One frustration felt among the experts was the problems that arose from “integration” born from the Civil Rights Movement. Integrating with white culture meant the systematic replacement of one’s African culture with a Western one. For example, consider the appropriation of rock, hip hop, and soul music by white capitalists by taking it away from Africans and watering it down for everyone else. Integration’s poor impact on African culture led many to state that aggregation should have come out of the Civil Rights Movement. After slavery, Africans should’ve remained within their communities and strengthened their culture, family structure, laws, governance, and most importantly, their own economy, one where wealth stayed within the community.
I’ve only touched on the tip of the iceberg. Out of Darkness is about as comprehensive as a documentary can get on the subject. Before I go on, my approach to reviewing films, particularly issues-based documentaries, is to consider the quality of information and its presentation over whether I agree with the premise or conclusions. A documentary is not good because I agree with it or bad because I don’t. The fact that I wrestled minute-to-minute with the film’s well-over three-hour runtime says something.
I found myself absolutely fascinated by the ancient history of northern Africa and the development of the Nile Valley Civilization. It matched with the history of the origins of man from my theological studies in seminary. I could go on about the discussion of religion, but that’s hardly the point. The historical and anthropological information alone makes this worth watching.
“…about as comprehensive as a documentary can get on the subject [of racism in America]…”
Critical Race Theory is the hot-button issue on the news and political chat shows, and both sides have bunkered in on their quick soundbites. Watching Out of Darkness, I realized just how little understanding I had of points and assertions of CRT. I also better understand the impact of integration on the African community and why there appears to be an intentional pullback to segregation. But, again, though I may disagree with the conclusions, I’m certainly not going to close the door to the discussion.
As someone who is not of African or European descent, it’s clear to me that Out of Darkness is a film made specifically for the African community. I’ll admit some statements made regarding Asians and Latinos were quite troubling. But, it was important to me to understand better the passion and philosophy behind Christ’s position on the volatile issue of race. Disagreement and dissonance are essential for discovering the truth and solutions, as we are too eager to shut down a debate over single moments of conflict.
That said, Out of Darkness is an important film to see for anyone who desires to jump into the world of political content creation from whatever side you’re coming from, especially if you want to understand the person sitting across the aisle from you.
Out of Darkness is currently available on all major streaming platforms.
"…an important film to see for anyone who desires to jump into the world of political content creation..."
