The Great Debaters, un film cu genialul Denzel Washington intr-unul din rolurile principale, reda povestea unuia dintre primele licee predominant de culoare din Statele Unite, Wiley College.
Wiley College a jucat un rol important in miscarea pentru obtinerea de drepturi civile pentru populatia de culoare in statul Texas, iar unul dintre personajele acestui film, James L. Farmer Jr., a fost, alaturi de Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., printre altii, unul dintre liderii Civil Rights Movement din Statele Unite in anii 1950-1960, punand bazele Comitetului de Egalitate Rasiala (Congress of Racial Equality -CORE-), organizatie care a incercat sa elimine segregarea rasiala printr-o politica de protest non-violent (nesupunerea civila, un concept promovat printre altii si de Gandhi).
Filmul se contruieste in jurul personalitatii carismatice a profesorului de dezbateri a liceului Wiley, Melvin B. Tolson (caruia ii da viata pe ecran Washington), care depune orice efort posibil pentru a inchega o echipa de oratori care sa poata lupta cu brio in competitiile de profil cu liceele albe din sudul SUA din anii 1930.
In anii 1930, in America, discriminarea si segregarea rasiala erau la ele acasa iar a fi de culoare aducea dupa sine teama constanta de a fi linsat si impotenta de a te ridica si a-ti apara drepturile. A fi de culoare insemna a fi in mare parte lipsit de drepturi si de orice putere de protest legala.
De aceea, in acest context nefavorabil, faptul ca echipa de oratori a liceului Wiley, in intregime de culoare, ajunge sa infranga echipa de debaters de la Universitatea Harvard reprezinta o victorie a drepturilor omului si a libertatii asupra oprimarii de oricel fel, pana la urma. Triumful puterii cuvantului si a mintii asupra prejudecatii, habotniciei, rasismului, si, in ultima instanta, asupra unei legi nedrepte.
Alaturi de Melvin Tolson, care a devenit unul dintre primii poeti modernisti afro-americani, alaturi de activitatile sale politice, filmul mai creioneaza inca doua portrete care intruchipeaza personalitati reale: James L. Farmer Jr si Henrietta Bell Wells (in film, Samantha Booke).
Filmul este traversat de un fir continuu centrat pe ideea conform careia o lege nedreapta trebuie schimbata ("An unjust law is no law at all"). Iar pentru a schimba aceasta lege nedreapta, un alt motiv al filmului este "a face ceea ce trebuie pentru a putea face ceea ce vrem" (doing what you "have to do" in order that we "can do" what we "want to do").
Forta filmului sta, cred eu, in maiestria cu care acesti oratori fantastici reusesc sa isi sustina ideile si sa puna punctul pe I, cat si in pasiunea cu care fac asta, pentru ca, intr-adevar, ceea ce da viata cuvintelor este si personalitatea celui care le rosteste, iar felul in care le rostim este cel putin la fel de important ca insasi cuvintele, daca nu mai important.
Iar oratorii de la Wiley College te cuceresc fara drept de apel.
Iata cateva dintre cele mai importante pasaje ale discursurilor lor, care, sper eu sa va convinga sa dati o sansa filmului:
"The state is currently spending five times more for the education for a white child than it is fitting to educate a colored child. That means better textbooks for that child than for that child. I say that's a shame, but my opponent says today is not the day for whites and coloreds to go to the same college. To share the same campus. To walk into the same classroom. Well, would you kindly tell me when that day is gonna come? Is it going to come tomorrow? Is it going to come next week? In a hundred years? Never? No, the time for justice, the time for freedom, and the time for equality is always, is always right now!"
"A brilliant young woman I know was asked once to support her argument in favor of social welfare. She named the most powerful source imaginable: the look in a mother's face when she cannot feed her children. Can you look that hungry child in the eyes? See the blood on his feet from working barefoot in the cotton fields. Or do you ask his baby sister with her belly swollen from hunger if she cares about her daddy's work ethics?"
"Anybody know who Willie Lynch was? Anybody? Raise your hand. No one? He was a vicious slave owner in the West Indies. The slave-masters in the colony of Virginia were having trouble controlling their slaves, so they sent for Mr. Lynch to teach them his methods. The word lynching came from his last name. His methods were very simple, but they were diabolical. Keep the slave physically strong but psychologically weak and dependent on the slave master. Keep the body, take the mind. I am here to help you to find, take back, and keep your righteous mind."
"In Texas they lynch Negroes. My teammates and I saw a man strung up by his neck and set on fire. We drove through a lynch mob, pressed our faces against the floorboard. I looked at my teammates. I saw the fear in their eyes and, worse, the shame. What was this Negro's crime that he should be hung without trial in a dark forest filled with fog. Was he a thief? Was he a killer? Or just a Negro? Was he a sharecropper? A preacher? Were his children waiting up for him? And who are we to just lie there and do nothing. No matter what he did, the mob was the criminal. But the law did nothing. Just left us wondering, "Why?" My opponent says nothing that erodes the rule of law can be moral. But there is no rule of law in the Jim Crow south. Not when Negroes are denied housing. Turned away from schools, hospitals. And not when we are lynched. St Augustine said, "An unjust law in no law at all.' Which means I have a right, even a duty to resist. With violence or civil disobedience. You should pray I choose the latter."
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