My father took five of his film students back in 1965 and went down to Selma, Alabama to film the now historic Selma-to-Montgomery March. He directed and produced a beautiful, haunting and poetic silent black and white 16mm film. I remember him telling me about how he defiantly drank from the "colored only" drinking fountains down south. Used the "colored only" bathrooms. We drove together through the south when I was very young on one of our numerous family trips. I clearly remember driving by a large billboard promoting the Ku Klux Klan. That frighting reminder of evil and shame will never leave me.
Today, everything on the surface is integrated. Obama is an elected president. Something my father would have stood up, shouted for and applauded. Fundamentally, I believe, as I know some Americans do, we still have a long way to go. The anger, jealousy and prejudice are so deep rooted that we now have the distinct pleasure of two senators who could no longer contain what must have been a bubbling boil of resentment.
Senators. Elected officials who are supposed to personify decorum and professional integrity. This most certainly never would have happened if our current president were Caucasian. Obama refined, diplomatic, principled enough to forgive, elegant, eloquent, self-admittedly fallible, a self-made statesman of the highest caliber must certainly rub salt in the so-called spiritual (and I use the term loosely) wounds of our less than honorable publicly-elected officials.
My father would have quite alot to say about this. He was a strong proponent of human rights. Liberated several concentration camps at the end of the last great war to end all wars. Taught us to passionately defend the underpinnings of ethical and moral justice. We are so lucky to be citizens of a democratic country where we can freely (obviously to a greater degree than other nations) express ourselves.
In fact, I wonder if we might not re-frame Senator Reid's comment in a light of gratitude. For it is men like him, that force us to face our prejudices and speak out against intolerance. And so ironic as it may seem I thank him for helping to remind me and others who feel the same way that though freedom of speech is our constitutional right we must do everything to guard against those of our fellow citizens who through their own fear choose to blind themselves to the larger and more noble intention on which our country is based. All those who are dying on the shores of Afghanistan and Iraq on behalf of democracy are betrayed by our "Senator Reids." These brave souls and others of their kind, fight and are permanently wounded by what may seem like a momentary lapse of self control.
My father once told us that he had so many children because he wanted to beat Hitler. Though my sister Joanna are childless, it is up to us, all of his children, to use our inherited creative gifts to continue our father's heroic struggle for civil rights and freedom of choice. Joanna, the electrician to make sure that there is enough light to guide our hearts, Aaron the actor to touch and move us, Billy the filmmaker, musician, sculptor and photographer to permanently dazzle us with his soulful images, Nina, beautiful, creative, inspiring to amaze us, Maciu the musician,artist and his two little girls-Madga and Abby to gift us with joyful wonder and I, the filmmaker, now writer, to help us laugh at ourselves.
Every time I watch my father's poignant film there's one shot that breaks my heart the most. It's the one where the camera swings back and forth in a regular rhythm. The cameraman held the 16mm bolex camera in his right hand backwards and let it move with his arm as he walked with and amongst the marchers. That cameraman was my father. He left this earth with a haunting reminder that reprehensible as our history may be, it most certainly doesn't have to be our legacy.
(c) 2010
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