“Stamped from the Beginning” opens by asking its viewers a simple question: “What is wrong with Black people?”
In a conversational setting, any halfway decent person’s reaction would be a knee-jerk dismissal of the premise — either with a charitable “nothing at all” or a more blunt “what the hell are you talking about?” But in a theoretical context, the Black academics who appear in Roger Ross Williams’ new documentary think it’s a question worth asking. Given the anti-Black discrimination that began with the Transatlantic slave trade and continued through the Jim Crow era and persists in less overt forms today, Williams’ various talking heads argue that it’s fair to wonder what Black people did to deserve it.
It shouldn’t be a spoiler to say that the film concludes the Black community did not, in fact, deserve to be systemically marginalized for centuries. Instead, the Netflix adaptation of Ibram X. Kendi’s book of the same name seeks to explain the history of anti-Black racism without excusing it. Through conversations with scholars (including Kendi himself) overlayed with historical and contemporary visual aids, the film traces anti-Blackness back to what it sees as the first introductions of the very concept of race.
Williams explains that slavery has existed for the entirety of humanity, and that many of the earliest slaves were white Europeans. What changed the dynamic, in his view, was the collective realization in the 1400s that importing slaves from Africa to Europe made it instantly possible to identify escapees due to differences in skin tone. That marked the beginning of the centuries-old practice of treating Black people as second-class citizens, primed for exploitation.
From there, the film introduces audiences to a variety of cultural and linguistic tropes that its voices see as contributing to the long-term suppression of Black people. Subjects range from the “Black Jezebel” cultural archetype that depicts Black women as hypersexual in order to excuse sexual assaults, to the ongoing narrative that Black people can only advocate for their own liberation through the voices of white allies. Rather than blatant discrimination, the film seeks to highlight understated ways that various levels of society create the impression that Black people are somehow less deserving of justice than their white counterparts.
“Stamped from the Beginning” takes a generalizing approach, briefly touching on a large number of topics without going into real depth on any of them. That was certainly to be expected, given that it’s a 90-minute streaming adaptation of a pop academic’s book that was already aimed at mass audiences. That’s not a knock on the film, as it successfully offers a tasting menu of topics for people looking to inform themselves about America’s fraught history with race. But viewers who have previously explored race studies and critical theory might find that the documentary offers more of a quick refresher than a worldview-shattering revelation.
The complexity of systemic racism as a concept makes monocausal explanations and easy solutions difficult to come by. “Stamped from the Beginning” is at its best when it acknowledges that inevitability, and its weakest moments come when it attempts to defy that and offer easy answers anyway. At one point, a discussion about dismantling structural racism prompts a commentator to make a peculiar call to action. “I know it’s possible, because some group of people put this system together in the first place,” she says. “And if they can put it together, then we can undo the system.”
It’s a catchy turn of phrase, but it works to undermine the most powerful parts of the film. The best arguments about systemic racism — many of which are voiced in this very documentary! — stress the fact that no one person designed this system intentionally, with a singular design. Obstacles faced by minorities are often the result of dozens of unrelated choices that combine to create an unequal environment. That knowledge doesn’t minimize the importance of fighting racism — it gives people a reason to be invested without feeling like questions about discrimination are attacks on their personal character.
But even if “Stamped from the Beginning” frequently weakens its more nuanced scholarship by drifting into Kendi’s trademark good vs. evil narratives, it’s undeniably a well-intentioned film that gets many things right. Combining beautiful artwork with a variety of damning historical trivia, it’s an effective reminder that the only thing wrong here are the very systems that have been put in place to lead to the necessity of this very film.
Grade: B
“Stamped from the Beginning” will start streaming on Netflix on Monday, November 20.
