sweeping domestic spying of today. The Great Debaters is just as topical as it relates to the spate of noose displays and hate crimes, today. It reminds us of the ugly past and inspires some and puts others on notice that there will be no return to that.

The Great Debaters boldly shows the power of organized resistance as people, in relative mass, confront the jail, demand and succeed in getting the release of Tolson who has been arrested for union organizing. It also brilliantly uses, as topics for debate, pivotal questions like the rightness or the wrongness of civil disobedience.

Stop all the presses! Here comes the climax, the denouement, the Super Bowl of debating. It is high time that Blacks shed their struggle for self validation and grasp the reality that with the proper preparation, under fair circumstances, blacks can compete with any other humans in any area. I really don’t see what’s so great about a group of Blacks defeating Harvard, or Oxford or the Sorbonne for that matter. But in The Great Debaters this Super Bowl of debating takes place at Harvard, someplace the Wiley College Debate Team never went, in real life, and against Harvard students. Ok, so what either way? After all, there is such a thing as creative license and it is mainly entertainment and Hollywood. Hollywood does this all the time.

However, the topic for debate in this “mother of all debates” is the pros and cons of Capitalism and the Wiley debate team, Tolson, and all those concerned were bubbling with preparation and excitement. I’m not sure if their excitement wasn’t about debating the mighty Harvard but mine was clearly about the topic of debate. I was squirming in my seat in anticipation for what I view as the world historic topic for debate and action—Capitalism. I say this because Capitalism has been at the root of the majority of the world’s ills since the Bourgeoisie, the Capitalist, overthrew the Aristocracy in the 14 and 1500s. Now, for humanity to advance we must overthrow the Capitalists. Don’t you know this movie finds a clever way to change the topic of debate.

This is where the debate about civil disobedience comes to the fore. There is a huge difference between a debate about Capitalism and one about civil disobedience. A debate about civil disobedience asks only what method of struggle is more viable within the existing scheme of things, while a debate about Capitalism calls into question the very unfair and criminal essence of the system of Capitalism itself and exposed, begs upheaval, overthrow—fundamental change.

In the most pregnant moment of The Great Debaters, James Farmer Jr., the Denzel Whitaker character, during the Super Bowl of debates, at Harvard, during his winning point, describes a lynching that the debating team had observed and laid out two paths for action, violence or non-violence. Here things are taken off the road laid by Tolson earlier of unity across racial lines and rather put squarely on the shoulders of the Blacks as James Farmer Jr. exhorts the audience to pray that Blacks did not choose the violent road. Yet, this movie ends with all the Whites sitting rigidly up-right and all the Blacks, no matter where they are, bent at the waist praying.

Well, I said I was from ArtinCight so I’m gonna go ahead and tell you what I really think. An old partially wise man from the hood once said “prayer is fine in the prayer meeting but it ain’t worth a damn in the bear meeting.” The reason he was partially wise was because he didn’t grasp the uselessness of prayer in the prayer meeting. Now, I don’t say this lightly or to belittle those who have an antithetical view of the utilitarian nature of prayer. I say this to, #1 get your attention and #2 make an important point.

There come world historic times in human history that humanity has to come to grips with the dissolution of some of its most hard and fast held axiomatic truths, like the notion that the Earth was flat. The urgency of the hour demands that I pull no punches. The same is true, today, relative to the existence of God. We have been hoodwinked and bamboozled but mainly led by those who just didn’t understand the true origin and true workings of the world. The reason this is so important is because the very question of whether we will enjoy total emancipation from the system of exploitation and oppression rests firmly on whether we will rely on prayer to solve problems or whether we will pick up the gauntlet of revolutionary science.

This is not the place to go into a long dissertation on this point but I would feel remiss if I didn’t refer you to a liberating paper that goes into great detail on my point. That paper is “Forward with Revolutionary Dialectics” and can be found at www.risparty.org.

Suffice it to say, here, that whether in or out of the prayer meeting we have met the bear and it lives in the form of stolen elections, police terror, torture and murder, massive prosecutorial misconduct and incarcerations of Blacks and others, illegal wars of plunder for oil and profits, prisons as tools for control and profit, massive homelessness, and home foreclosures, massive lack of healthcare, and death from curable illnesses, immigrant slavery, secret prisons, rendition and torture, and the general rise of Fascism in the U.S.

Our art must reflect these facts without equivocation and we must let no one, no matter how rich or dangerous they think they are, stop us from delivering the goods. Let’s debate how we are going to liberate the world from all forms of exploitation and oppression of humans by humans.