Anyone who has made the effort and taken the time to read and digest Bernard Nicolas' essay The Existential Fears of the "Exceptional Nigger" can be forgiven for feeling a few pangs of discomfort over the news that 12 Years a Slave is coming to a classroom near you.
Nicolas does a great job calling out the white power-broker behind a "cultural product" that is generally getting a pass as a ground-breaking movie about race in America.
The plan to incorporate 12 Years a Slave into middle school curriculum would at first blush seem to be a step in the direction of America coming to grips with its past. It's a plan that will garner heaps of praise for the forward thinking folks at the studio and the publisher. Accolades will rain down on the capitalists at Penguin and New Regency.
Awards will be won. Profits will pile up. The white man's burden will be immeasurably lightened.
Few will stand up and ask why, more than 150 years after emmancipation, a black man in America is 700% more likely to go to prison than a white man in America.
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