FIVE STARS 

Never a slave again, Thanks Abraham Obama!, February 2, 2013

By 

Jacques COULARDEAU "A soul doctor, so to say"

This is an admirable adventure film and it probably reflect a deep change in American culture concerning the Blacks, African Americans. So far the great authors and playwrights dealing with the Blacks only or practically only showed the villainous hardships of slavery. This film surely shows a lot of that, but with a different eye than in Toni Morrison's Beloved or many other novels. It shows slavery as the most cruel and absurd social system ever invented but once again from a new point of view, that of a black man who gets out of slavery by accident and gets in business with a German immigrant and shares with him the profession of bounty hunter. That means he can ride a horse and kill white people, provided it is under the authority of his white associate and under the sanctimonious authority of a court-ordered mission, that of catching some fugitive criminals dead or alive.

This black man has a vengeance to fulfill since his wife has been sold away to another planter, one of the worst in Mississippi. I will not deflower the film and tell you the details. This black man, Django, wants to find his wife and free her and in the end, of course, he will succeed, but what an adventure.

The new element in this film is that beyond slavery, and we are just before the Civil War, some Blacks are recapturing their desire to be free beyond their fate of obedience. That fate is explained by the planter as being the result of some kind of a "malformation" of the skull. It is of course the result of nothing but the Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTSS) they have been through in the daily suffering imposed onto them mostly for the pure and simple pleasure of the white planters and their white associates who are all shown over and over again as nothing but sadist dullards.

We are here in a postcolonial approach that is only possible because the Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome, also called Post Traumatic Slavery Syndrome is finding some kind of a solution, some healing procedure, some way of stepping over it and moving on. This has been a slow and long procedure and the Civil Rights movement, Martin Luther King, and now Barack Obama, and many others before and in-between, have been instrumental in that evolution. Blacks or African Americans are finally finding their self-respect, their self-freedom, their self-pride back and they can finally decolonialize their own souls, their own minds, as the CNN wrote so rightly on November 22, 2012. And when one's mind is free of any colonial heritage the sky is the limit and the White House is the first step to that sky.

Of course the film is unrealistic, the weapons are as effective as missile throwers if not even rockets launched by some drone from the sky. Of course there is too much blood. But it is the first time some of the cruelty of these slave-owners is finally shown, alluded to and defused into absolute punishment. To be free in your soul you must be convinced your torturers have been punished, even those who were silent if not consenting witnesses. That means you have to finally remember and reconcile with and recommit yourself to the future and no longer remain enslaved to the past. That means forgiving the descendants of your torturers and that means the descendants of your torturers have to finally step over their belief you are inferior, which makes them superior without having to prove it.

That's why this film is great. It is really the beginning of the end, maybe even the beginning of the day after the end.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

Comments

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Showing 1-6 of 6 posts in this discussion

Initial post: Feb 5, 2013 4:37:36 PM PST

derek nye says:

An apologist from France...now I've seen everything. This movie isn't a homage to the most unqualified President in our history; it's just another Quientin Tarantino shoot 'em up. And guess what? Most of the population in the US never had slave owning ancestors. Get over yourself. Unless of course you're trolling, and if that's the case... sorry, not funny.

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Your post, in reply to an earlier post on Feb 7, 2013 7:32:02 AM PST

Jacques COULARDEAU says:

Ah Ah!

Have you heard of Post Traumatic Slavery Syndrome by the best qualified psychiatrists and neuroscience researchers in the USA.

Note I am not from France, I am in France but I am from Gascony. Maybe you do not make a difference between Georgia and Massachusetts. True both states start with an S end end with a Y.

Have a good day. and be sure I am no apologist. I do not have time to waste on being such an intellectually reduced mind.

Jacques

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Posted on Feb 7, 2013 4:13:47 PM PST

derek nye says:

Wow, an arrogant tool as well! I'd be careful before you accuse another of being intellectually deficent. Yes, I've heard of your made up disorder - it is just that, a misnomer. And I'm sorry, but your words are exactly that of an apologist, whether you're from France or Gascony, though with your esteemed accredidations I'm sure you'd have picked that up. By the way, you usually end a question with a question mark, though again I'm sure you're already aware of such a grammatical disparity. Continue on with your ranting garbled reviews that you try and pass off as high intellectual writings. A soul doctor indeed; it may be time to leave a classroom, pull your lips away from Obama's rear end, and take a walk in the real world.

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Your post, in reply to an earlier post on Feb 7, 2013 11:09:09 PM PST
Last edited by you 6 hours ago

Jacques COULARDEAU says:

Poor Derek, nay Poor Derek Nye,

a·pol·o·gy (-pl-j) n. pl. a·pol·o·gies
1. An acknowledgment expressing regret or asking pardon for a fault or offense.
2. a. A formal justification or defense. b. An explanation or excuse: "The consequence of those measures will be the best apology for my conduct" (Daniel Defoe).
3. An inferior substitute: The sagging cot was a poor apology for a bed.

These nouns denote a statement that excuses or defends something, such as a past action or a policy
[I excuse nothing, I only defend the victims of the Post Traumatic Slavery Syndrome]:

arguments that constituted an apology for capital punishment
[I am 150% against capital punishment except for fleas head lice and body lice ];

published an apologia expounding her version of the events; a defense based on ignorance of the circumstances
[Sorry but I perfectly know the circumstances of the genocide and the deportation of Indians and the sadistic treatment of Blacks];

an untenable justification for police brutality
[I don't seem to support police brutality, or colonial brutality, or colonists' brutality, do you?].

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

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Posted on Feb 8, 2013 3:13:27 AM PST

derek nye says:

An "apologist" isn't a term that has anything to do with the noun "apology." But kudos on your ability to read the dictionary. It's a term for those who feel guilty over slavery, or any type of event that had nothing to do with you, and feel the need to make some type of amends to descendants who have no memory or were involved in said events in any case. That's what you are doing. There's no such thing as Post Traumatic Slavery Syndrome; no african American today was involved in that horrid time. It's simply used as an excuse and crutch by many today. I don't have what you're describing, at all; and most don't. It's a far left APOLOGIST misnomer. You feel guilty for reading and understanding history, and are unable to seperate yourself from said events. That's sad, in every sense of the word. Nothing poor about me, but you seriously need to get some help. You defend so called "victims" so vehemently, when there's no victim to defend anymore. The Civil War, and slavery, are long done. All that's left are those who perpetually use a historical event to mask their own deficinces.

I love when the so called "educated" try to talk down to those who I can guarantee have far more intelligence and education than you do, usually by attempting to qoute an innocous source and twisting it to your own end. You must fit into whatever university you wear your patched sleeve tweed coat at every day. In any event, you're incredibly boring, and I won't be responding anymore. And for the record, the great President Abraham Lincoln isn't and never was related to or involved with the farce that is Barack Hussein Obama; they don't belong in any type of comparison or combination, in thought or word.

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1 new post since your last visit

Your post, in reply to an earlier post on Feb 8, 2013 5:13:57 AM PST

Jacques COULARDEAU says:

Since Derek Nye will not respond anymore, which I regret, let me tell him, or you for you to tell him, that he is missing many points.

It is the Catholic Church of the USA that for the first time considered the Catholics, hence all Americans since the Catholic Church considers itself as universal, had to "remember, reconcile and recommit" themselves to serving justice for and to American Indians. I just wonder why Congress just passed big packages of reparations to Reservation Indians and Black farmers or sharecroppers, or their descendants?

Mr Derek Nye rejects Obama. Who cares? Obama was just very fairly re-elected which was not the case of some others.

But Mr Derek Nye should get out of his images: I do not teach in a public university. I do not wear patched sleeve tweed coats. I am not from his picture book.

The use of apologist with that meaning of his is so far not listed in dictionaries. I found another approach though:

"Starting Out as an Apologist
"People often ask, "How should I begin to train myself to defend my faith? How do I prepare for the inevitable knock on the door? I don't want to have to stand there open-mouthed." The best place to start your homework is the Bible. Almost every American home has one. It's either a well-worn, well-used book (if that's how it is in your home, you may skip the next several paragraphs), or it's the book with the thickest layer of dust. " (Robert H. Brom, Bishop of San Diego, August 10, 2004)

If Bible we take, let me ask you how many generations of children are supposed to be held responsible for the mistakes and sins of the parents? Isn't it 7 or so? Hence 7 x 30 = 210 years. There is still a lot of water to run under the bridges of your conscience before 1865 + 210 = 2075.

Your attitude and discourse, Mr Derek Nye is only there to disenfranchise yourself from your responsibility to yourself and to your fellow citizens, Blacks and Whites and Latinos and Asians. I regret that state of mind which is in many ways the negation of the mind itself.

Have a good evening.

Jacques