Multimedia Collection
Black is...Black Ain't
VHS
86 minutes
E185.625 .B5551 1995 + guide
When Marlon Riggs died of AIDS at the age of 37, he was completing a film which summed up a lifetime's work exploring African American identity. Variety concluded: "Riggs couldn't have left a more effective or challenging legacy to the black community."
Black Is...Black Ain't weaves together the testimony of those whose complexion, class, gender, speech or sexuality has made them feel "too black" or "not black enough." Scholars and artists, including Bill T. Jones, Essex Hemphill, Angela Davis and bell hooks, as well as ordinary African Americans, movingly recall their own struggles to discover a more inclusive definition of "blackness." Threading the film together, is Riggs' own deeply personal quest for meaning and self-affirmation as his health deteriorates.
In the end, Riggs locates the essence of "blackness" in African Americans' courage from slavery down to the present to improvise a positive meaning for their lives in the face of overwhelming discrimination and suffering. Black Is...Black Ain't is an important contribution towards building a black community based on profound empathy for the struggle for self-affirmation fought by each African American.
Contact Us: (541) 737-2538,
