I was at home contemplating the story about HBO Max temporarily pulling “Gone
With The Wind” from its schedule, a 1939 film that included my great-grand-aunt,
actress Hattie McDaniel. Suddenly, my disgust was elevated because it reminded
me of the treatment she received from Hollywood and society. Her story was among
the countless horrors from slavery to George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna
Taylor. We are talking about the destruction of millions of Black people, their
families and their communities, and this is still happening in the current year
of 2020.
In my own family, McDaniel, who won an Oscar for her performance in “Gone With
The Wind,” was one of the many prime examples of this systemic mainstay of
horror. Her parents, Henry and Susan McDaniel, were born into slavery. Henry, a
Civil War veteran, was denied his military pension for decades after sustaining
permanent injuries during battle. He continued to work tough labor jobs even in
his diminished capacity. Susan also was motivated by her older, performing
siblings (Otis, Sam and Etta) and longed to be on the road with them
entertaining the masses. A young, impressionable Hattie inherited their work
ethic and that drive catapulted her to success.
After her Oscar win, Hattie was still forced to play a maid or servant by
Hollywood in film after film. Her goal was to survive as well as entertain,
but she desired equal treatment just like everyone else in the world. She
served her country as the chairman of the Hollywood Victory Committee (Negro
Division) during World War II to entertain the troops and help sell war bonds.
Yet when she sought out better roles in Hollywood, they were not available to
her. Her wish to be buried at the Hollywood Memorial Cemetery alongside her
peers was rejected because of her skin color.
She and other Black cast members were not allowed to attend the premiere of
“Gone With The Wind” in Atlanta in 1939. When she bought a home in the West
Adams district in Los Angeles in the 1940s, her White neighbors formed a
“restrictive covenant” against her and other minorities to remove them from
their homes because they were Black. America has always looked at us as
subhuman.
Beyond my family, the trans-Atlantic slave trade — which included
slave-trading participants from Portugal, Italy, Denmark, France, Spain,
England, the Netherlands and North America — sold Black bodies like cattle by
the millions, and millions more were killed in the process. (...)
The Civil War (over 600,000 dead White bodies) was a war over who (and who did
not) have the rights of ownership of Black people. The countless rapes of
Black women. There were scores of White Christians (children included) buying
food and drink as they were entertained by the hanging of Black men and women
in trees. You have probably seen the photos, which can only be described as
sheer horror. And there they were on display with broken necks, bodies limp
and lifeless, battered, set on fire, and covered in blood from the gaping
bullet holes from the target practice. And today, we are still witnessing
similar executions such as the ones George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna
Taylor and countless others have experienced.
I have spoken with the staff and/or leaders of the Academy of Motion Pictures
Arts and Sciences, the Motion Picture & Television Fund, the Rocky
Mountain Public Media/PBS, Turner/HBO Max and others. Organizations are
donating money to the NAACP, but that is not the answer. One solution is to
make sure every city in this country regardless of ethnicity has the proper
infrastructure and economic inclusion. The process will be uncomfortable (as
it should be) for those who harbor a hatred and guilt they cannot reconcile.
This nation’s tragedy is that our very existence in America is the evidence of
a crime and the most constant theme of Black existence in America.
Kevin John Goff
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photograph
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