"In all of these dramas, the black people's stories are simple, almost banal. As the kidnapping victim in 12 Years a Slave says, 'I don't want to survive. I want to live.' He simply endures, with all the courage and dignity he can muster. His situation, the heroism of his situation, is easy to understand."

"The slave owner, played by Michael Fassbender, is a far more mysterious, more fascinating type: What kind of man wants to flog nearly to death the mother of the child he adores? What kind of man rests against people as if they were furniture? It is a testament to the power of American denial that Fassbender's portrayal of a slave owner is the finest ever put down on film."

Black women have been pretty damned equal - and loved for it - all along. Feminism is weird - not to mention, someone else's beef:

Y'all should watch 12 Years A Slave, and ask yourselves, "Who's been oppressing who, again?"

 

Jonah Goldberg blew big chunks a few days ago. Conor Friedersdorf finger wags today. 

Might be related.

And I found 12 Years A Slave online for free. 

Completely unrelated - maybe.

 

"We have issues in this country with telling stories of suffering that don't result in uplift."

Yes, Richard Cohen, a journalist and columnist for nearly half a century, a college-educated, award-winning commentator, thought slavery was not such a bad thing until he saw a movie about it in 2013. Richard Cohen admits, in a major American newspaper, that until this month, he believed an archaic, widely discredited “Lost Cause” white supremacist myth. And in his nearly 70 years of literacy, he has not seen or heard or read anything to challenge that myth until he saw a Hollywood film on the subject. This is ignorance on a staggering scale. That paragraph should only preface a retirement announcement. “I am a deeply ignorant and cloistered old man,” should be the next sentence, “and no one should pay me for my views and opinions, because they are worthless.”

“We do not revere. We do not respect. At some fundamental level, we do not even understand. Or want to.”

Anyone who acquires the narrative of 12 Years A Slave and finds it within his shrunken heart to continue any argument for the sanctity and perfection of our Founding Fathers, for the moral wisdom of their compromised document of national ideal that begins the American experience, or for their anachronistic or historically understandable tolerance of slavery — they are arguing from a desolate, amoral corner.

If original intent included the sadism and degradation of human slavery, then original intent is a legal and moral standard that can be consigned to the ash heap of human history. Hardcore conservatives and libertarians who continue to parse the origins of the Constitutions under the guise of returning to a more perfect American union are on a fool’s journey to decay and dishonor.

Conservative firebrand Sean Hannity unleashed another volley of racially charged polemic on his radio show Thursday morning, this time targeting the critically acclaimed drama “12 Years a Slave.” Hannity called the film, which recounts the true story of a free slave, Solomon Northup, who was kidnapped and sold into slavery in 1841, “a sham” and “nothing more than an attempt to exploit white guilt and divide America.”

Director Steve McQueen’s historical drama has been lauded by critics for its unflinching portrayal of slavery’s horrors and drawn equal praise from filmgoers. Those who caught the film in its limited release last weekend assigned it an average grade of A, according to market research firm CinemaScore.

But Hannity encouraged his loyal supporters to “avoid falling into the liberal trap of a slavery guilt trip” as the film heads for wide release this weekend. “Seriously, how long has it been? How many times can you keep bringing [slavery] up after 150 years?” Hannity admitted that he has not seen the film, but said he could “tell that it draws out and exaggerates the bad parts of slavery the way only Hollywood can.”

“The only thing another slavery movie does, on top of pitting blacks against whites, is enable a minority culture of laziness and excuses. Maybe they should make a movie about black students who run away from hard work and responsibility. Call it ‘12 Years in School.’...”