By Kelley Raleigh

There is so much to say about Steve McQueen’s “12 Years a Slave”. Powerful, beautiful, gut-
wrenching, shocking. I did not know that free men in the North were taken and sold into slavery in
the South. How did I miss that fact in all of my history classes in high school and in college?

We never dissected the economics of the slave trade. Rather, it was dismissed as something as a relic
of a bygone era.

Solomon Northrup’s story proved to be compelling, intricate, thoughtful and shocking. Yes, I used the
word shocking again. When we talk about human beings, the story is not simply black and white. You
don’t get into the gray part because the storytellers and/or society does not deem it to be the most
interesting part.

I disagree. In the gray area we learn the most…we find true beauty and reach higher levels of
understanding of our shared humanity.

It can also be the most difficult portion to look at because a thorough examination requires
compassion, empathy, listening, apologizing, embarrassment, neutrality and observation. Over the
decades, we lost the ability to engage in that kind of dialogue. Maybe we never really did it well, but
we definitely are not doing much of it now. Solomon Northrup’s story could not be told simply. It
only scratched the surface of a complex and painful chapter in our history.

Yes, slavery specific to the 1800s ended. We know about the key amendments, leaders and
proclamations of that period. In my experience, we never discussed why slavery existed and why
certain White people engaged in such violent behavior toward fellow human beings on the basis of
skin color. A lot of people wouldn’t like the answers because they exist in the gray area.

As a White woman growing up in suburbia, slavery and matters of race were rarely discussed.
Thankfully, my immediate family embraced everyone, did not discriminate, or ever participate
directly in the slave trade.

Racism is taught. As children, we pick it up from our parents through verbal/non-verbal cues and off-
the-cuff comments…continuing the vicious cycle. That’s the gray area.
I wholeheartedly believe things can shift. It will be uncomfortable, take some time and involve
people being honest with themselves and others. Feeling like a victim throughout our lives serves no
purpose.

We need candid dialogue…not merely a litany of apologies and complaints. Only upon reflection and
dissection of our conscious and subconscious views and attitudes can we achieve real progress.

I participated in a Q & A with Steve McQueen after a screening and one of attendees asked him what
he deemed to be the underlying theme of the movie. He responded, “Love, this movie is about
Love.” What an incredibly bold statement for a film that depicts such degrading, inhuman behavior!
Love for your family can get you through anything. Love for your fellow human beings can change
our vibration. Love for yourself can get you through the most harrowing circumstances.

If we extend love and it resonates throughout society, healing begins and we can banish blame, guilt,
shame and resentment. Let’s dive into that gray area together and make things better. What are you
willing to do?

.......

12 Years A Slave (my personal reflective movie review)

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Last night I watched the riveting movie – “12 Years A Slave” and living in a polite English town I
wasn’t surprised to see some people leaving the cinema half-way through the movie because of the
viciousness and violence that was on display.

But still I couldn’t help but be a bit annoyed by these ones who in their English politeness turned
their backs on the harsh real life story of Black man – Solomon Northup (played by Chiwetel Ejiofor)
who was a free man until he was kidnapped and sold into Slavery in 1841.

The brutality of Solomon’s story is no fiction. It is the ineffaceable reality of slavery in 19th century
America.

For me “12 Years A Slave” was a very powerful movie which brought me to tears and thoughts. It led
me to deep reflections about Legalized Slavery and all that it portended for our African brothers and
sisters who were captured and carried across the ocean to America in that era when the law made it
possible for them to become the “property” of any white person who had the wherewithal to
purchase them.

The law made it possible for them to be reduced almost to the level of livestock.

The law made it possible for them to be hunted down like animals when they ran away.
The law made it possible for them to be raped, bound, branded, beaten, whipped and even killed.

The law of Slavery was vile and vicious. And yet it lasted and lasted and lasted.

Those who defended and advocated for slavery of the black-skinned people said that it was good and
even necessary for the economy because black slaves worked the cotton fields and the wood mills
and the sugar plantations.

I guess one could say that the blood, the tears and the sweat of the African slaves kept the American
economy strong for over a century and whoever tried to fight the legal system of slavery was
considered an enemy of the good economy, the enemy of the people, the scum of society, the
unwelcome abolitionist.

But today, I can watch a movie entitled “12 Years A Slave” because slavery is now against the law in
almost every nation in the world. And those people who are dealing clandestinely in the buying and
selling of other human beings are considered traffickers and criminals, they are indicted and
prosecuted by law for their violent trade.

And we heartily celebrate this victory over violence from one end of the earth to the other while
aiming to bring a complete end to slavery.

We must not forget that all of this started from the heroic suffering and sacrifice of the abolitionists
who refused to accept a vile and vicious unjust law.

Those who challenged slave owners of their time, and wrote books and travelled near and far to
speak up for the life and dignity of the black people.

One of my favourite scenes in the movie, was the tense and chilling conversation between the slave
owner Edwin Epps (played by Michael Fassbender) and Bass- the Canadian construction labourer
(played by Brad Pitt).

In their brief exchange of words, Bass earned Epps’ displeasure by expressing his opposition to
slavery and in the course of their tense conversation, Bass spoke an unforgettable line that will now
be engraved upon my heart for the rest of my days. He said to the slave owner “laws come and go,
but universal truths remain”.

Laws come and go…

How true!

Legalised slavery has come and gone.

As an African woman living and working side by side with white people, you cannot imagine my
gratitude to the men and women who 150 years ago incurred displeasure and risked everything so
that one day in the future I can be where I am, do what I am doing and be paid justly for my skills and
intellect.

No law will allow anyone to own me.

No law will allow anyone to treat me like livestock.

No law will allow anyone to rape me, bind me, brand me, beat up, whip me, or kill me.

I am black, yet I am free, and yes I am protected by the law.

Because Universal truths remain…

This is why I in turn, have resolved to challenge the most unjust law of my time- the Law that gives
women and their doctors the right to kill the most tender unborn babies in the womb. The law that
tells us that a woman is a valued patient but her unborn baby is not. The law that makes it possible
for 90% of our Down’s syndrome babies to be killed before they see the light of day.

The law that makes it possible for millions of babies to be killed every year in the modern world.

Pro-Abortion defenders and advocates say that abortion is good for the healthcare system (probably
as good as slavery was for the 19th century economy).

They tell us that women’s health and wellbeing is dependent on the availability of legal abortion.

They revile nations with pro-life laws for not caring enough for women.

Great Nations like USA, UK, France and China channel government funds to sustain and support this
violent and blood-thirsty system.

And every day in too many “clinics” and hospitals in these nations, the blood of the most innocent
among us flows into surgical sheets and pans as their remains is unceremoniously thrown into clinical
waste bins.

And the Abortion doctors in these “modern” nations remain arrogant, proud and well paid to raise
their instruments of death against the tender babies in the womb. They kill and yet the law protects
them (just as much as the law protected the meanest of plantation overseers 150 years ago).

The Law of Abortion is vile, vicious, violent and surely will one day come to an end as long as the pro-
life activists of our time continue to thread the well-worn beaten path of the 19th century
abolitionists, that path paved with sacrifice and suffering.

As a pro-life activist, I have been called an enemy of good healthcare, I’ve been labeled an enemy of
medical advancement, I have been treated like a scum of the land.

But in all of this I remain resolute because I tell myself that I am black and yet I am free thanks to
those who courageously struggled150 years ago for a Law that would protect me today in every way.

So as I enjoy my dignity and freedom, I believe that I am duty bound to sacrifice, suffer and risk all for
a law that would protect every human being even the little ones in the womb.

I can no longer sit silent and pro-choice in the face of unspeakable injustice. Neither should you.

We must lay down our lives for the elevation of the universal truth.

And one day this universal truth will reign in every nation of the world. And Abortionists will have no
choice but to hang up their vile instruments of death, and those of them who continue to kill babies
clandestinely in the back allays will be considered as killers and criminals (as we consider the human
traffickers of our time), they will be indicted and prosecuted by law for their violent trade.

And good people and lovers of life will heartily celebrate this victory over violence from one end of
the earth to the other.

Who knows, just as I sat in the cinema last night to watch this movie titled “12 Years A Slave” , my
own descendants might one day sit in a cinema to watch a movie titled “9 Months A Foetus” !

My prayer is that on that day, they will hold up their heads because you and I would have succeeded
in establishing the just Law that protects (without discrimination) all human beings during their 9
months in the womb be they black, white, blond, blind or downs!

.........

While it is not the role of critics to tell people which films to see and which to avoid (audiences make
those decisions for themselves), let me begin by saying that if you have any interest in cinema – or,
for that matter, in art, economics, politics, drama, literature or history – then you need to watch 12
Years a Slave. If, as now seems possible, this very powerful film from British director Steve McQueen
achieves a clean sweep in the forthcoming best picture categories, it will be a rare example of awards
ceremonies getting it right.

That McQueen may be on the verge of becoming not only the first black film-maker to win an Oscar
for best director, but the first to do so while in possession of a Turner prize, lends enough historical
precedent to merit your attention. But more important is the reward of seeing an artist using the
medium of film for its highest purposes: to elevate, educate and ultimately ennoble the viewer by
presenting them with something that is visceral, truthful and electrifyingly "real".

Based on the 19th-century memoir of Solomon Northup (adapted here by screenwriter John Ridley),
12 Years a Slave follows the tribulations of an educated carpenter, musician and family man from
New York state who, in 1841, was kidnapped and sold into slavery in the south – a shockingly
common phenomenon. Stripped of his past, his identity and even (in the eyes of the law) his
humanity, the renamed "Platt" becomes the property of plantation owner Ford (Benedict
Cumberbatch), whose comparatively benign and sympathetic demeanour belies his slaver status. But
after incurring the ire of sadistic farmhand Tibeats (Paul Dano), "Platt" is sold down the river to Epps
(Michael Fassbender), a broiling cauldron of psychotic rage whose desire for slave girl Patsey (Lupita
Nyong'o) appears to be pushing him ever further into an abyss of uncontrollable cruelty.

Despite McQueen's repeated assertion that he has no distinct "style" (the functional marriage of
form and content is everything), critics have identified recurring tropes in his feature films, such as
the audaciously lengthy single takes of Hunger (the priest/prisoner interview) and Shame (Sissy's
song), which appear talismanic. At a deeper level, there's a consistent interest in the punishment of
the flesh that dates back to his early moving-picture projects (the wrestling/teasing of Bear) and
underwrites each of his three feature films, in which bodies are variously starved, entangled and
beaten in obliterating fashion. The stench of hanging and flogging that drifts in the steamy Louisiana
air of 12 Years a Slave makes watching occasionally unbearable – I looked away more than once; not
a criticism (we are worlds away from the exploitational tones of Django Unchained), more an
acknowledgement of the film's awful raw power. One sequence in which Northup is strung up like
some strange fruit from a tree while life on the plantation ambles on around him achieves a surreal
intensity that recalls the haunting poetry of Terrence Malick's existential war movie The Thin Red
Line.

12 years a slave

Lupita Nyong'o is fiery, fragile, and fiercely proud as Patsey.

More significant still is the role of music (composer Hans Zimmer earned one of the film's 10 Bafta
nominations this week), with McQueen building upon the experiments of Shame to explore further
the dramatic depths of song. Solomon is a musician; it's his accomplished fiddle playing that,
ironically, facilitates his capture and later leads him into the slavers' homes, where his fellows must
sing for their supper while weathering violent "domestic" abuse. Elsewhere, a striking counterpoint is
established between Paul Dano's weaselly, taunting rendition of Run Nigger, Run and the slaves'
defiant graveside rendition of Roll Jordan, Roll, the latter becoming an epiphanic moment that
pierces to the very heart of Northup's predicament.

The key to Solomon's existence is the suppression of his rage – he must feign illiteracy and
subservience to survive – and it's notable that for all the anger and shame that the film stirs up about
recent history, McQueen remains exceptionally even-handed and controlled in his treatment of all
the key players, black and white alike. While Cumberbatch's Ford displays the trappings of civility (are
his actions worse because he has an inkling of the slaves' humanity?), Fassbender has said that his
way into Epps's heart of darkness was to understand that he "loves Patsey", the young woman
whose body and soul he torments with fearsome self-loathing. In this key role, newcomer Lupita
Nyong'o is a revelation, quite the most bold feature debut by an actress in recent memory, her
performance fiery, fragile and fiercely proud.

As for Chiwetel Ejiofor, who was initially hesitant about donning the mantle of Northup, he is nothing
short of magnificent. Having made his big-screen debut in Steven Spielberg's flawed but earnest
Amistad in 1997, Ejiofor has turned his hand to romantic comedy (Love Actually, Melinda and
Melinda), earthy drama (Dirty Pretty Things, American Gangster), fantastical science-fiction (Serenity,
Children of Men) and even offbeat campy quirk (Kinky Boots) with confidence and agility.

Here, in a role that requires precise wordless expression (McQueen lingers long and often upon the
face that becomes his clearest storytelling tool), Ejiofor proves himself a master of physical
understatement, the clench of his teeth and slightest parting of the lips speaking volumes. His stance,
too (from upright to bowed and beyond), is crucial, with Patricia Norris's costumes adding both mood
and verisimilitude, while Sean Bobbitt's camera captures both the antebellum landscape beauty and
horrifying human tragedy of the south, aided by very handsome production design.

12 Years a Slave is not an easy watch and nor should it be. But with the exception of a somewhat
distracting third-act cameo by co-producer Brad Pitt, it is pitched pretty near perfectly in terms of
sheer narrative craftsmanship. This is an important story, told with passion, conviction and grace. See
it now.

......

In Toni Morrison’s well-known novel about slavery, Beloved (1987), the female protagonist Sethe is
distinctive as the ‘one who never looked away’ from the acts of violence she routinely encountered.
I have been struck by the recurrence, in the discourse surrounding 12 Years a Slave, of both critics
and ‘ordinary’ viewers expressing their sense that they ‘could not watch’ some of the violence
depicted in this film – that they had to avert their gaze. Mark Kermode epitomizes this response in
his Observer review, in which he asserts that he ‘looked away more than once’. There are of course
horrific scenes in the film, including the attempted lynching of Solomon Northup; the whipping of
Patsey; and her horribly quiet rape at the hands of Epps. But there is nothing gratuitous here;
lynching and whipping and rape were standard weapons in slavery’s arsenal, as most people already
know.

Let’s not forget, as well, that this film is only certificate 15; there are, in fact, many much more
violent films. So the common response, ‘I could not watch it’, begs a question about what exactly are
we not wanting to see. Is it the specifics of these violent acts, or is it the extent of the brutality that
characterized the slave economy? I once attended a reading by Toni Morrison at which a reader
claimed the acts of violence that the novelist described were ‘too terrible to read’ – ‘I just could not
read them’, she said. ‘Oh, you can read them’, was Morrison’s vehement response. ‘People had these
things done to them, they experienced them and they survived them. The least we can do’, she
pointed out, ‘is to write them, and read them, and talk about them’. So let’s not look away. To make
us look, and to see, is surely the whole point of this film.

Northup’s exceptional predicament?

Much of Solomon Northup’s moral indignation in this film, and hence the moral indignation of the
film itself, is rooted in the fact that he was not born a slave – that he has been kidnapped from his
life as a free, upstanding, productive and economically self-sufficient American family man. In 1853,
when the historical Solomon Northup published his narrative, Twelve Years a Slave, this particular
protest was in line with a key abolitionist strategy, exemplified by Harriet Beecher Stowe, that slavery
was wrong not because it was an absolute injustice, an indefensible violation of universal human
rights, but because it corrupted American ideals, American morality, and American family life. A
century and a half later, however, in a very different historical context, the film’s emphasis on the
contrast between Northup’s free and enslaved lives, its reiteration of the idea that he should not be
enslaved because he was not born into slavery, is a risky one.

Obviously to be born into slavery, to have never lived a free, self-sufficient and emotionally fulfilled
life does not justify the system, and nor should it provoke our moral indignation less. Yet when
Northup is reunited with his family at the film’s end we feel happy, the sentimental music plays, and
we feel relieved that somehow justice has been done. In 1853, the fact of Northup’s rehabilitation
meant something very different from what it should do now. Those born into slavery, who could not
read and write, who had never and would never know freedom, were still in that field at the moment
of Northup’s rescue. Should it not be they, rather than this film’s far less unfortunate protagonist,
who linger in our memory?

.......

It seems as if slave tales have been told from every imaginable angle, but the story of Solomon
Northrup as told in 12 Years a Slave sheds a slightly different slant by being told from the perspective
of someone who actually experienced it firsthand.

12 Years a Slave is candid look at the life of a Black man born free in the north, who is kidnapped and
sold into slavery after importing slaves from other countries had been outlawed in the United States.

Solomon Northrup (played by Chiwetel Ejiofor) is an affluent man with a wife and two children, and
lives in upstate New York. After accepting a generous offer of employment from two seemingly
established businessmen, Northrup finds himself in chains after being drugged at dinner. From there
he is shipped to the south to embark upon what can only be described as the most horrifying 12
years that one could imagine.

The poignant portrayal of racism, brutality and the utter lack of regard for human life that was shown
in this film did much to remind viewers of the not-so-far-in-the-past ideologies that this country was
built upon. It is also a stark reminder of what Blacks had to endure amidst their ever present struggle
to not only survive in a system that was designed to keep them in bondage, but also obtain their
basic rights as human beings.
As a viewer, I could appreciate the depth and strength of Northrup's character as played by Ejiofor
because I was truly drawn into his performance, as well as those of the supporting cast. Without a
doubt you will hate who you are supposed to hate, feel compassion and cheer heartily for all those
you are supposed to in this movie, as you will no doubt experience a wide range of emotion
throughout the two and a half hour time span.

Of course Brad Pitt, Alfre Woodard and all the other big names that you're used to seeing did their
thing, but honorable mention and kudos go to Lupita Nyong'o, who plays Patsy, a young slave girl
who is plagued with the position of being the object of her master's fancy. This young lady was a
standout performance and I really hope to see more from her in the future.

Though many cringe when previews for movies in this genre hit the media circuit, I personally believe
that these stories do much to remind us how far we've come as African-Americans, how much we
have to be grateful for, and why we should never EVER take the liberties that many fought and died
for for granted. All in all, I give 12 Years a Slave an enthusiastic 10 spirit-fingers and encourage
everyone to go support it at the theater.

Till next time!

.......