Tag: #blacklivesmatter

Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson

On By MezzoSherriIn Books Books Books, Life-Long Learning, Pop Goes the Culture, Practicing in the Heart, Topics of StudyLeave a comment

I never know whether to read the book before seeing the movie or vice-versa.

Luckily enough, I’ve studied enough literature and enough films to understand the differences between these two expressive languages. Different story-telling techniques make a great book as opposed to those that make a great film, and a film can err just as readily by being too faithful to the book it’s adapting as it can by disregarding too much of its source material. (Exhibit A: Kenneth Branagh’s Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.)

That perspective helps me regardless of which direction I travel (book-to-movie or movie-to-book) with a particular text.

A stack of leather-bound books sitting next to a small stack of film canisters.

Still there are times when I make a very decided choice of what direction I want to travel. It’s not always the same direction, ‘cos I’m complicated that way. Sometimes I make a very strong “movie first” choice, and sometimes I go all-in for “book first.”

With Just Mercy it was a strong “book first” directionality.

The book’s been on my radar for quite a while, and I remember hearing about the movie when it came out in 2019. Then it all came back more strongly onto my radar last spring, when the film was made available for free in the early wave of last summer’s #BlackLivesMatter protests.* When a co-worker shared this tidbit of news on our social email chain, there were several other colleagues who shared how the movie was totally good, but paled in comparison to the book.

So I moved Stevenson’s book closer to the top of my reading list.

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Belated Book Recs: MLK 2019

On By MezzoSherriIn Books Books Books, Life-Long Learning, Pop Goes the Culture, Topics of Study1 Comment

I’ve been wrestling with the notion of weighing in on what I am sarcastically calling the “Covington Catholic clusterfuck,” but I really don’t have any hot take on it that isn’t actively plagiarizing other people’s intellectual labor and insights. Here’s a few links and random thoughts:

  • On why that unedited video doesn’t actually exonerate these teenage racists: WokeSloth and Twitter.
  • On the general foolishness of chanting “build that wall” at someone whose ancestors were here LONG before yours.*
  • And here’s an extra thought (freely lifted from a friend FB page): would this whole sorry confrontation have been de-escalated earlier if there had been been more NPS Rangers on hand, rather than them being so short-staffed on account of the shut-down?

And that’s all I care to say about that tonight.

So, in lieu of socio-cultural commentary, what focus am I going to use for an MLK Day post?

Books, of course.

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Broken Windows

On By MezzoSherriIn Flagrantly Feminist, Practicing in the Heart, Topics of Study1 Comment

So, in the words of Morris W. O’Kelley, it is “That Time in America” again.

Freddy Gray died in Baltimore on April 19th, one week after an arrest and police transport experience that somehow left him comatose, brain swollen, with three broken vertebrae and an 80% spinal cord severance. Involved officers were suspended. The Justice Department opened an investigation.

Peaceful protests took place for several days without much media attention. Then a small percentage of the protesters turned to violence and property destruction–with, by the way, the active collusion of baseball fans and poor police planning.

And then the finger-wagging commenced. Which brings me back to O’Kelley:

This is that time in America when we stand around and ask “why would ‘they’ burn down ‘their’ community?” This is that time in America when we simultaneously act as if the precipitating event or parallel history are neither relevant nor worthy of addressing. . . . This is that time in America when once again, African-Americans are expected to play by rules not followed by others while also having the original issues ignored.

Yup. It’s that time again. Not that “that time” ever really went away in the first place.

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