The Common Crisis: Poverty, Race, and US Imperialism
Sunday January 24th - 7:30PM
The Maysles Cinema
343 Malcolm X Boulevard, New York, NY
Red Channels arises from its winter hibernation to co-present a special screening as part of the Maysles Cinema's series, "Winter Soldiers: Vietnam to Iraq and Afghanistan" (happening 1/20-1/27). We'll reunite with Kazembe Balagun and the Brecht Forum to take a look at David Loeb Weiss' 1968 documentary about a rally in Harlem against the Vietnam war; its title lifted from Muhammad Ali's famous excuse for refusing to serve in the Army, "No Vietnamese Ever Called Me Nigger."
We had previously screened this film at the Brecht Forum (8/5) as part of their "Black August" series within the summer "Visual Liberation Film Festival." It was then paired with the Frank Capra-produced propaganda film for the War Department, The Negro Soldier. On Sunday it will be shown with an essay film produced along with the Black Masculinity Project; a meditation on what effect the Vietnam War had on the communities at home.
The first time around the point of departure was race--the relationship between African-American struggles for civil rights at home, and motivations to contribute to US military efforts overseas. This second time I'd like to consider how communities respond to US imperialism--what did Harlem have to gain by participation in the Vietnam War?
This is our third collaboration with the Maysles Cinema, after our 10/26 program "Development, Displacement, Leisure," and the 11/18 program "The New Old New Left."
--This War at Home - Ivan Sanchez, Jr., Kay Shaw, and Nonso Christian Ugbode, 2008, 6 minutes
--No Vietnamese Ever Called Me Nigger - David Loeb Weiss, 1968, 68 minutes
TOTAL RUNNING TIME: 74 minutes | Digital Projection
Discussion with:
--Richard Adams - filmmaker; cameraman for No Vietnamese
--Kazembe Balagun - organizer, writer; Outreach Coordinator of the Brecht Forum
--Ivan Sanchez, Jr. - author of Next Stop (2008); writer of This War at Home
Co-sponsored by the Brecht Forum
(The Weiss film is available from The Cinema Guild.)