THURSDAY, MAY 13, 1999

Rewriting history in films deceiving

There is an alarming new trend in movies and television programs to attempt to rewrite history, especially as it relates to African-Americans and the role they played in the development of this country.

In a recent episode of the X-Files, a popular Fox television series, an all black baseball team was playing against an all white team. It was set in the 1940s, before the integration of Major League Baseball.

An HBO movie staring John Cusak called "The Jack Bull," set in the late 1800s has black and white ranch hands working together. It later shows a trial of a white man, with two black men sitting on the jury.

This summer a big screen remake of the 1960s show "Wild, Wild West" will star popular black actor and singer Will Smith in the title role of Jim West. It is set just after the Civil War.

When asked in recent interviews how the issue of race will be handled in a movie set in that time, the company line is "with humor."

I personally see no humor in the prejudice of the past. A black man in Wyoming could not even vote for statehood in the 1800s, let alone sit on the jury of a white man's trial.

It is one thing to accept the past and hope to make the future a better place.

It is another matter entirely to try to rewrite history to ease the guilt that a country's people should feel for the actions of its forefathers.

Attempting to rewrite the past not only provides a disservice to the children of today, who often only learn history from what they see on television, but to the brave and dedicated black heroes who fought to achieve what some now grant characters in movies with such ease.

 

- Mark Blackburn

criminal justice major

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