An Interview With the Director of "I Am Not Your Negro"

I've seen I Am Not Your Negro twice, once in the theater and once outside. Watching it for the second time, I found it to be brilliant brilliant brilliant, still so timely. In a year that I've dedicated to the reading and exploration of minority writers, there may be none I have found more compelling than James Baldwin, its subject. The name of the documentary comes from a book he left unfinished, one he was intending to write about three assassinated leaders of the Civil Rights Movement: Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King. The film itself is a combination of his words, archived video, and a slew of other Baldwin-owned documents that hadn't been seen before.

Raoul Peck is a seasoned documentarian, and his Haitian heritage makes his take on Baldwin's story (especially his understanding of Western Hemisphere history, oppression, and hardship) extremely compelling. The documentary is splendid, but this interview captivated me almost more. Add Peck to the ranks of artists I admire (David Simon being another) who take their storytelling craft seriously, and who -- as I very much do -- look at the world and see massive failures in how we are given information. That, however, is the world we live in, and because of it, I value --immeasurably -- the ego-less authenticity of such a beautiful mind.