We . . . yearn for the stories of those who sustain humanity and decency in the face of devastating poverty and marginalization . . . for those stories . . . are, after all, far more representative of Black life than the wreck that is Precious’ life.
Embracing Precious:
The nuances and truths in the individual and collective stories we tell
by Imani Perry
These are strange days indeed. We are firmly into the 21st century, and yet the 80s are haunting us. For African Americans it is yet again a decade of dream and deferral.
Back in the ‘80s, for the young Black and college educated, the doors of corporate America and other professions opened up and broadened the spectrum of the Black middle class like never before. But also, back in the ‘80s, crack cocaine and the aftermath of deindustrialization crippled areas of concentrated blackness in major urban centers.
Now in the 21st century, a new Black elite floods the popular imagination as Capitol Hill, the president and his administration become more and more colorful. But also now, in the 21st century, the recession hits Black communities hardest, and at the intersection of devastating rates of imprisonment, joblessness, and inadequate education lie a critical, hurting, mass of Black Americans.
Then came Precious.
The film, released in the Fall of 2009 elicited a flurry of responses. The debates over the film were complex, nuanced, impassioned. In fact, among the Black intelligentsia there seemed to be more discussion about Precious than there was about President Obama’s education agenda, the stimulus package, or rising unemployment and imprisonment. That was troubling. But then again, it is easier to fire off a blog post or provide a commentary about a movie than it is to write a concise response to a complicated web of policy, law, and economics. However, I believe the film elicited so much engaged response precisely because it highlighted the challenge of this moment when it comes to race in America.
The film tells an individual story, a poignant one, about an abused young woman in Harlem in the 1980s. If we attend to the individual story, fictional though it may be, our hearts go out to Precious. We see in her story personal resilience, possibility, healing. Those are good things.
The film tells a collective story. The story it tells is about the devastation that the 80s wrought on Black communities, and the failure of the public school system to provide a path out for “the underclass.”
In both the collective story and the individual story, there is truth. There is a real Precious out there. The story is fictional, but it is human. The problem is that fictional stories, especially ones on film, don’t just stand as individual stories, but they do “representative work.” They become part of the way we make sense of the world in which we live. The story of one novelist or filmmaker’s imagination becomes the story of entire groups of people or “types” of people. This is especially true when the kind of social location depicted in the story is remote from the experience of the majority of the viewers.
Read the Full Essay @ Afro-Netzien
Embracing Precious:
The nuances and truths in the individual and collective stories we tell
by Imani Perry
These are strange days indeed. We are firmly into the 21st century, and yet the 80s are haunting us. For African Americans it is yet again a decade of dream and deferral.
Back in the ‘80s, for the young Black and college educated, the doors of corporate America and other professions opened up and broadened the spectrum of the Black middle class like never before. But also, back in the ‘80s, crack cocaine and the aftermath of deindustrialization crippled areas of concentrated blackness in major urban centers.
Now in the 21st century, a new Black elite floods the popular imagination as Capitol Hill, the president and his administration become more and more colorful. But also now, in the 21st century, the recession hits Black communities hardest, and at the intersection of devastating rates of imprisonment, joblessness, and inadequate education lie a critical, hurting, mass of Black Americans.
Then came Precious.
The film, released in the Fall of 2009 elicited a flurry of responses. The debates over the film were complex, nuanced, impassioned. In fact, among the Black intelligentsia there seemed to be more discussion about Precious than there was about President Obama’s education agenda, the stimulus package, or rising unemployment and imprisonment. That was troubling. But then again, it is easier to fire off a blog post or provide a commentary about a movie than it is to write a concise response to a complicated web of policy, law, and economics. However, I believe the film elicited so much engaged response precisely because it highlighted the challenge of this moment when it comes to race in America.
The film tells an individual story, a poignant one, about an abused young woman in Harlem in the 1980s. If we attend to the individual story, fictional though it may be, our hearts go out to Precious. We see in her story personal resilience, possibility, healing. Those are good things.
The film tells a collective story. The story it tells is about the devastation that the 80s wrought on Black communities, and the failure of the public school system to provide a path out for “the underclass.”
In both the collective story and the individual story, there is truth. There is a real Precious out there. The story is fictional, but it is human. The problem is that fictional stories, especially ones on film, don’t just stand as individual stories, but they do “representative work.” They become part of the way we make sense of the world in which we live. The story of one novelist or filmmaker’s imagination becomes the story of entire groups of people or “types” of people. This is especially true when the kind of social location depicted in the story is remote from the experience of the majority of the viewers.
Read the Full Essay @ Afro-Netzien
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