Racism and art

Rating: Null/10 (11 August 2000)

Many experts have claimed that the greatest novel America ever produced was THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN, and that the greatest opera it ever produced was PORGY AND BESS. Many others have also found both works also racist, and they are--though not nearly as much as BIRTH OF A NATION. This is a film that is blatantly and even alarmingly bigoted.

However, bigotry infects many works of art from the past. Along with the American works above, I could name dozens of others, many of them quite beloved, from Shakespeare's MERCHANT OF VENICE to Wagner's PARZIVAL to Malcolm X's Autobiography. Even the New Testament, in the Book of Titus, second chapter, has a really hateful generalization about all people who come from Crete. The answer does not lie in condemning such works, but progressing beyond them.
BIRTH OF A NATION stands up as the ultimate test of racism and aesthetics. If one can appreciate it, then one appreciate any bigoted work of art; if one condemns it, then logically one should also condemn countless great works of the past and present. When you "search your conscience" while appreciating this film, you might apply that consideration as well, remembering that it's always easier to jump to indignation than to understanding.