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‘Passing’ brings Harlem in the ’20s to Netflix

By LAPACAZO SANDOVAL

Special to the AmNews

Harlem has never looked so beautiful as it does in “Passing,” the new film directed by Rebecca Hall based on Nella Larsen’s 1929 novel.

The film begins in the sweltering heat of a brutally hot, Prohibition-era summer. Most people of color understand without an explanation what “passing” means. And I suspect most white people don’t ponder it much since the color of their skin slides them into a box marked—so clearly— “Privileged.”

Just so that we can all be on the same uncomfortable page, “passing” is being of African American heritage, but so fair of skin and other features that the person can easily “pass” as white.

The film is shot in black and white; Hall (a first-time filmmaker) adds a delicate touch.

As it happens, this sweltering summer day will impact Irene’s life (Tessa Thompson) forever. She’s downtown on an errand to purchase a toy for her son, in a store filled with white people, and she’s visibly uncomfortable wearing a big sun hat with a veil. Hiding under the hat no one notices her but when she arrives at a fancy hotel to escape the unforgiving sun someone spots her dead on, and that someone is Clare (Ruth Negga), a childhood friend from Chicago, now unrecognizably glamorous and very white, with blonde hair, arched, lightened brows, and passing as a white woman.

There is something beautiful about the crackle in the air. The tension rises fast and hard between their silences. Irene’s anxiety peeks as this strange white woman begins to press her. Finally, it registers that this isn’t a white woman at all, it’s her old friend and more to the point, her old African American childhood friend.

Negga as the tragically drawn Clare commands attention and draws stares in every room she enters.

To Irene’s surprise, Clare has been passing as white for years and, to push the tension even higher, she’s married to a racist John (Alexander Skarsgard), a white man who believes that he’s married to a white woman. He’s also the father of her child.

But meeting Irene again tears open her closed doors and Clare can’t help being drawn to her Blackness like a moth to the flame.

So, behind John’s back, Clare begins to insert herself into Irene’s life and that includes flirting with her doctor husband, Brian (Andre Holland), and showing up at the couple’s handsome Harlem brownstone without an invitation. Did that white privilege rub off on her?

Clare is envious of Irene’s stability. Envious that she’s not living her life as a lie.

Envious of her bold Blackness. The story moves along like a jazz song with jazz-piano trills provided by Devonté Hynes score and set to the lush blackand-white photography courtesy of DP Edu Grau. Story-wise, not much happens. I’d offer that “Passing” is a series of moments held together by the beautiful cinematography and strong performances. “Passing” is Irene’s story, with Clare just a new diversion. It’s almost like we are living inside her head. Irene is as flawed and miserable as Clare. Irene’s as caught as Clare is caught, but by different circumstances. For example, the way Irene “Passing” (Netflix) treats her African American housekeeper Zulena (Ashley Ware Jenkins) makes you wonder if she has those “I am better than you” moments. This relationship also brings more dramatic tension without anyone raising their voices. “Passing” also touches on feeling like a victim (real or imagined) and it asks the question (without asking the question outright) what would my freedom be like, really, in a world that hates me just because of the color of my skin. Clare breaks down the reason she chooses to hide in the first act. It’s all about money and she wants that with the social status, and she’s willing to suppress her very DNA to get it. “All things considered, it’s worth the price,” she declares. Is it?

braced the Trump Title 42 policy, wholeheartedly it seems, using it more times in its first six months ‘The Harder They Fall’ brings life back to westerns than the Trump administration did

This has resulted in over 800,000 of the 1,277,858 total expulsions under Title 42. Thousands have been returned to Haiti, a country now being run by gangs instead of

Democrats will be wise to look at the loss on November 2nd as a warning if they continue to grant voters that helped them win es of government. If Republicans win back control of the House or Senate next year, Democrats will goat their immigrant base and dole

By LAPACAZO SANDOVAL

Special to the AmNews

Jeymes Samuel (“They Die by Dawn”) has shaken up the western genre with “The Harder They Fall” giving it a kind of rhythm that makes sense since Samuel is a musician-turned-director.

Perhaps Samuel’s a conductor as well because he assembled a perfect cast, all of them (each, and everyone) breathing life into some of the most interesting and notorious outlaws ever to ride the West. And since this is a revenge story, having that classic good versus evil is a fun ride.

I don’t believe that Hollywood will ever reach equality as it relates to race. I strongly believe that they step into diversity only because it impacts their profit margin. And the western genre has always been populated by characters that are white, straight, and physically and mentally groomed to tackle the introduced to the stylish outlaw-revenge story under Samuel’s sturdy hand. It’s exciting to inhale the way he opens the film—he makes it clear that “These. People. Existed.”—as expressed in white letters punched through a black screen. Bam, do you get it? Now, this isn’t a fantasy Western. These characters are based on the lives of people that lived, real-life African American, Afro-Indigenous cowboys, including Nat Love (Jonathan Majors), Stagecoach Mary (Zazie Beets), and Cherokee Bill (LaKeith Stanfield).

The story takes place after the Civil War and the end of slavery. The gang arrives at an all-white town and the sight of these African Americans makes the

“The Harder They Fall” (Netflix)

Deavere Smith’s ‘Twilight’ revisits a painful time in history

“Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992” (l-r) Karl Kenzler, Elena Hurst, Wesley T. Jones, Tiffany Rachelle Stewart and Francis Jue

By LINDA ARMSTRONG Special to the AmNews

Anna Deavere Smith, a champion of the everyman, Black rights, and justice, is one of the most prolific playwrights of our time. A force to be reckoned with, she has revised her stunning play, “Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992,” from a one-woman play that she performed in the past, to its current incarnation as a five-actor play, being shown at the Signature Theatre and incorporating the murder of George Floyd into the scenario.

Smith’s continuity in detail, strength, and using actual interviews with people after the Los Angeles riots of 1992 in her revised version to bring the play into current times, is vividly evident and incredible. Smith is a different type of writer: she painstakingly conducted 320 interviews with people and chose ethnically diverse, economically diverse and strongly opinionated people to share their views about how the police beating of Rodney King— which was video-taped and went viral, after which the police officers involved were found not guilty and the resulting riots sparked fear, destruction and looting throughout L.A.—affected so many individuals in very different ways.

Throughout this two-and-a-half hour production, Smith takes the audience on a journey that includes brutally candid video of the Rodney King beating, video of rioters breaking into and robbing businesses, and video of businesses burning. When King was viciously attacked by those police officers and it was seen by the world, it set off a reaction of violence, destruction and frustration. Black people who were already marginalized felt completely ignored, disrespected and abused. When the officers were found not guilty, that was a slap in the face for Black people. It is astounding how Smith was able to piece together a variety of interviews with people, from real estate agents to Hollywood talent agents, to one of the officers accused of beating King, to Asian merchants whose businesses were destroyed, an Asian professor, Black community activists—Gina Rae, Elaine Brown, and Paul Parker, a Hispanic sculptor, the Black man that attacked Reginald Denny—a white truck driver, politicians, police commissioner, college students; the chief of the L.A. Police Department; teenage looters; the Los Angeles Times editor; Black scholars; ce-

lebrities; a store cashier, a pastor, gang leaders and the jurors in the trail against the police officers who violated King’s civil rights.

As an audience we sat there stunned, upset, angry at the images we were witnessing against this defenseless Black man. We sat there shocked as we watched the video of store owner Soon Ja Du murdering Black teenager Latasha Harlins as she tried to leave the store after arguing and assaulting Du. Du had to pay a $500 fine for killing this teenager, when her funeral cost thousands.

What you realize during this play is that people’s ethnic and cultural backgrounds matter a great deal with how they relate to or avoid dealing with their fellow man. People come together with innate prejudices and fears that can result in blind

reactions, which endanger others. Smith allows you to see the issues from everyone’s point of view. She lets you realize that nothing is black or white, but that life is filled with grays.

It is so sad that the racism and brutality that King faced in 1992 has been elevated in 2020 with the videotaping of the murder of George Floyd. It is disappointing that society has not realized the error of its ways. But it is encouraging that the death of Floyd sparked a reckoning in this country, added to by the coronavirus pandemic and the unbalanced impact it has had on the Black community. The death of Floyd served as an awakening of a spirit, of demanding better for our people in every venue, whether it be business, theater, community or healthcare.

“Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992” can easily boast five of the most versatile, honed actors you will see on a stage. The non-traditional casting has run amuck in a great way, as women play men and men play women and do it all completely believably. The actors, who take the audience on a rollercoaster ride of emotions, include Elena Hurst, Francis Jue, Wesley T. Jones, Karl Kenzler and Tiffany Rachelle Stewart. Through these superb actors’ performances, you experience the trauma, the flippancy, the anger, the frustration and the devastation that the King beating and its aftermath caused for a community that was forced to look inward and deal with its fears, hates, prejudices and insecurities. A community where the violence caused everyone concern from the rich to the poor. Suddenly and for a time it seemed that nothing was off-limits. People may not have agreed on what happened, but Smith allows the audience to realize the perspectives people took. There are more than 70 monologues performed by this cast, which go by seamlessly under the flawless direction of Taibi Magar, each accompanied by a subject.

This revise of “Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992” is revolutionary!

Francis Jue in a scene from “Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992”

A scene from “Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992” (l-r) Karl Kenzler, Wesley T. Jones, Tiffany Rachelle Stewart, Francis Jue and Elena Hurst

“Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992,” appropriately named one of the best plays of the last 25 years by The New York Times, will only play through Nov. 14 at the Pershing Square Signature Center in the Irene Diamond Stage, at 420 W. 42nd Street. Visit www.signaturetheatre.org for more info.

By HERB BOYD

Special to the AmNews

Three books arrived recently to join the veritable forest of tomes crowding the space around my desk. Soaring atop the stack, and rightfully so, was “Sacred Nile” (BCH Fulfilment & Distribution, 2021) by noted photographer/historian Chester Higgins with text by Betsy Kissam. The book is a fabulous collection of Higgins’ photos and on every page it’s perfectly accompanied by Kissam’s informative text.

From the opening photo and caption, Kemet (Egypt) where King Ramses is depicted kneeling to be anointed by the Holy Father to the book’s end with a beautiful shot of Tis Esat, the Blue Nile Falls, Higgins and Kissam invite and then enthrall readers with the wondrous history that has blossomed along the fertile river. Ancient Kemet, and especially Ethiopia and Nubia have been constants for Higgins’ camera and journeys, and that devotion leaps from the pages in colorful images of people, artifacts, and the Nile’s glorious effusions.

Everything about the book from its title to the combined wisdom of the authors is sacred. With each reading a Higgins photo or the words of Kissam takes you deeper into the mystery and majesty of these splendid kingdoms. This is a book that Dr. Yosef ben-Jochannan, Cheikh Anta Diop, and Dr. John Henrik Clarke would cherish, and it’s one that should stand for the ages it has so remarkably captured.

“Sometimes Farmgirls Become Revolutionaries—Notes on Black Power, Politics, Depression, and the FBI” (Black Classic Press, 2021) by Florence L. Tate and Jake-Ann Jones chronicles the social and political activism Tate delivered to a sundry of organizations at home and abroad. Tate joined the ancestors in 2014 but leaves behind an autobiography that vividly details her journey and commitment as a “movement” woman. Her eventful life spanned the civil and human rights era, and she was a ubiquitous presence whether at the side of Marion Barry, SNCC, Kwame Ture, or the cadre of Pan-Africanists she befriended and with whom she shared a foxhole.

Two revealing episodes about her life will probably attract readers, particularly those of her movement cohort, will be her disclosure of the clinical depression (obviously exacerbated by the FBI’s harassment) that marked her days and her honest confession about her support for UNITA, the Angolan organization funded by the CIA and South Africa. Both situations are dispatched dispassionately with the kind of integrity that often characterized her fight against racism and imperialism. She was a caring mother, a dyed-in-the-wool freedom fighter, and one whose story should resonate for her former comrades and future revolutionaries.

Closer to my Harlem doorstop is Kevin McGruder’s “Philip Payton— The Father of Black Harlem” (Columbia University Press, 2021) and to some extent it picks up where the author left off in his book “Race and Real Estate: Conflict and Cooperation in Harlem, 1890-1920.” In fact, it’s practically impossible to talk about one without mentioning the other, and McGruder’s meticulous concern for the facts and the community’s history are compelling. Not only in McGruder’s telling is Payton the centerpiece in Harlem’s development, particularly from a housing standpoint, but his life ramifies to touch so many vital aspects of Black America in the late 19th and early 20th century.

Payton, as McGruder notes, did not allow his race to stultify his march to success, “I have not found my color an obstacle to my success,” he said, recounting the words of Booker T. Washington. And in many respects, he was Washington writ large in Harlem where his pioneering efforts opened an ever-widening path for those Black Americans who arrived in the 1920s and 1930s. He was a feisty Black urbanite who was determined to accommodate the housing aspirations of his people. McGruder’s portrait places him warts and all in the vortex of a Harlem coming of age.

(Courtesy images)

Solange Knowles launches library of rare Black books

By JORDANNAH ELIZABETH

Special to the AmNews

It has been reported that creative artist, musician and filmmaker Solange Knowles has created a new library of rare books by Black authors. While she is a prominent musician, she has also built a limitless world of interesting projects including “performance art, music compilation production, podcasts, and beyond since 2013,” reports ZORA, though her creative firm, Saint Heron.

The Saint Heron Community Library is an outstanding rotating collection of rare and signed books by Black authors like Ntozake Shange’s “A Daughter’s Geography,” Langston Hughes’ “Shakespeare in Harlem” and Gwendolyn Brooks’ “Children Coming Home,” along with books by Octavia Butler and Audre Lorde and is “a growing media center dedicated to students, practicing artists and designers, musicians and general litAtlanta-based For Keeps Bookstore. “For this Saint Heron Library collection, it was really focusing on the people that we know and love, but we might not know the details of what they do. So highlighting these artists, I think that’s really important, because then you get to the different mediums and the different spaces that we can move throughout that we might not always be affirmed that we can move through,” says Duffy. Different books will be made available seasonally and will be curated by a myriad of guest curators. The selected literary works can be borrowed for free for a 45-day stint of time for people in the United States.

“We believe our community is deserving of access to the stylistically expansive range of Black and Brown voices in poetry, visual art, critical thought and design,” says Saint Heron. “The library’s focus is education, knowledge production, creative inspiration and skill development through works by artists, designers, historians, and activists from around the world.”

This is a rare and innovative opportunity to connect enthusiastic readers of Black literature to books that would be a challenge to find elsewhere. It is vitally important to celebrate and share literature by Black authors that would otherwise be incredibly hard to find. Black readers as well as book lovers from all backgrounds are being offered a chance to expand their knowledge on Black writers whose work has oftentimes been unsung or out of print.

To find out more visit www.saintheron.com

Solange at the stage of Piknik i Parken in Oslo (Tore Sætre (https://commons.wikimedia. org/wiki/File:Solange_(220707).jpg), https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode)