Sidney Poitier Pushes Back When Asked About His "Negroness."
Hi all,
A few days ago I came across a X post by Ian Rowe that showed a video clip of Sidney Poitier pushing back when asked by a reporter about his “Negroness.” In his eloquent, firm tone, he replies: “I am artist, man, American, contemporary. I am an awful lot of things, so I wish you would pay me the respect due and not simply ask me about those things.”
This video was made in 1968 and there really has not been much progress, especially in the media. The joke in my family over the years was that my father was on the media “black list” and would only be called when something “black” happened in the news. Rarely was he called for his opinion on other matters. Even I have been subjected to this — a film being reduced to a “diversity” project or being introduced as a “black filmmaker,” whatever that means. Poitier sounded the alarm decades ago and, sadly, we have not listened.
In other news, some of you complained you could not access the X link to the FAIR video featuring my father, Monica Harris, and Ildi Tillmann. Here it is the youtube version.
Also, we will be showing Killing America in Coronado this Sunday. Reserve your ticket here.
All my best,
Eli
I wish, so so deeply, that our course as Americans, black and white, had taken such a different turn after World War II. Mr. Poitier's face and eyes to me betray such a sadness and anger at the condescension that he faces due to the subject that he is addressing here. Why have we failed so badly? After the Civil War, until WWII, there were glimpses of such promise and possibility that all Americans could be judged solely on their merits and talents and that nothing else mattered. There to me seem to be so many instances of when we were just about to achieve liftoff, and were about to shake off all of the legacies of the past, only to be collectively smacked back down again by unseen hands.
As an American, dismayed and distraught by so much of what seems to be happening to my country, I feel very close to Mr. Poitier and I feel like I share his anger very deeply.
Poitier was also Bahamian.