In my Pluralistic Classroom meeting on Monday, August 29th, our class watched a film

entitled, I am not Your Negro. This film was adapted out of James Baldwin's unfinished

manuscript that discussed racial issues in our country. While watching this film, I was shocked

watching all of the horrible things that African Americans were put through in our history. I

obviously learned about the Civil Rights Movement in grade school, but never in as much depth

as this film went into. The film remembered not only James Baldwin's personal observations of

the racist world he lived in, but it also followed Civil Rights leaders such as Martin Luther King,

Malcolm X, and Medgar Evers. Throughout the video as they would remember how people

were treated in the past all because of the color of their skin just had me absolutely in shock. I

really struggled with comprehending the idea of white kids and adults rioting and protesting and

spitting and cursing at black kids all because they were allowed to integrate schools. It was

inhumane and sickening to me. It is interesting to see all of the police brutality in the video as

well and thinking about how that still really has not gone away either. It is interesting to see how

although we are a much more integrated and accepting world now, there is still a lot of racism

across our country because the older generations lived and experienced that. I think it will be

interesting to see if racism can ever really go away completely especially as the people who lived

in a segregated and racist America die out. As horrible as the sounds, but think about it, racist

belief can't just disappear because a law is put in place indicating that discrimination based on

race is illegal. It makes me wonder like even though there are laws in place protecting people

from segregation, how many people with racist mind sets actually changed their mind sets.

It was also interesting in one of my group discussions after the film was over, we talked

about how all of the leaders that they talked about in the film were murdered during the

movement. My group talked about how Martin Luther King for example made such a large
impact in his life time. Imagine how much more he would have done for our world had he not

been killed so young. I also had not realized how young he was when all of that was going on. It

was inspiring to realize that even at such a young age, he had the drive to work to make a

difference for the country, I can do the same. Overall, I believe that this film was very impactful,

and it is something I could use in my classroom to help promote diversity in classrooms as well.