If there's any trend in Black America that disgusts me, it's the ADOS movement. It's so anti-intellectual, so anti-black nationalism. They identify with slavery as their main point of identity...how sick is that?
The movement is financed by the right wingers who want to suppress the black vote in the next election.
Mr. Hudlin,
I respectfully disagree with you. While I am not an ADOS movement member/devotee (though I am ADOS), I do listen often to podcasts from its founders, Yvette Carnell and Antonio Moore, and whether you agree with them, or not, they are not anti-intellectual. Carnell has a book club, that has gone over books like Color of Law, and most recently MLK's Where Do We Go from Here? Both refer back to data to inform their take on our current political, socioeconomic condition, and Moore especially has impressed upon me the precariousness of Black America's economic situation, and how it looks to get even worse by mid-century. ADOS supports reparations, stronger than any mainstream liberal group, and certainly the Democratic Party, so how is that anti-black nationalism? Further, they don't want to suppress the Black vote, they just want greater accountability from the candidates who are running-something even people like Al Sharpton and other mainstream Blacks claim they sometimes want too but will knuckle under quickly and accept whatever the Democratic Party offers up; ADOS supposedly is not going to crumble this time, and they are demanding action and tangibles for their support, which is something other groups do, and are rewarded by. It's just black people who are supposed to vote, vote, vote, and get little to nothing in return, but then expected to vote even harder the next time, for little or even less. ADOS is one of the groups attempting to escape from that dead-end political vise.
ADOS is not anti-Black nationalist (depending on how you define that), though they are anti-Pan Africanist. And even here, they make some good distinctions based on ethnicity, lineage, and nationality, and they have made me more aware of those differences, and how some (but not all) Black immigrants harbor anti-Black American views and work against the Black American community/our interests. There's nothing wrong with pointing that out. ADOS isn't only for reparations for Black Americans, however they say that other groups should press for reparations with the country's that enslaved them, as opposed to coming here and then either wanting reparations from the US government or joining the anti-reparations crowd because they won't be receiving any reparations from our government. I do think there is a tinge of xenophobia at times when it comes to some ADOS arguments, which I'm not cool with-but there are Black immigrants or first generation Black Americans who also support ADOS to be clear. Further, while I really wished that Pan-Africanism worked, I think ADOS has every right to question if it works, if it's ever worked, or if it's time has passed, and people need to figure out something else. And Black Americans have a right to question this because in many respects we are the best example of Pan-Africanism that's ever existed, with so many of our ancestors being stripped of their cultural/familial identities and having to join together and become a new, linked people. I've even seen an ADOS fellow traveler suggest that once Black Americans get their stuff together they will be better able to join up with and assist other Blacks around the world. I prefer that position as opposed to a strong dividing line between Black Americans, Diasporic Africans, and Continental Africans.
As for going back to slavery, I think ADOS in a way is trying to take the stigma away from what our ancestors endured. Isn't the mainstream approved New York Times's 1619 Project doing something similar and do you consider what the NYT to be doing, also 'sick'? Though slavery was horrific, and it's not our whole story, for many Black Americans, that was the origin story, the start of us becoming a distinct group, with our own history and ways of seeing and making it in the world. I sometimes feel we are supposed to be ashamed of what we endured, how that warped us, and that other groups of Blacks, with more intact histories, lineages, and cultures are supposed to be 'better' or have more 'roots' than us. But ADOS has helped me more realize that we have a valuable history and a worthy culture all on our own, and in many respects we are the global face of Blackness, which is sometimes bad, but often good, and there's nothing to be ashamed of; instead its something we should embrace. We should not feel like strangers in our own home, and definitely not allow other Blacks, or others fresh off the boat, to come in here and denigrate us (the CBS show "Bob Hearts Abishola" comes to mind; as does Cynthia Erivo's social media swipes at Black Americans. How do you expect a conscious Black American audience to accept a woman playing one of the greatest Black Americans to be contemptuous of the same people Tubman was part of and sacrificed so much to save?).
I am not going to support the Harriet Tubman movie, definitely after I saw Erivo's tweets and her fumbling non-attempts (IMO) to address the issue and not just make it about her and how she was 'hurt' by the reaction, or reduce the negative reactions to her casting as simply a lack of Hollywood roles in general for Black actors. Nollywood, and Erivo's perhaps easier chances to make it there aren't even brought up. It's Hollywood or nothing I guess for her. She wants the EGOT and she will ride the back of Black America to get it, even sullying herself (my words here) playing a Black American.
And this isn't solely a situation about "bad" Black Americans mistreating Black Brits/Nigerians, because some Africans don't like the casting of Lupita Nyong'o in the adaptation of Americanah because she is of a different nationality than the character she is playing. For me, it's about who gets to tell our stories, who owns our history-us or someone else? I similarly plan on not supporting the Daniel Kaluuya as Fred Hampton movie either. It's almost like they are slapping us in the face now with some of these castings. It's not about the ability of the actors here, but about their disconnection from the source material/history. Over the last several years we've had non-Black Americans play MLK, Coretta Scott King, Solomon Northup, Buddy Bolden, soon Harriet Tubman (and Ervio will be playing Aretha Franklin as well), and Fred Hampton, and these are all from American studios, which is different than American studios picking American actors like Denzel (Steven Biko), Forest Whitaker (Idi Amin), Will Smith (Bennet Omalu), Jennifer Hudson (Winnie Mandela), Terrence Howard (Nelson Mandela), and Morgan Freeman (Nelson Mandela) to take on African historical figures. It's like Hollywood is trying to replace Black Americans with non-Black Americans to better sell more palatable historical takes. This happens with White actors as well, though the history and context is different, it's Whites making decisions for and about other Whites, as opposed to White studios making decisions about Black actors and how to portray Black history. Further, I've never seen a White actor who plays a White historical figure denigrate the people that person identified with. Even Christian Bale, who did an excellent job as Dick Cheney in Vice, went after Cheney personally, and not White Americans as a group.
I remember reading about how Jamie Foxx and the Django Unchained cast had emotional reactions to that film, and then I think about how Denzel brought the fire in Malcolm X, Nate Parker's great turn as Nat Turner, and how Will inhabited Muhammad Ali. I don't see the same fire when it comes to non-Black Americans playing Black American historical roles, because IMO they don't have the same emotional connection. Doesn't mean they aren't good actors, or the films they've been in (like Bolden, Selma, or 12 Years A Slave, etc.) were bad films. Just that there's a disconnect there, like they can't fully go there. Not saying that with Bolden actor Gary Carr, who I didn't realize was British until later, but that film itself had some of its own issues, with a white director attempting to fill in the blanks of a historical figure with little written history. I didn't know anything about Bolden going into the film so I couldn't judge if the film got the man 'right' or not in any case. I also think RH's own film Marshall, the people involved there had more of an emotional connection, they knew how much it meant to honor the history in a way I don't think anyone who comes from another place, country, or culture will not automatically have because it's not really their history, it's not really them. Doesn't mean they can't do the work, study up on it, find ways to connect, but still that's different than coming up
in it, and being able to tap into
that experience.
If I do feel the itch to see Harriet Tubman once the marketing for it kicks in, I bought the Blu-Ray for A Woman Called Moses, and I think I'll just watch that instead.
https://ados101.com/about-ados
