Sunday, June 21, 2009

sylvia d. hamilton

just watched the film, 'the little black schoolhouse' by sylvia hamilton. i'm ashamed to say it's my first one, though i intend to catch up on them all. sylvia lives here in the valley, & was my neighbour for a time. she focuses on african black history in nova scotia. her films have much to teach most of us as we do not learn this facet of our history. there are many aspects of our history that are left out for our convenience of saving face. the denial of past opinions & decisions provide a false sense of progress. but for the simple sake of humanity, for a real sense of progress for the 'human' race, we need to see, to understand & acknowledge history as it is seen through every child's eye & embrace every culture. if we ignore & dismiss the events of the past, we will not learn nor will we teach our children the importance of real compassion, we will strip ourselves, the human race, of our humanity.

this is another film by sylvia hamilton about 28mins available for free from the nfb.



one more from the nfb. one that i grew up occasionally seeing on cbc {one of three channels i had to get up off the sofa to change}.




good enough.

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