Choose one of the movies

Please choose one movie to review using a minimum of three pages. Please include your name and the correct heading contained in the class syllabus. Don’t forget to use fully developed paragraphs, using 12-point, double spaced, Times New Roman font. Please follow all the directions if you would like to earn the full 300 points. Remember to write the essay in the third person and please include a bibliography.

1. Waiting for Superman (2010) by Davis Guggenheim

Please answer the following questions:
How does this documentary describe charter schools? What are the advantages and disadvantages of charter schools? Does this documentary have a bias against teacher’s unions? How does this documentary define dropout mills or dropout factories?

2. Scottsboro: An American Tragedy (2001) by Daniel Anker and Barak Goodman

Please answer the following questions:
How does this documentary describe the economic conditions in Alabama at this period of time? Who were the two accusers, what were their backgrounds, and how did they earn money? What happened to the African American teenagers while they were held in jail? What did the International Labor Defense organization have to do with this case? How was the defense attorney Samuel Leibowitz (a Jewish man from New York) regarded in Alabama?

3. The Central Park Five (2012), by Ken and Sarah Burns, and David MacMahon

Please answer the following questions:
What are the conditions that led to the convictions of the five teenagers in this case? Should a teenager be expected to withstand the type of interrogation they experienced from the police?
What role did the New York media play in this case? What was Donald Trump’s position on the Central Park Five? What condition are these young men in today? How did this event change their lives?

4. Food Inc. (2009), by Robert Kenner

Please answer the following questions:
How many days does it take a baby chick to reach full maturity in a commercial chicken farm?
According to this documentary, what is the relationship between U.S. governmental regulatory agencies and agribusiness? What is the link between e coli and beef? Why can’t a farmer save Monsanto seeds? Please define the term CAFO. How is it used in livestock production?

5. Slavery by Another Name (2012), by Samuel D. Pollard

How were African Americans exploited for free labor after the Reconstruction period following the Civil War in the South? What was convict leasing, and how did it benefit the Southern U.S.? How did the Birmingham, AL industrial base benefit from using African American prisoners? How were African American women used in the convict leasing system?

6. I am Not Your Negro (2016), by Raoul Peck

How does James Baldwin use the notion of Hollywood and its films to analyze race relations in the U.S.? According to Baldwin, what does the train scene in the movie The Defiant Ones mean to African Americans? What does it mean to white Americans, according to Baldwin? What did James Baldwin mean when he said whites need assurances about their relationship to black people in America?

7. Dark Girls (2011) by Bill Duke and D. Channsin

What is colorism? How has colonialism and the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade been influenced by colorism? What is the “Doll Test” that was performed on children in the “Brown V. Board of Education” Supreme Court case? Define the “slave mentality” in the documentary that promotes light skin tones. Why is the skin bleaching crème so popular in the world, even though it may cause cancer?

8. Elementary Genocide (2014) by Raheem Shabazz

According to Dr. Umar Johnson, what is the link between the 5th grade black males and incarceration? What is the relationship between prison construction and the black illiteracy rate? How are privatized prisons construction funded? How do these prisons use “slave labor” as a means of profit? How does the 13th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution promote slave labor? How have black Christian ministers failed the black community in relation to the miseducation of black youth and the prison industrial complex?

9. Hidden Colors (2011) by Tariq Nasheed

What are some of the original names of Africa? Why is Egypt considered the singular cradle of African civilization? Why is this factually wrong? What black man established the martial arts?
Why is it dangerous for black people to consider Jesus as being of European descent? What was the Moorish contribution to Europe? Which group of people were living in North America before the Europeans and the American Indians? How did the institution of slavery in the U.S. threaten capitalism?

10. 4 Little Girls (1997) by Spike Lee

Who was Robert Edward Chambliss? What was his role in the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church? Who was the Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth? How did the practice of liberation theology help the people of the 16th Street Baptist Church? What is the similarity between the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church, and the murder of the members of Mother Emanuel Church in Charleston, SC? What is the relationship between organized labor in Birmingham, AL and the Civil Rights Movement? Why was Birmingham, AL called “Bombingham”?

11. 500 Years Later (2005) by Owen Alik Shahadah and MK Asante

How was the Bible used to justify the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade? How was the story of Noah used to justify the enslavement of Africans? How is the argument that “Africans enslaved Africans” used to excuse the European domination and control of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade? How does Dr. Frances Cress Welsing describe the worldwide system of white supremacy? What is described as “the new slave ship”, or “the new practice of slavery”?
How can western Eurocentric forms of education arrest the development of Black people in Europe, North America, the Caribbean, and South America? What is the much-needed concept of “class-room re-education”? How does this documentary describe the need for reparations?

12. Capitalism: A Love Story (2009) by Michael Moore

Please answer the following questions:
According to this documentary, how would Jesus Christ feel about American capitalism? What is the relationship between Alan Greenspan and home equity loans? What is the relationship between housing derivatives and Goldman Sacs? Who was Larry Summers, what did Michael Moore say about him? What was President Franklin Roosevelt’s dream?

13. 1804: The Hidden History of Haiti (2017) by Tariq Nasheed

It is my hope that those of you who are the descendants of enslaved Africans and enslaved Indigenous people in the U.S., Caribbean, Central America, and South America, will consider this documentary.

13. 1804: The Hidden History of Haiti (Continued)

What two ethnic groups of Africans were on the Island of Hispaniola before Christopher Columbus arrived? Who were the Marrons? What ethnic group of Africans did they originate from? How many Africans were saved from enslavement due to the slave revolts in the Caribbean? Who was Macandal, how did he treat the enslaved black people who assisted the slave owners? Who was Dutty Boukman, what was his religious faith? What is Voodoo, why do people associate this faith with witchcraft and zombies? How is Haiti the first place where people were murdered using poisonous gas? How did the Haitian Revolution of 1804 influence Marcus Garvey, Elijah Muhammad, Noble Drew Ali, and Malcolm X? How did the Clintons (Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Bill Clinton) use charitable foundations to gain Haitian resources?