Champollion High School is organizing a meeting on Monday, May 27 from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. on the representation of African-Americans in the 21st century in American politics and series.
We will have the pleasure of crossing two complementary approaches in civilization and art thanks to the following interventions:
1) Civilization: “The 2024 presidential election, Biden – Trump and the black vote. Electoral strategy and political challenges”, Grégory Benedetti, Lecturer in American civilization, ILCEA4 Laboratory, Grenoble Alpes University
In 2020, the successful candidacy of Joe Biden to the White House was partially secured by the support of the Democrat obtained from black voters. In the midst of the primaries, first, Joe Biden decisively rebounded in South Carolina after an initial slow start which could have ended his run to become the Democratic nominee. In the general elections, then, Joe Biden did better than his Republican opponent, Donald Trump, with African American voters. According to exit polls published in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election, which took place in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic and a resurgence of Black Lives Matter after the death of George Floyd, Joe Biden won 87% of the black vote, against 12% for Donald Trump.
In 2024, part of the reelection bid of Joe Biden will rely again on his ability to garner the vote of the most loyal constituency the Democratic Party has been relying on in election cycles for over half a century now, and the realignment that took place in the aftermath of the Civil Rights Act (1964) and the Voting Rights Act (1965). However, it seems that Joe Biden’s lead on Donald Trump among African American voters may not be as solid as it was in 2020 this time around. Some efforts by the Trump campaign to appeal to black voters could potentially weaken the position of the Democratic president with voters he desperately needs.
In order to get a large share of the black vote, Joe Biden will count on Kamala Harris, the first African American and Asian American woman to become vice-president of the United States, just as he will have to strike the right narrative to present a potential second Trump presidency as a dangerous prospect for minorities in general, and African Americans in particular. Undeniably, the question of representing Blacks, who account for 13% of the US population remains a crucial issue in a country that is rapidly diversifying and poised to become a majority-minority nation in 2045, according to demographers’ projections.
2) Art: “Representing the plantation, from the Land of Plenty to the locus horribilis (1915-2020)”, Clara Gonnet, former khâgneuse of the Champollion high school, graduate of the double master’s degree in history/GEM and author of the forthcoming book L’Amérique de l other side of the looking glass. Mainstream fiction and collective memory of racism in the United States (1990-2021)
Hollywood cinema was the vector of a vision of the past disseminated on a large scale and shaping the collective imagination: “Whole sections of the history of the United States are better known through the images transmitted by films than by pages of the most eminent historians” (Jacques Portes). In fact, the vision we have of slavery is conditioned by the filmic representations of the early 20th century. It is therefore relevant to question the evolution of these representations to understand the readjustment of collective memory regarding the condition of enslaved Black people. The way in which the plantation, symbol par excellence of this “very particular institution” (Peter Kolchin), is brought to the screen is a reflection of the place occupied by the ideology of slavery in society.
The first half of the 20th century was the time of the mythology of the Lost Cause. The South, defeated, suffered the occupation of Union soldiers after the end of the Civil War. A narration of the past is then put in place, influenced by the ideology of slavery. The idea of a great civilization and a lost pastoral Old South was born. It is sustainably maintained by writings, historiography and especially by the images of the Antebellum Years brought to the screen. Birth of a Nation (David W. Griffith, 1915), Gone With The Wind (Victor Flemming, 1939) and Song of the South (Wilfred Jackson, 1946) are the images of an ideology which makes the plantation a place idyllic and pastoral where masters and slaves flourish in good harmony. The Southern way of life is then based on the cultivation of abundant land and a racial order dominated by whites and perfectly accepted by blacks.
The end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st, echoing in particular the social and legal conquests of blacks and their access to civil rights, allowed directors of mainstream films to bring to the screen a fairer vision of the plantation. The latter is a place of contrasts, the lush setting of crimes and suffering. Realistic cinema then nourishes the collective imagination with images closer to the reality experienced by slaves, crimes committed on plantations but also the economic issues of slavery, which is no longer the prerogative of a mode of idealized life but a system that makes it possible to make the most of the earth’s resources. Beloved (Jonathan Demme, 1998), Django Unchained (Quentin Tarantino, 2012), 12 Years a Slave (Steve McQueen, 2013) and The Birth of a Nation (Nate Parker, 2016) highlight the painful memory of slaves and a vision more credible of life on the plantations.
Finally, the entry into the 21st century and particularly the years 2010-2020 mark a turning point in the representation of the plantation by mainstream cinema. Films that deliberately move away from realism powerfully demonstrate the enduring nature of racist and slavery ideology. Thanks to anachronistic, horrific and supernatural elements, the directors seize the memory subjectivity of Black people to make the plantation the site of a collective trauma, which still haunts American society as a whole almost a century and a half later. the abolition of slavery. The plantation becomes the fictional setting for the contemporary effects of the myth of the Lost Cause. With Bad Hair (Justin Simien, 2020) and Antebellum (Gerard Bush & Christopher Rentz, 2020), the horror genre allows us to introduce a critical vision of the history and current issues of racism in the United States. -United.
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