Selma the 2014 Film Selma Captures a Essay

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Selma

The 2014 film Selma captures a pivotal moment in American Civil Rights history, focusing on the use the Dr. Martin Luther King's program of nonviolent collective action. The film can be analyzed through the lens of Omi and Winant's "By the Rivers of Babylon." Omi and Winant discuss the way Ghandi-influenced strategies created a global anti-oppression movement to challenge the core of white/European hegemony. The movement described in Selma was greater than itself; it represented the need for total transformation of American society. As Omi and Winant point out in Part One of "By the Rivers of Babylon, "The black movement served as a powerful catalyst because racial oppression was a society-wide problem which could not be confined within traditional political-economic boundaries," (38). A turning point in the film was when the white activists and clergy joined the march, echoing what Omi and Winant discuss in terms of how the black movement created opportunities for applying a broader critique of the hegemonic social order. Although Selma as a film remains focused on one facet of the movement, issues related to race, class, gender, and social power converged during the Civil Rights era.

Selma demonstrates how the black power movement differed from the conscientiously Ghandi-influenced nonviolent civil disobedience strategy espoused by King. Omi and Winant also discuss the significance of King's example, as by using Ghandi's methods, the oppressed people of the world could collectively unite under a common rubric.

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The movement helped to "redefine the meaning of racial identity," and not simply advocate for specific rights and freedoms (Omi and Winant, Part Two, 35). Ultimately, both the black power and King's movement led to a transformation of worldview that could affect all strata of society and not just African-Americans. King and other activists committed to the deeper transformation of society provided a new way of seeing race and personal identity. One thing that Selma also shows is the way blacks rebranded themselves as possessing the potential for "moral, spiritual, and political leadership of American society" because the movement "represented the highest and noblest aspirations of white America," (Omi and Winant, Part Two, 36). The nonviolence motif is particularly significant because it permits the emergence of a new consciousness that transcends abuses of power as a legitimate means to achieving the goals of equality and justice.

While the specific goals of the Civil Rights movement, such as ensuring equal protection under the law, were certainly important, Selma shows that Jim Crow symbolized a global cancer of oppression. There would be no use achieving small gains if the entire society were not transformed. Selma makes it painfully apparent what Omi and Winant discuss in relation to the "reactionary political mobilization" of the new right Part Two, 35). The scourge of racism has yet to be removed….....

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