Last night my wife and went to see the film “12 Years a
Slave,” the true story of Solomon Northup, a free black from Saratoga, NY who
was kidnapped and sold into slavery in 1841. Eventually, thru the help of
friends he was discovered and freed after 12 years. While the story of Northup’s
ordeal supplies the plot line, the real purpose of director Steve McQueen is to
bring forth in graphic detail, the utter brutality and horror of slavery
itself. There is one scene, where Solomon is being hung from a tree such that his
feet barely touch the ground so he does not suffocate; the camera fixes on the
hanging man for what seems like three or four minutes (but feels like thirty)
from all angles and I wanted to scream “someone cut him down!” But no one did, until
finally the master comes and lets him down. At several other points in the film
we watch slaves being brutally whipped and beaten and are then shown their
scar-striped backs. In another scene Solomon is ordered to whip his fellow
slave, a woman who earlier in the film has begged him to drown her and put her
out of her misery; Solomon does so unwillingly but it is either do it or become
the victim himself, and I found myself hoping that perhaps at least he could
whip her to death to fulfill the young woman’s desire to die – but to no avail
she survives. Even when Solomon is freed there is no sense of victory because
as the wagon taking him home pulls out, the camera focuses on all his fellow
slaves he leaves behind whose suffering one knows will continue. While the film
ends with Northup being reunited with his family, there is no joy. I was left
with a feeling of deep sadness over the reality of our history that has been
sanitized and glossed over, a past white America would rather forget than face,
a past we would rather rationalize than repent of.
While viewing the Nuremburg trials of Nazi war criminals
following World War II, journalist and philosopher Hannah Arendt was struck by
what she called the “banality of evil”; that is, how evil can become so
normalized that one can participate in evil without thought or deliberate
intention. As I watched “12 Years a Slave,” I was struck by the fact that the brutality
and inhumanity of the whites toward blacks during slavery was a given, and few
if any whites were either aware enough or courageous enough to challenge it. At
several points in the movie, various white characters had opportunities to take
action to help Solomon regain his freedom and yet backed away out of fear of
what might happen to them. This is how oppression works – it breeds fear in
both the oppressor and oppressed so that both are paralyzed by the system that
keeps them acting and being treated in unjust and inhuman ways.
While in one sense it is enough for us to look long and hard
into the horror of our American history to see what we can learn and change
from the past, I could not help but wonder in what ways are we, am I, accommodating
evils as horrific as the brutality of slavery. What goes on today in the name
of “civilization” or American freedom or Christianity that is so “normal” and
so “acceptable” that it becomes banal and thereby unrecognizable as the evil it
is? Several realities of our world come to mind: the
prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, many of whom who have never been accused of a
crime yet remain imprisoned after 12 years (ironic isn’t it); the subhuman
treatment of undocumented immigrants coming to this country to flee persecution
and suffering, only to be scapegoated and oppressed here; the use of military
drones targeting “terrorists” in remote
areas of Pakistan, which despite official denials more often than not kill and
main innocent victims in the name of our “freedom;” hunger, homelessness and
poverty in a nation where the wealthy 1% continue to accumulate while nearly
20% exist below the official poverty line (which itself is not a true standard
of poverty). I could go on, but my point is simple – we are not so far removed
from the same conditions portrayed in “12 Years a Slave.”
Of the banality of evil Hannah Arendt wrote: “The sad truth
is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or
evil.” That is, the evil is so embedded in our systems and way of life, we see
it as normal rather than the evil it is. We don’t have to decide to hurt, maim
and dehumanize others, the system and culture in which we live does it for us
and we, sometimes unwittingly, but more often operating out of denial, just
choose to look the other way.
I wept at the end of the movie in part for the horror that
was American slavery (recognizing that in many parts of the world slavery still
exists), but I also wept because I realized how easily I go along with similar
evil in our day. The movie challenges me to keep a critical eye open and to
look at the evils in our world directly, and not turn away no matter how
painful or uncomfortable or intimidating. I am challenged to be one of those
few who through history have been willing to risk safety, security and
reputation in pursuit of what is right. I am challenged to look into my own
heart and around my own community and to do what I can to remain vigilant, so
as not to be seduced by evil’s banality.
