The Black Power Mixtape:
This film is about: this documentary is narrated by award-winning African-American scholars, writers, artists, and activists. The film chronicles the 1960s and 70s Civil Rights movement, specifically the Black Power movement in America, and the Black Panther Party starting in Oakland California. There is also information about The Chicano Movement, Student Movement, and Black Feminist/Womanist Movement. Interviews with artists like Erykah Badu and activists like Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Toure) drive this deeply insightful analysis of the activism, art, culture, collective, vision and vibrancy of the Black Power movement. Importantly, this is a content warning as this film does include footage of police brutality towards African-American organizers and protesters (as well as towards various immigrant groups and people of color, including Latinx, and women). This film also includes footage of people suffering from drug addiction. The expanse of topics covered in this documentary is very engaging, and there is particular emphasis on Angela Davis’ outstanding book, Are Prisons Obsolete?
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLSnAheeqO4&t=13s (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLSnAheeqO4&t=13s)
After watching the Black Power Mixtape (Week 4), respond to the following questions in 2-3 complete sentences each:
1) Why is it significant that this documentary is filmed by Swedish film maker, Goran Olsson?
2) At the 1:15 mark, there is an interview with a white man, Al, the restaurant owner. What is Al’s description of life and work in America? How does Al seem to uphold an “American Dream” ideology? Even though Al believes there is equality for all in America, how do the people in his restaurant appear in terms of class, race, and access?
3) How does the immediate transition to footage of a cop with a shotgun (and the satirical addition of “pop” music) change the tone from the interview with Al? What meaning do you think the film maker intended?
4) At the 2:45/2:46 mark, what does the narrator mean by “a whole other side of America?” Why do you think he mentions an America that “the people on the beach know very little about?” Why does the narrator compare different areas of the same town at the start of this documentary? What point do you think he is making?
5) At the 3:08 mark, how do the interviews with two African American Hallandale community members complicate and challenge the ideology of “The American Dream?” What is their lived experience in America?
6) Based on these contrasting interviews and depictions of life in the same American town, what do you think the focus of this documentary will be?
7) 1967: Who is Stokely Carmichael? What point does he make when interviewing his mother?
8) Why is Talib Kweli stopped at the airport when he listens to a Stokely Carmichael speech?
9) What do Stokely Carmichael and Malcolm X believe concerning self-defense? How is this different than Martin Luther King Jr.’s views?
10) Who are the Black Panthers? What resources did the Black Panthers create for their communities? (there are over 60 programs and resources created!) Footage of interviews or speeches by Dr. Huey P. Newton, Bobby Seale, and Kathleen Cleaver.
11) At 41:26, what aspects of American life is Swedish media covering? Why does the TV guide editor, Merrill Panitt, attempt to discredit or dismiss Swedish media? How does he describe Anti-American?
11) In your opinion, does being critical of America make one “Anti-American?” Can criticism be a positive effort? In what ways can criticism have positive outcomes? (consider the current event story and the feedback from fashion blogger, Hoda Katebi:WGN Interview with Hoda Katebi on JooJoo Azad & Tehran Streetstyle (Links to an external site.)
(https://youtu.be/fNwzxPpRVoA)
12) What prison uprising took place at Attica, in New York? What were the prisoners demands? What action did the government take? What does the lawyer, William Kunstler, say about the imprisoned people at Attica, and the governments decision to kill them?
13) Who is Angela Davis? Why is she arrested?
14) What story does Angela Davis tell about a church bombing in her childhood city of Birmingham, Alabama? What does she say about her father owning guns, and what reasoning does she give about her father owning guns?
15) Starting at the 55:37 mark, What does Angela Davis mean during her interview from prison, when she is asked about her approval of violence, and she replies, “That’s why, when someone asks me about violence, I just find it incredible. Because what is means is that the person whose asking that question has absolutely no idea what Black people have gone through, what Black people have experienced in this country, since the time the first Black person was kidnapped from the shores of Africa?”
16) At the 101:05 mark, what does John Forté say about reading, “Are Prisons Obolsete?” while he was incarcerated?
17) At 103:37, what is said about reading and knowledge? What does it mean: Knowledge is Power? How are Talib Kweli’s ideas, music and perspectives shaped by the books he read growing up?
18) At 111:47, how is the heroine epidemic described in interviews? What involvement does the US government have in the distribution of heroine during this time? (suggested reference: excellent documentary about the US government’s role in distributing crack cocaine to low-income neighborhoods during the 1980s: (Links to an external site.) (https://www.paleycenter.org/2011-fall-planet-rock-the-story-of-hip-hop-the-crack-generation)Planet Rock: The Story of Hip-Hop & the Crack Generation)
19) What programs, started by the Black Panther Party, still exist in the US today? (there are dozens, please research for your answer).
20) At the 125:05 mark,
how does Robin Kelley describe the Black Power Movement? What three elements and legacies does he break the movement into?
