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I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free: On Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes And The Help – Part III

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Go back to Part II.

3
When I went to see Rise of the Planet of the Apes, I ran into a black gay friend of mine I hadn’t seen for years, Darren, and his white partner. I had just come out Rise of the Planet of the Apes with mine. The four of us exchanged greetings and introductions, two interracial couples, and, in anticipation of this piece, I bought a ticket and joined them in line for The Help. Adam told me as we waited for the film to start that the book was so good that he had literally considered taking off work the day he started in order to finish. When the movie was over and we compared notes, my friend asked me what I thought, and I told him I thought the film was ludicrous. Adam looked slightly wounded, and without looking at me again turned to my friend and said, “Let’s get out of here.”

I followed them into the lobby and at one point Adam and I were alone when Darren realized he’d left his bag in the theater. As we stood there in what now felt like hostile silence, Adam very decidedly focused on his phone. When I asked him, “What did you think of the movie?” he shrugged without looking up and said, indifferently, “It was good.”

I left the theater despising him, myself, and The Help. I felt degraded by the whole experience, right down to the shit in the chocolate pie, and thought, “The men and women who fought in the Civil Rights Movement deserve better than a movie that goes down as easy as popcorn, and is pretty much forgotten when you hit the street.” As I walked up Broadway before catching the subway, I tried to repair my memories. I thought about my friend, Iyatunde Folayan (LaTrice Dixon), and her film My Grandmother Worked – detailing her experience one year as a nanny, and the two generations of white children her grandmother raised. I thought about the black women I’ve seen in the almost twenty years I’ve lived in New York, taking care of white children on the Upper West Side, and gossiping together in the park, the articles written about their being underpaid, underfed, dealing with sexual advances and temper tantrums from employers, even violence. I remember asking myself so many times, particularly when they became aggressive with the kids in their charge, Why would you lowball someone’s salary, abuse them, and then entrust your child to them? I wondered if the employers felt they knew these women at all, and what were the women’s private thoughts about the children they raised.

I remembered the song “Pirate Jenny” by Bertolt Brecht, and what a different timbre it took on when Nina Simone sang it:

“You people can watch while I’m scrubbing these floors
And I’m scrubbin’ the floors while you’re gawking.
Maybe once ya tip me and it makes ya feel swell
In this crummy Southern town
In this crummy old hotel
But you’ll never guess to who you’re talkin’.
No. You couldn’t ever guess to who you’re talkin’.”

How could I see myself in Rise of the Planet of the Apes, and feel completely absent from The Help? (There are no black men in The Help except for a grinning preacher, a benign soda jerk, and a husband heard over the phone.) The Help, cleverly and conveniently, gives Minny the young children in the film, while Aibileen has only a grown son who has died as a result of racist indifference. By not giving Aibileen daughters, the viewer is spared the kind of devastating scene found in Toni Morrison’sThe Bluest Eye, as the young black girl Pecola is humiliated by her mother, whom she calls Mrs. Breedlove, in front of the white girl her mother works for (and who calls Mrs. Breedlove by her first name, Polly.) Pecola accidentally tips over a pie her mother has baked for the white family. Morrison writes,

“In one gallop she was on Pecola, and with the back of her hand knocked her to the floor…’Crazy fool…my floor, mess…look what you….work…go on out….now that….my floor, my floor….my floor.’
“The little girl in pink started to cry. Mrs. Breedlove turned to her. “Hush, baby, hush. Come here. Oh, Lord, look at your dress. Polly will change it.” She went to the sink and turned up water on a fresh towel. “Pick up that wash and get on out of here, so I can get this mess cleaned up.”

Mrs. Breedlove comforts the frightened white girl, and Pecola lets herself out while taking the family’s laundry home. It’s a grotesque and horrifying scene, and anything like it in the film would shatter The Help and its romance.

When I got home, I watched Jesse Jackson, in his 1984 speech for the Democratic National Convention, address the audience with memories from his childhood:

“People say, ‘Jesse, you don’t my situation.’ I understand….They see me running for the White House, (but) they don’t see the house I’m running from…

“My mother, a working woman, so many days she went to work early, with runs in her stockings…she knew better, but she wore runs in her stockings so my brother and I could have matching socks and not be laughed at at school…at three o’clock on Thanksgiving day we couldn’t eat turkey, because Mama was preparing somebody else’s turkey at three o’clock, we had to play football to entertain ourselves, and then around 6 o’clock she would get off the bus and we would bring up the leftovers and eat our turkey, leftovers, the carcass, the cranberries; I really do understand.”

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Loving ain’t easy. James Baldwin once said, “We try to treat people like the miracles they are while protecting ourselves from the disasters they have become.” As Americans, white and black, some of us are trying to have – have succeeded in having – loving relationships, despite the brutality of the past. And sometimes we are scared, and confused, and searching, and guilt isn’t the answer, honesty is. And art, when it is authentic, when it is truthful, can lead us. When it lies, or withholds, strictly to make money or to reassure, then it betrays us.

There is love in Viola Davis’ performance, and Emma Stone’s as well, but it simply isn’t enough. This period in our history had women and men, both black and white, who were brave, many of whom lost their lives; and they, and we, deserve a whole lot better than the bullshit science-fiction found in The Help. And if there’s a choice between the unreal, pastel-colored South of the film and its paternalistic treatment of blacks, and the movie “reality” of primates who have the courage to liberate themselves, then I’ll stand with the apes.

Go back to Part II.

Max Gordon is a writer and activist. He has been published in the anthologies Inside Separate Worlds: Life Stories of Young Blacks, Jews and Latinos (University of Michigan Press, 1991), Go the Way Your Blood Beats: An Anthology of African-American Lesbian and Gay Fiction (Henry Holt, 1996) and Mixed Messages: An Anthology of Literature to Benefit Hospice and Cancer Causes. His work has also appeared on openDemocracy, Democratic Underground and Truthout, in Z Magazine, Gay Times, Sapience, and other progressive on-line and print magazines in the U.S. and internationally.

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OPINION

‘I Hope You Find Happiness’: Moskowitz Trolls Comer Over Impeachment Fail

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14 hours ago

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April 24, 2024

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U.S. Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) is mocking House Oversight Committee Chairman Jim Comer over a CNN report revealing the embattled Kentucky Republican who has been alleging without proof President Joe Biden is the head of a vast multi-million dollar criminal bribery and influence-peddling conspiracy, has given up trying to impeach the leader of the free world.

CNN on Wednesday had reported, “after 15 months of coming up short in proving some of his biggest claims against the president, Comer recently approached one of his Republican colleagues and made a blunt admission: He was ready to be ‘done with’ the impeachment inquiry into Biden.” The news network described Chairman Comer as “frustrated” and his investigation as “at a dead end.”

One GOP lawmaker told CNN, “Comer is hoping Jesus comes so he can get out.”

“He is fed up,” the Republican added.

Despite the Chairman’s alleged remarks, “a House Oversight Committee spokesperson maintains that ‘the impeachment inquiry is ongoing and impeachment is 100% still on the table.'”

RELATED: ‘Used by the Russians’: Moskowitz Mocks Comer’s Biden Impeachment Failure

Last week, Oversight Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-MD) got into a shouting match with Chairman Comer, with the Maryland Democrat saying, “You have not identified a single crime – what is the crime that you want to impeach Joe Biden for and keep this nonsense going?” and Comer replying, “You’re about to find out.”

Before those heated remarks, Congressman Raskin chided Comer, humorously threatening to invite Rep. Moskowitz to return to the hearing.

Congressman Moskowitz appears to be the only member of the House Oversight Committee who has ever made a motion to call for a vote on impeaching President Biden, which he did last month, although he did it to ridicule Chairman Comer.

It appears the Moskowitz-Comer “bromance” may be over.

Wednesday afternoon Congressman Moskowitz, whose sarcasm is becoming well-known, used it to ridicule Chairman Comer.

“I was hoping our breakup would never become public,” he declared. “We had such a great thing while it lasted James. I will miss the time we spent together. I will miss our conversations. I will miss the pet names you gave me. I only wish you the best and hope you find happiness.”

Watch the video above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Doesn’t Care if Pregnant Women Live or Die’: Alito Slammed Over Emergency Abortion Remarks

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OPINION

‘Doesn’t Care if Pregnant Women Live or Die’: Alito Slammed Over Emergency Abortion Remarks

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16 hours ago

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April 24, 2024

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The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case centered on the question, can the federal government require states with strict abortion bans to allow physicians to perform abortions in emergency situations, specifically when the woman’s health, but not her life, is in danger?

The 1986 federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA), signed into law by Republican President Ronald Reagan, says it can. The State of Idaho on Wednesday argued it cannot.

U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, The Washington Post’s Kim Bellware reported, “made a clear delineation between Idaho law and what EMTALA provides.”

“In Idaho, doctors have to shut their eyes to everything except death,” Prelogar said, according to Bellware. “Whereas under EMTALA, you’re supposed to be thinking about things like, ‘Is she about to lose her fertility? Is her uterus going to become incredibly scarred because of the bleeding? Is she about to undergo the possibility of kidney failure?’ ”

READ MORE: Gag Order Breach? Trump Targeted Cohen in Taped Interview Hours Before Contempt Hearing

Attorney Imani Gandy, an award-winning journalist and Editor-at-Large for Rewire News Group, highlighted an issue central to the case.

“The issue of medical judgment vs. good faith judgment is a huge one because different states have different standards of judgment,” she writes. “If a doctor exercises their judgment, another doctor expert witness at trial could question that. That’s a BIG problem here. That’s why doctors are afraid to provide abortions. They may have an overzealous prosecutor come behind them and disagree.”

Right-wing Justice Samuel Alito appeared to draw the most fire from legal experts, as his questioning suggested “fetal personhood” should be the law, which it is not.

“Justice Alito is trying to import fetal personhood into federal statutory law by suggesting federal law might well prohibit hospitals from providing abortions as emergency stabilizing care,” observed Constitutional law professor Anthony Michael Kreis.

Paraphrasing Justice Alito, Kreis writes: “Alito: How can the federal government restrict what Idaho criminalizes simply because hospitals in Idaho have accepted federal funds?”

Appearing to answer that question, Georgia State University College of Law professor of law and Constitutional scholar Eric Segall wrote: “Our Constitution unequivocally allows the federal gov’t to offer the states money with conditions attached no matter how invasive b/c states can always say no. The conservative justices’ hostility to the spending power is based only on politics and values not text or history.”

Professor Segall also served up some of the strongest criticism of the right-wing justice.

READ MORE: ‘They Will Have Thugs?’: Lara Trump’s Claim RNC Will ‘Physically Handle the Ballots’ Stuns

He wrote that Justice Alito “is basically making it clear he doesn’t care if pregnant women live or die as long as the fetus lives.”

Earlier Wednesday morning Segall had issued a warning: “Trigger alert: In about 20 minutes several of the conservative justices are going to show very clearly that that they care much more about fetuses than women suffering major pregnancy complications which is their way of owning the libs which is grotesque.”

Later, predicting “Alito is going to dissent,” Segall wrote: “Alito is dripping arrogance and condescension…in a case involving life, death, and medical emergencies. He has no bottom.”

Taking a broader view of the case, NYU professor of law Melissa Murray issued a strong warning: “The EMTALA case, Moyle v. US, hasn’t received as much attention as the mifepristone case, but it is huge. Not only implicates access to emergency medical procedures (like abortion in cases of miscarriage), but the broader question of federal law supremacy.”

READ MORE: ‘Blood on Your Hands’: Tennessee Republicans OK Arming Teachers After Deadly School Shooting

 

 

 

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Gag Order Breach? Trump Targeted Cohen in Taped Interview Hours Before Contempt Hearing

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19 hours ago

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April 24, 2024

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Hours before his attorneys would mount a defense on Tuesday claiming he had not violated his gag order Donald Trump might have done just that in a 12-minute taped interview that morning, which did not air until later that day. It will be up to Judge Juan Merchan to make that decision, if prosecutors add it to their contempt request.

Prosecutors in Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office told Judge Juan Merchan that the ex-president violated the gag order ten times, via posts on his Truth Social platform, and are asking he be held in contempt. While the judge has yet to rule, he did not appear moved by their arguments. At one point, Judge Merchan told Trump’s lead lawyer Todd Blanche he was “losing all credibility” with the court.

And while Judge Merchan directed defense attorneys to provide a detailed timeline surrounding Trump’s Truth Social posts to prove he had not violated the gag order, Trump in an interview with a local television station appeared to have done so.

READ MORE: ‘They Will Have Thugs?’: Lara Trump’s Claim RNC Will ‘Physically Handle the Ballots’ Stuns

The gag order bars Trump from “commenting or causing others to comment on potential witnesses in the case, prospective jurors, court staff, lawyers in the district attorney’s office and the relatives of any counsel or court staffer, as CBS News reported.

“The threat is very real,” Judge Merchan wrote when he expanded the gag order. “Admonitions are not enough, nor is reliance on self-restraint. The average observer, must now, after hearing Defendant’s recent attacks, draw the conclusion that if they become involved in these proceedings, even tangentially, they should worry not only for themselves, but for their loved ones as well. Such concerns will undoubtedly interfere with the fair administration of justice and constitutes a direct attack on the Rule of Law itself.”

Tuesday morning, Trump told ABC Philadelphia’s Action News reporter Walter Perez, “Michael Cohen is a convicted liar. He’s got no credibility whatsoever.”

He repeated that Cohen is a “convicted liar,” and insisted he “was a lawyer for many people, not just me.”

READ MORE: ‘Old and Tired and Mad’: Trump’s Demeanor in Court Detailed by Rachel Maddow

Since Cohen is a witness in Trump’s New York criminal case, Judge Merchan might decide Trump’s remarks during that interview violated the gag order, if prosecutors bring the video to his attention.

Enter attorney George Conway, who has been attending Trump’s New York trial.

Conway reposted a clip of the video, tagged Manhattan District Attorney Bragg, writing: “cc: @ManhattanDA, for your proposed order to show cause why the defendant in 𝘗𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘷. 𝘛𝘳𝘶𝘮𝘱 should not spend some quiet time in lockup.”

Trump has been criminally indicted in four separate cases and is facing a total of 88 felony charges, including 34 in this New York criminal trial for alleged falsification of business records to hide payments of “hush money” to an adult film actress and one other woman, in an alleged effort to suppress their stories and protect his 2016 presidential campaign, which experts say is election interference.

Watch the video below or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Blood on Your Hands’: Tennessee Republicans OK Arming Teachers After Deadly School Shooting

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