The
February 11, 2015
Portland Observer Black
History Month
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Page 19
O PINION
Selma puts Lens to our Past, Present and Future
Depicting a shared legacy
BY T ESSARA D UDLEY
The movie Selma is a story about
the power of people. Ava DuVernay’s
portrayal of the historical Selma-to-
Montgomery march for voting rights
brings a much-needed human touch
to our national remembrance of the
Civil Rights Movement, infusing a
story about politics, disenfranchise-
ment and brutality with irrepressible spirit.
People from all walks of life celebrate and honor the legacy
of Dr Martin Luther King Jr., watching his speeches, reading
his letters, and writing about his dream. But in all of this, the
man gets lost. His radical politics disappear beneath the
comforting illusion of successful integration; and his per-
sonal struggles are erased.
The United States government also celebrates King, but
with little acknowledgement for its own complicity in the
hardships he encountered. DuVernay’s film asks us to look
at this shared legacy in the face: While we share his dream,
we must also recognize the actions of our own government
in deferring that dream.
In the first minutes of the film, we see Dr King being
presented with a Nobel peace prize. At the same time, a group
of young girls are seen walking laughing and talking as they
go down the stairs of a church. The viewer realizes with a
sinking heart what is to come. The scene is shattered as the
bombing of the 16th St. Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala.,
unfolds.
The (thankfully) failed bombing attempt of the Colorado
Springs NAACP office only three days before Selma opened
in theatres calls into question whether we have really ad-
vanced quite so far as many believe. The recent public
scrutiny over police killings in cities across the nation also
has parallels with the past that are hard to ignore.
However, the most compelling story of Selma is not the
bombings, the peace prize, or the repression. What DuVernay
has done is to foreground humanity. This film is about the
flaws and struggles and sorrows and hopes of people; not
just Dr. King, nor John Lewis, Bayard Rustin, or Hosea
Williams. Selma is also about Cager Lee, James Reeb, and
Annie Lee Cooper. It is about living. It is about fear. It is about
courage.
In Selma, we see not only Dr. King, the legend, but Martin,
the man; a human being subject to depression and anxiety,
to sorrow and fear, to doubt and frustration. Here we see a
young John Lewis, young in his adulthood, but already no
stranger to struggle. And we see individuals like Annie Lee
Cooper, Jimmie Lee Jackson, and Cager Lee; ordinary people
engaged in struggle because they have no other choice. The
pain of beatings and loss of loved ones is endured because
it must be.
In this political moment, we are faced with a similar
struggle, facing similar pain. As the world has watched the
U.S. this past year, our citizens are once again being sub-
jected to brutal police repression—to tear gas, to beatings,
to senseless death. Watching Selma now evokes the pain
and fear many have been living with daily.
During the film, one audience member responded vocally
to the events playing out on screen, expressing visceral
reactions to the trauma. These moments of pain are a part of
our collective history, for good or ill, and the goals of the Civil
Rights Movement remain as relevant today as they were on
Bloody Sunday.
While it would be possible for a film about such heavy
topics to dwell in the pain, DuVernay’s film instead ends on
a victory note, with Dr. King’s speech in front of the Alabama
Capitol, the certainty of struggle balanced by an assurance
of commitment.
The road to justice, though long, will lead us all to glory
if we are willing to start, to take that first step, and the next,
and all the steps after it. Working together, we can bring
change.
At one of the Portland screenings of the film on the day
it was released, the audience ranged in age from young
people just entering adulthood to prominent members of
Portland’s black community who lived through the civil
rights era. To a young activist, it felt vital to share that space
with people of different experience levels. As Common raps
in the film’s anthem, “Glory,” “No one can win the war
individually; it takes the wisdom of the elders and young
people's energy.”
Despite the police violence rocking our nation today,
Selma suggests that we can win if we root our struggle in the
path laid by Dr King, John Lewis, Bayard Rustin, and so many
who came before. If we honor the struggle and commitment
of our elders—we can find strength and pride in our history,
and even hope.
Selma is a film for our times, a lens to see our past in our
present, and our path to the future. You can change the world,
it tells us. It is not just one person’s story, it’s the story of
our community, ready for us to write the next page.
Tessara Dudley is a poet and educator living in east
Portland.
Defeat Won’t Have Last Word in Game Called Life
Russell Wilson will rise
above the noise
BY M ARC H. M ORIAL
Far be it from me to join the legions
of Monday morning quarterbacks for
a game that has been, and will be,
dissected for weeks and years to come.
But whatever one may think of the
outcome of the Seattle Seahawks’ decision to have quarter-
back Russell Wilson throw from the 1-yard line in Super Bowl
XLIX’s nail-biting, final seconds, it accomplished something
more than sealing the fates of two championship teams. It
shifted our attention from “DeflateGate” and pre-game sniffles
to Wilson – where arguably much of the focus before the big
game should have been considering that this 26-year-old
from Richmond, Virginia stood on the precipice of both NFL
and American history.
Initially tapped by the Seahawks as a 2012 third round
draft pick, Wilson, with the presumed limitation of his 5-foot-
11 inch frame, was an underrated prospect and an underval-
ued entity. However, he emerged from his first season as the
2012 NFL Rookie of the Year – with his 26 touchdown passes
tying the NFL’s single season record by a rookie set in 1998
by Peyton Manning and the Seahawks 8-0 record at home
making Wilson the first rookie quarterback in the Super Bowl
era to lead his team to an undefeated home record.
By the 2013-14 season – only his second in the NFL,
Wilson had led the Seahawks to the team’s first-ever Super
Bowl victory, making him only the second African American
quarterback to win a Super Bowl (Doug Williams was the first
in 1988) and cementing his standing as a new force in the NFL.
So, with a media landscape as vast and varied as ours, why
was this story drowned out by so much less-worthy noise in
the days leading to the Super Bowl?
Whether you prefer to call it “DeflateGate” or “Ballghazi,”
the allegation of underinflated balls is a serious one for the
NFL to investigate. The act itself strikes at the very heart of
the game and its obligation to fairness. But for a nation
known for its love of feel-good, inspirational stories, putting
a spotlight on Wilson’s history-making rise could have been
a reminder that cheating allegations do not define the pastime
– and that “nice guys” are champions too. However, as many
national conversation the morning after the NFL’s biggest
game would have been about Wilson being the youngest
starting quarterback ever to win two Super Bowls, the only
one to win two Super Bowls in his first three seasons and the
only Black quarterback to have more than one Super Bowl
ring. Instead, many people are discussing an ill-fated pass
that Wilson refuses to become his lasting legacy. Making his
feelings clear on his Twitter account, he responded that “At
26 years old I won't allow 1 play or 1 moment define my career.
I will keep evolving. #Motivation.”
The act itself strikes at the very heart of the game and its
obligation to fairness. But for a nation known for its love of
feel-good, inspirational stories, putting a spotlight on Wilson’s
history-making rise could have been a reminder that cheating
allegations do not define the pastime...
media chose to not focus on this angle, in the few words that
I have here, I will.
Of course, there is more to Wilson than his prowess on the
field. Last year, he launched “Pass the Peace,” an initiative
to raise awareness and money for victims of domestic vio-
lence through his “Why Not You Foundation.” In an
environment where the NFL remains under a cloud of scandal
after a number of high-profile abuse cases, the story of
Wilson’s effort to help combat this insidious problem should
be able to generate as much press interest as Marshawn
Lynch’s media stand-off or Patriots’ QB Tom Brady’s pre-
Super Bowl cold.
If history had been on the side of the Seahawks, the
When Wilson was a teenager, his father, who died in 2010
from diabetes complications, would conduct mock interviews
with him, asking him how he prepared for an imaginary Super
Bowl in the future. This wasn’t his first Super Bowl run – and
I have a strong feeling it will not be his last. I believe Wilson
will rise above the noise of the NFL and the media’s silence both
on-and-off-the-field and continue to make history.
The final-minute interception snatched a hard-fought
victory from the Seahawks, but if Wilson’s story speaks to
us in volumes about anything, it tells us that defeat will never
have the last word in his game called life.
Marc H. Morial is president and chief executive officer
of the National Urban League.