Revelations from 12 Years a Slave...

twelve years a slave I am yesterday I I spent the whole day yesterday basically just rest in and waiting for antibiotics to kick in which seem to happen around midday amazing how they how I you know you work all day before yesterday I was in the middle the show I was having to run out and buy cough syrup and stuff in something which just taken hold by longs in it I woke up and it was just on fire I the wonders of modern science ending his I am a member of the Screen Actors Guild a and after the American Federation of television and radio performers and after an sag have have merged and so I must say and as a consequence that I've been getting net DVD's in the mail from sag from the Screen Actors Guild forward the vote in for the SAG awards for the best movie and a I got a copy the so yes they I watched a couple movies its I is just you know I do watched American hustle which life out but was rather disappointing and watch twelve years a slave which I'd been wanting to see for some time and it's just getting off to a theater for me is quite difficult the given the hours I work in and I hate going to the movies on weekends I'm so this is perfect I could just I could just lay on the couch and watch it which is what I did %uh one with the Wii's and and then I started askin friends who might have you seen this the after americans i kno have all seen it I not I don't you know it's not a very large circle of friends it's I think three or four people that I've ask they've african-americans have said yes i've seen arm I don't know any way people who have have you since you haven't you jim have you seen yeah I you know I really for a long time I wanted to see it because I felt like okay I you know this is a horrible time in our history and I really should see this but it wasn't like I wanted to you know because it it's like this is just another reminder of the horrors that were visited on african-americans by frankly in some cases my ancestors I meanwhile my father's parents came over here from Norway in 1917 my mother's parents have been here since the sixteen hundreds James Madison as a distant relative of mine and he was a slave owner and so I was I i confess I I A was you know washer with some trepidation I gotta tell ya let me talk to the white people in the audience here you gotta see this movie because what other things the it does is that helps you understand that it's really not always just about race that it's about misogyny that it's about you know there's this power thing here his plantation owners are basically Kings with little kingdoms and they had I you know Lords under them or who were by and large white they had you know people working under them but those people were you know is servants in the system to as it were and then of course the slaves were at the bottom of the above the pile in terms of power and there was one scene where a woman who was the constantly sobbing because for children have been taken away from her and sold is hauled away because she's just disrupting things with her crying all the time and the hero of the the film is watching her being hauled away any basically can't do anything about it and it struck me that even if he had gone over and done something to help her in some way and there was really at that point her kids were long gone i mean you know maybe he could have taken a couple water or something but you know it's like it was the system and I just the feeling I got was the same feeling that I got the other day when when you know almost down the street as me for for a meal it's like it's not I mean we you know we all do it we can but it's not just the people it's the system this was this this movie beautifully portrays a mind-bogglingly corrupt system another AHA I gotta us is that I believe that the beginning up the me society mentality in the United States you know we've got basically two kinds have love societies in the United States to can to stew Kansas State's the red states and blue states and the blue states they there's this sense a you know this is a Wii society we're all in this together and the red states there's the sense so this is it this is a mi society and you get that you get there her ankle came clip and a few if you could easily find that play it it's because it perfectly exemplifies this this whole you know me society thing that it's all about so what you know I got mine know kinda thing and it struck me watching this movie that this me society mentality began with slavery and and and to prove that it's not always about a race that saw it's also about class in fact you could argue that it's even more about class in about race years Herman Cain express in the Sun if you don't have a job and you not bridged blame you I'll send you don't think there you go arm there's there's another the seen where this the black girl a patsy is hit with a bottle by the white slave owners wife and she demands that the the white slave owners sell patsy because she's got it that the white slave owners getting it on with Patsy or at least wants to and he says to his wife this is the woman who who is the wife of the plantation owner he says to his wife that he will sell you get rid of his wife before he will get rid of this female slave patsy and you get it that it wasn't just race it was misogyny that the power misogyny is just mind-boggling I mean we still don't have a female president the power misogyny I think trumps the power racism in many cases and that comes through in this movie this movie twelve years a slave it's just amazing amazing movie there's a scene where them the a woman whose run whose husband runs a plantation gives the hero the movie a shopping list and says take this to the store and get these things and says you don't know how to read or write to your knees as well sorta a little bit she says don't tell anybody you know it all there they'll kill you for that and you get it that the way that power was in force was by keeping people stupid by keeping people unable to you know it uninformed and uneducated and it hit me that's what we're doing with our public schools in with Fox News is like we're still working on keeping people stupid