Fairchild’s Writing Maxims!
1. Writing is an inherently difficult task.
a. Creating something from nothing
2. Writing is the process of putting words on paper….
3. ….Good writing is the process of taking them off.
4. Most if not all writers “overwrite” (write too much).
5. Good writers edit, re-iteratively, to achieve succinctness.
6. To write well, write economically.
7. The quality of writing is inversely proportional to its length.
8. Creativity is 99% perspiration, and 1% inspiration….
9. ….And the inspiration derives from the perspiration
10.
Writing is a process.
The Process of Writing a Movie Review
1. Watch the movie
2. Take notes
3. Google search – How to write a movie review
4. Read one or more movie reviews (From Prada to Nada – thesis
(“…has more in common with a slapped-together TV movie than a
timeless comedy of manners”), characters & plot, conclusion (“a
predictable romantic comedy”)
5. Re-incorporate notes
Fairchild’s Notes on Sankofa
“If the lion wrote history…. The hunter would not be a hero.”
Web search:
Until Lions write their own history, the tale of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.
Notes: The Opening
Introductory refrain: “spirt of the dead: Rise up and claim your bird of
passage. Those stolen Africans, shackled [on slave ships….] “Tell your
story.”
The Diaspora:
From Mississippi to Brazil, Cuba, Florida, Jamaica, South Carolina, Alabama
to Surainam, -- castrated, tarred & feathered, bound & gagged, rise up and
posess your bird of passage.
Setting – Cape Coast, Ghana. Not a “castle,” but a fort (fortress), note the
seaward facing cannon.
Mona on the beach and to the Dungeons
Note fake hair.
Sankofa – staff with Sankofa bird…
“Back to your past,” “Return to your source,”
on Holy Ground
Dungeons – Portuguese, Dutch, British
“I’m not an African!”
Plantation Life
Shola – Hose slave, LaFayette Plantation.
Joe & Lucy – romance ?
Shola: “If you are born a slave, it is easier to accept things as they are, but
we had Nunu Shango (rebels)..”
Shango – trouble maker. Wants Shola to poison the family [and all who eat
the poisoned food,]
Nunu – strength, passion & tenderness. From Africa – living in her past.
Joe, her son, a head slave.
Mmbling, chanting – cracker killed – haunted by rape scene.
That cracker died!
Nunu – An Akan
Joe & Shola were baptized together.
Return of the runaways
James (White overseer)– uses Nword
Kuta, pregnant, caught, wanted to have her baby in freedom.
Notes on slavery & women & their children.
Bible Boy – look at that fine lady (Lucy).
Sorry, Massa, can’t count whip at the same time.” (form of resistance)
Public flogging
Flesh as a trap
Soldiers, stand firmly behind me.
Child birth (juxtaposed with Mona’s branding)
Night escapes – Nunu’s story telling – porcupine family, mythical chacter,
Afre-e “Special – someone who is born to see”
Joe – in Church
With Father Raphael. Dungeons with chapels, e.g., Elmina.
Madonna & Child, Father Raphael: crucified, nailed to the cross, “for our
sins,”
Noble Ali – feelin’ bad about Kuta, reminder of his own mother sold….
You can’t be the head man for the white man and not do bad things. (Nunu
to Noble Ali).
“I’m tired of being a brute – of being head man for the white man, it’s
driving me mad.”
“Snake eat the frog – we will have to eat what’s in the frog’s belly.”
Runways -- & Maroon societies
Plotting rebellion in caves.
Rape
Brave men are scarce.
Resistnace
News form the hilss: birth of 17 children, 10 boys & 7 girls. We have ten
mahetes, 8 forks, and 7 pick axe. All we need is seeks. We will take you
away, one by one. [underground railroad]
Rebellion – put down by soldiers. A few were rounded up, as examples,
put in boxes and placed high in trees until they died.
Nunu sold – only to return.
PART II
The snake will have whatever is in the belly of the frog.
( hhf’s interpretation: A violent suppression of a people’s will, will be
overcome only through violence.)
“I’M talkin’ to you boy,” “Everything all right, boss,” (Noble Ali). He
became “right.” Encounter.
Selling of people & family life.
Joe: You coward.
Nunu returns – too old to be sold.
Joe & Fahter R : confession – fight her. “I’m different,” (torment, conflicts,
made him mad. He knew he was crazy._) “Who’s son am I?
Love potion
Nunu – rotten fruit conceived – rape during the Middle Passage
Afre-e was Nunu – raped on the slave ship.
Cave – planning, initiation rites.
Shola ran away, beaten, “heathen, African.”
Shango – death preferred.
Sankofa bird – a gift.
“I became a rebel” [Encounter]
Joe’s love potion – he’s sick. Mother’s love. Back at Cape Coast. Diasporic
Reunion
Spirit of the dead – rise up & possess your bird of passage.
IDEAS
Birds of passage
Quest for identity
Preencounter to encounter  Nunu never had to; Shango never had
to; Noble Ali – when Nunu was sold; Shola, after her runway & beating; Joe,
on killing his mother…. Transformations
The Lion’s Tale: A Review
By
Halford H. Fairchild
According to an African proverb, “Until Lions write their own
history, the tale of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.”
Sankofa, written and directed by Haile Gerima—and theatrically
released in 1993—is African history from the point of view of the lion.
It at once explores the horrors of slavery – its brutality,
dehumanization and cruelty – and the indomitable spirit of Africans
yearning to be free.
Mona, a vivacious model in the modern era, returns to her ancestral
past as Shola, a house slave born into slavery on the LaFayette Plantation
in the West Indies.
Her story is one of transformation – from a quiet acquiescence to
slavery’s status quo – to one of rebellion and retribution. And so, too, is
the story of the African in America.
Shola narrates her story and the stories of 5 emblematic characters.
Nunu is the African born, wise and spiritually powerful woman who gives
birth to Joe, the offspring of rape on the slave ship. Joe, tormented by the
contradictions in his status, finds Christianity an incomplete solution to his
madness. Noble Ali, “headman for the White man,” finds salvation in
rebellion. Shango, who Shola loves, embodies the rebellious African spirit
that cried “death to oppression.” Finally there is James, the White
overseer, whose contemptuous disregard for the humanity of his captives
led to his own dehumanization – and demise.
Sankofa is a powerful film that reveals some truths about capitalism –
the wealth of the West was won through an ocean of blood.
The conquest of Africa was material, cultural, psychological and
theological. Bodies were stolen, cultures were replaced, identities were
stripped, and Jesus was Lord.
Gerima’s wondrous cinematography provides the connective tissue
between the horrors of enslavement with the joys of a liberated identity.
When the lions write history, they will discover themselves. [299 words]
A Writing Critique
Acknowledgements
1. Chelsey Kitazawa, Sunday 2:18 pm
2. Jerzy Kaufman, Sunday, 5:00 pm
3. Emery Hilles, Sunday 9:53 pm
4. Amanda Berry, Sunday, 11:30 pm
5. Jamie Katz, Monday 10:53 a.m.
6. Benjamin Cohen, Monday 1:44 pm
7. Jackson Watts, Monday, 3:58 pm
8. Gregory Wilson, Monday, 4:11 pm
9. Breahna Wilson, Monday, 4:54 pm
10.
Ann Belanger, Monday 5:23 pm
11.
Clara Lyashevsky, Monday 5:50 pm
12.
Scott Martin, Monday 5:52 pm
Fairchild’s Writing Maxims!
1. Writing is an inherently difficult task.
a. Creating something from nothing
2. “Writing is the process of putting words on paper….
3. ….Good writing is the process of taking them off.”
4. Most if not all writers “overwrite” (write too much).
5. Good writers edit, re-iteratively, to achieve succinctness.
6. To write well, write economically.
7. The quality of writing is inversely proportional to its length.
8. Creativity is 99% perspiration, and 1% inspiration….
9. ….And the inspiration derives from the perspiration
10.
Writing is a process.
Original
In the film “Sankofa,” director Haile
Gerima attacks a topic many will
not touch: the enslavement of the
African people. His 1993 drama
opens with the glorious West
African beaches, in a seemingly
colorblind society as a white man
poses a photo shoot with an
African-American woman. Almost
immediately an African man in
traditional garb comes up to the
couple, screaming at them in Akan,
the words which they cannot
understand but the tone of anger is
undeniable. He screams at the
white man to leave the sacred land
and insists that the black woman
return to her roots. This man is the
Sankofa, the guardian of the
grounds, who supposedly
communicates for spirits of the
dead, the actual word meaning
“go back and fetch.” This
definition proves extraordinarily
accurate as [131 words]
[the paragraph continues for a total
of 299 words]
Edited
Haile Gerima’s Sankofa (1993)
addresses a taboo topic: the
enslavement of African people.
His historical drama opens with
scenes of glorious West African
beaches, on which a White
photographer and an AfricanAmerican female model have a
photo shoot in the shadows of the
dungeons that had housed captive
Africans in centuries past.
A traditional African man, the selfappointed guardian of the “castle,”
tells the photographer (and other
White tourists) to leave the sacred
land and the Black woman to return
to her roots. The self-appointed
guardian is named Sankofa, which
means “go back and fetch.” This
definition accurately reflects the
storyline… 101 words
[½ of the essay was devoted to the
first 5 minutes of the film.
Mundane description, lacking any
sense of a premise in the making.]
Soon after Mona finishes
modeling for pictures she walks to the
After the modeling session,
Mona enters the dungeons previously
dungeon of the fort which used to be a used as a holding cell for slaves
holding cell for slaves not yet taken to
awaiting shipment to the New World.
the new world. In a discomforting
She is thrust back in time to the 18th
transition the fort returns to its 18th
century, with the dungeon is full of
century form and the dungeon is full
shackled Africans. She tries to escape
of young Africans in shackles. Mona
but is captured, branded, and enslaved.
tries to escape but is stopped by
[50 words]
European captors and subsequently
stripped, beaten and enslaved. [69
words]
….
Joe is half black, half white and caught Joe--half Black, half White--is caught
in the middle of an identity crisis. He
in an identity crisis. As a head slave,
is a head slave and feels more loyalty
he feels more loyalty to the masters
to the masters and the church than his
and the church than his own people.
own people. Several times he refers to He refers to the enslaved women as
the enslaved women as heathens, as a
“heathens,” the result of brainwashing
result of brainwashing by the priest he by a respected priest.
greatly respects. It is not until Joe
kills his mother that he realizes that his When Joe kills his mother he realizes
loyalty should belong to his people,
that his loyalty should belong to his
not to the enemy and that being a head people. Being a head slave does not
slave does not mean you are not a
mean you are not human. Joe
slave. Joe is as important a character
epitomizes the identity struggles that
as anyone in the film, he epitomizes
people of color have faced for
the identity struggles that people of
centuries. [84 words]
ambiguous race have faced for
hundreds of years. [119 words]
Randomly selected:
Sankofa explores almost every
aspect of slavery, many of which the
majority of the public have never
even considered. We witness the
brutality between the white owners
and the black house slaves, as Mona
is repeatedly beaten and raped, but
also the forced hostility between the
black house slaves and the field
slaves. Slaves who attempt to run
away are given lashings by their
own kinsman, which creates a social
divide between the house and field
slaves. Sankofa also conveys the
importance of Christianity and
religion in the film. The slaves are
considered savages by the white
man for praying to their own
“African god.” A corrupt priest, who
manipulates religion to further push
the acceptance of enslaving the
“savages” and dehumanizing their
culture, teaches a few house slaves a
poised version of Christianity. This
in itself touches on subjects many
people do not associate to slavery,
and Gerima does an excellent job
expressing that slaves were not only
abused physically, but mentally and
spiritually as well. (167 words,
paragraph randomly selected)
Sankofa explores slavery in ways
unknown to the majority of the
public. We witness the brutality
between the White owners and the
Black house slaves, as Mona is
repeatedly beaten and raped.
We also see the hostility between
the house and field slaves.
Runaways were lashed by their own
kinsman, creating more social
division.
between the house and field slaves.
Sankofa conveys the importance of
Christianity and religion: The slaves
are considered savages for praying
to their “African god.” A corrupt
priest, manipulates religion to
justify slavery and delegitimating
humanizing their culture.
Gerima does an excellent job
showing that slaves were abused
physically, mentally and spiritually.
(99 words)