Wednesday, April 6, 2011

The Lies in "Remember the Titans" and "Glory Road": Fabrications in Film that Power BRA

Collegiate and professional sports allowed positive views of Black people to be manufactured, and, in the process helped create Black Run America (BRA). Black superstar athletes became the heroes of a nation, whose inhabitants curiously do everything possible to move far away from majority Black areas.

Movies and television have also created artificially positive examples of Black people that have helped in the mainstreaming of a false picture of the Black community – see “The Cosby Effect” - through seemingly innocuous forms of entertainment.

A movie replete with lies, sold as the unvarnished truth
People like Bo Jackson, Hershel Walker, Michael Jordan, Will Smith, Denzel Washington and Morgan Freeman are profoundly more important and exert far more influence in mainstreaming positive views of Black people then all the Civil Rights agitators combined.

What happens when you make a movie about important milestones and teachable moments from sports history that depict the defeat of evil white America by the virtuous combined forces of Disingenuous White Liberals (DWLs) and Black athleticism?

Simple: You get to see the basic blueprints of how BRA was erected.

Glory Road and  Remember the Titans are films – all produced by Disney – that showcase the wonderful transition from the boring, monochromatic sports world of pre-integration days into the glorious epoch we currently live in that creates national heroes out of Michael Vick.

Both films took several liberties with the truth and successfully made the regrettable past before Black Run America (BRA) was erected appear far more lamentable then it actually was. This technique is utilized by Crusading White Pedagogues (CWPs) who routinely harp on Emmitt Till’s story as an example of pervasive racism by white people in the past.

That one moment can castigate an entire people and induce so much white guilt is astounding; such is the power of DWLs, CWPs, film, and television to inculcate the masses.

Glory Road is a homage (not a film) to the first college basketball team that started five Black players, Texas Western. They defeated an all-white Kentucky team, one game proving that segregation was insidious and that keeping Black players from playing sports at all-white schools would preclude national titles from being won.

 Sports Illustrated reported this in 1991:
But to everything there is a season...turn, turn, turn. An all-black team had never played an all-white team in the NCAA title game, much less beaten one. And it would never happen again...turn, turn, turn. Curiously, in the explosive mid-'60s, black-white was for the op-ed pages. In Games 'R' Us, college basketball, folks wore the phrase "color blind" on their cardigan sleeves. Black-white? Following the '66 championship game, Don (the Bear) Haskins, the 36-year-old white coach who masterminded the El Paso-based Miners to the title, met the small press contingent covering the game for a full 10 minutes, and black-white never came up.
"A landmark game?" said Tommy Kron, one of the Kentucky guards in '66, just the other day. "Nobody looked on it as that important. If it was, it was luck. Just a happenstance."
"That part [black-white] never crossed our minds," says former Texas Western guard Orsten Artis.
"Just business," adds Artis's backcourt mate, Bobby Joe Hill. "We weren't on a crusade."

Glory Road is a movie about a titanic basketball game oozing with racial connotations that completely manipulates the truth to make it more conducive to the agenda of BRA. Take a look at Reel Life from ESPN:
"Glory Road" is an inspirational and refreshingly funny story about a team that breaks barriers and overcomes deep-rooted prejudices against tremendous odds. The Texas Western Miners did make history, with an all-black starting five winning the national title in 1966.
In reel life: Just before the game starts, we see big confederate flags waving in the stands right next to the court.
In real life: No. But Fitzpatrick has reported there was a flag being waved high up in the bleachers. And some Kentucky fans did shower the Miners with racist comments during the game.
In reel life: After the Miners beat the Wildcats, Kentucky's players and Adolph Rupp refuse to shake hands with their opponents.
In real life: "One thing I want to say is that the Kentucky players could not have been more gracious after the game," Haskins told the El Paso Times. "Rupp, well, I don't know ... but I do know he shook hands."
In film and on television, lazy script writers can establish quickly that a character is an antagonist by having them wave a Confederate flag, use the-word-that-must-not-be-named, or making derogatory comments about affirmative action.

Glory Road is a movie that perfectly encapsulates how educators teach students about America’s past. Every white person was waving a Confederate flag, though the images in Glory Road were made-up to racially sex-up the film.
One game changed everything

Who cares about the truth when pursuing the goal of buttressing Black Run America? Glory Road succeeded in this effort, though it bombed at the box office.

A film that became an overnight sensation and used as a cheap ploy by football coaches nationwide to fire-up their athletes before the big-game was far more effective at manufacturing guilt to power BRA: Remember the Titans.

The creative license exercised in crafting a fictional story paying homage to BRA in Remember the Titans is astounding. Outside of sports, integration has been a monumental failure. Entire cities have been abandoned to the fate of Black-majority rule, and even Black people flee these decaying metropolises.
y when the Black Undertow moves in. Cheap gas made this an easy decision, but a declining dollar makes this strategy no longer economically viable.

Thankfully, Remember the Titans shows us that all racial tensions dissolve immediately when a diverse football team brings home the state championship. The truth behind the events depicted in the film isn’t as acidic as what was produced for mass consumption by Disney, but would that have provided the necessary ammunition BRA needed?

Of course not.

What really transpired at T.C. Williams High School in 1971?:
Alexandria in 1971
In Reel Life: Alexandria, Va., is depicted as a town torn apart by racial tensions, and the forced integration of two high schools -- one all-black, one all-white, forms the core conflict of the movie.
In Real Life: Adrienne T. Washington, who attended T.C. Williams when it opened in 1965, wrote in the Washington Times that there was resistance to federally-mandated desegregation in Alexandria in the 1960s, "But the opening of T.C. Williams High School in the fall of 1965 -- not 1971 -- forced whites and blacks to attend school together for the first time. ... The movie's red-letter year -- 1971, when the high schools were consolidated after even more federal pressure -- came half a decade after many of us forged a path for the harmonious interracial relationships the film highlights."
In 1971, three high schools -- T.C. Williams, George Washington and Hammond -- merged, with T.C. Williams accepting only 11th and 12th graders, and G.W. and Hammond accepting ninth and 10th graders. Before they merged, they were not strictly segregated. Says Yoast in his DVD commentary, "There were quite a few blacks in George Washington High School. T.C. Williams had a few, and the school where I was (Hammond), we had very few, maybe three or four black students altogether."
Bass told the Greenville (SC) News that the racial tensions were much exaggerated. "They (the movie) had a community divided down black and white, and it really wasn't like that in 1971 Alexandria," he said, although he admitted that the Titans' championship run did help bring the community together.
"My friend Bill Yoast ... told me Disney had taken liberties with the facts, suggesting an overheated atmosphere of racial animosities and fears at the school and in the community that just hadn't existed," added Patrick Welsh, who taught at TC Williams in 1971, in a Washington Post article.






In Reel Life:At the start of camp, the team is clearly divided by race, and there's (diminishing) racial conflict throughout most of the season.
In Real Life: Both coaches and many players say that there was conflict, especially during training camp, but that it was because of competition for positions, not because of race. With three teams merging into one, many who had started at their old schools would be benched.
"In real life, it was more about jealousy," Doug Schneebeck, the son of a woman Yoast was dating, told the Albuquerque Journal in 2000. "Every player was worried about (his) position on the team. Everyone wanted to play. I think the kids were portrayed in a less positive light than was the circumstances."
Bass agrees. "I wanted to make the team," he said. "I think that's where most of the kids' minds were. We were just trying to play football."
Howard admitted he made some big assumptions when writing his script. "They didn't care if it was a black guy or a white guy taking their spot?" he asked, rhetorically, according to a 2000 article in USA Today. "Yeah, right. Who wants to say, 'I hated (black people)?' Who wants to say, 'I hated white people?' Who wants to say, 'We hated each other.' "

In Reel Life:In training camp, and again during the season, Ray (Burgess Jenkins) intentionally misses blocks, because he wants his black teammates to be taken down. Gerry (pronounced "Gary") Bertier (Ryan Hurst) chews him out for this, and later has Ray kicked off the team.
In Real Life: Ray is a fictional character, and the scenario is fictional.
In Reel Life: Before the first game, Coach Boone gives the team a pep talk: "Like all the other schools in this conference, they're all white. They don't have to worry about race. We do."
In Real Life: All the teams the Titans faced were integrated.
In Reel Life: In the championship game, the Titans trail 7-0 at the half, 7-3 at the end of the third quarter, and are still behind 7-3 with less than two minutes remaining and Marshall holding the ball. Even though Marshall can run out the clock and win, a Marshall player takes off on what appears likely to be a long TD run. He's tackled from behind by Julius, and fumbles. Rev picks up the fumble and runs in for the winning TD.
In Real Life: The real championship game was much less dramatic. Williams beat Lewis 27-0, with Lewis netting minus-5 total yards on offense.
Black Run America (BRA) needs myths, powerful myths, to keep afloat. Combining the power of cinema with the hero-worship of athletics and telling compelling stories –based loosely on fact- of overcoming racism offers a profound way to keep white guilt alive in successive generations.

Glory Road and Remember the Titans are two films that are highly fictionalized in an all-out effort of psychological warfare to destroy any positive feelings and attachments people might have for the United States before the implementation of BRA.

It should be noted that a Black screen writer, Gregory Allen Howard, wrote Remember the Titans and did un-credited script work for Glory Road. He basically discounted the idea that racism wasn’t the primary motivator for dissension among the Titans team, telling USA Today:
Was the racial tension at training camp depicted accurately in the film?
No. Coach Boone, Coach Yoast, and many players have said that there was tension at camp, but it existed primarily because of competition for positions on the team. "I wanted to make the team," Ronnie Bass says in an interview. "I think that's where most of the kids' minds were. We were just trying to play football."…Gregory Allen Howard rejects the current position of the players, "Yeah, right," Howard says. "Who wants to say, 'I hated (black people)?' Who wants to say, 'I hated white people?' Who wants to say, 'We hated each other.' "
In an interview with ESPN, Howard would continue to peddle the idea that his screenplay was based on truth, when in reality he changed around a story that was barely about race in an all-out bid to make the most beneficial film to Black Run America’s agenda. He created pure propaganda:
"Titans" was the true story of the triumphant 1971 season of the T.C. Williams Titans, a racially integrated high school football team in Alexandria, Va., led by black coach Herman Boone (Denzel Washington). "Titans" killed at the box office, grossing $115 million, doubling that total on DVD and, ultimately, outearning all sports dramas not named "Rocky," proving to studios that such inspirational (or is it "cheesy"?) fare can, indeed, lure today's jaded moviegoers to theaters.
… AND LOOK FOR A HERO WHO'S UNAWARE
"The first thing you look for is an underdog who overcomes great odds. But you're also looking for someone who's not a conscious hero. Herman Boone from 'Titans' was not trying to bring the civil rights movement to Alexandria. He wasn't into any of that s---. He'd tell you, even today, 'I just tried to win football games.' His intentions weren't particularly noble."
It’s said the road to hell is paved with good intentions. The building blocks used to construct Black Run America were made with incredibly flimsy material that can’t hold up to too many direct strikes. Movies like Remember the Titans and Glory Road are a reminder of the awesome power of sports to create positive images of Black people and, simultaneously, denigrate an entire people for “fictional” events.

Every “racist” white character in Remember the Titans was made up by Howard, who was more than likely the un-credited writer in Glory Road who introduced the Confederate flag (because all evil white people worship the Confederate flag…) to the climatic Texas Western-Kentucky game and also the person who wrote that the white players refused to shake the hands of the triumphant Black players.

Black Run America is powered by lies. Even in movies that ostensibly are based on “truth,” lies remain endemic to manufacture the necessary response to the story. That they must be told in the vilest forms of propaganda shows the fragility of BRA.

Both Glory Road and Remember the Titans can be interpreted as the Howard Zinn version of American history. Howard Zinn version of American history.  More children grow up identifying with these films and interpreting the past through these lenses.  Every high school athlete has seen Remember the Titans and Coach Boone is to high school football as Martin Luther King is to the political establishment.  Every avenue of society needs a patron Saint in BRA.  No stone can be left untouched, and guilt must be gleaned even when historical circumstances suggest otherwise.





19 comments:

Anonymous said...

Years ago I started boycotting race-based "true stories" at the movies. These films are almost always egregiously dishonest, often to the point that the story bears no resemblance to the truth.

Several years ago I read about a film titled "Pride", supposedly "inspired by actual events" about a black swim team and their black coach, Jim Ellis.
When asked about the authenticity of the film during the press day for Pride, the real-life Jim Ellis simply responded, "Well, they got my name right." He went on to say that most of the instances of racism depicted in the film never actually occurred.

Anonymous said...

In retrospect, I am pissed that I paid to see Glory Road. I was in high school at the time and I played basketball on an all White team (who beat an all black team during the season) and I just wanted to see an inspirational basketball movie. I had gotten used to seeing collective Whites as the bad guy (Mississippi Burning, Remember the Titans, A Time To Kill) but Glory Road pushed me over the edge.

I could wallow in White guilt for only so long, and then I could see.

Anonymous said...

This is the reason I stopped supporting PBS,they continue to depict racism (big bad whitey)in all of their historical series,Ive noticed theyve never repeated "The Donna Party series" ,Too many brave white souls

Anonymous said...

Pat Riley was a star player on that 1966 Kentucky team. He has some real clout and should come out and say that the racial abuse angle portrayed in this movie was horseshit, as was the alleged racist attitude of the Kentucky players. I guess he, like most everybody else, decided to skip this little bit of white guilt inducing garbage.

I never pay money to watch these corny black fairytales, in fact I don't watch them period. The story of the hardworking, good natured, smart and kind black kid who just wants a chance while struggling in the face of racist onslaught has been beaten to death. It's just not the reality that most white people deal with.

Honestly, most white people just want to live their lives in the society that we built, yes we white people did in fact build this country and everything in it, and be left alone. That's why we move to white friendly suburbs. I'm not interested in keeping black people down. I'm not interested in having black slaves. Don't want to put blacks in chains. Nope, just want to have the ability to live a good life and provide the opportunity for white children to do the same. But it's not enough, it will never be enough.

Bubo

Anonymous said...

And what about Hurricane where Rueben Carter is "robbed" in his title shot against Joey Giardello?.I reality Carter won the first two round while Giardello dominated the next 13.All newspaper and magazines from the time had Giardello as the clear winner.

Not the film though

Anonymous said...

"Aint no mountain high enough, aint no valley low enough...." dear God even that annoying ass song was sung in the halls of my high school when we were all supposed to sit thru such nonsense. So much crap wrong with Remember the Titans, i never knew much about the real life story at the time, but the part when they jogged to the grave site and old Denny goes on about "we're fighting the same fight that our brothers were fighting" I knew that a lot of this movie was thoroughly embellished.

On a side note, you have to love the part when they're at training camp and the black kid asks for a water break and Pompous Ass Denny punishes them all w/ up downs LOL! Do these writers not know that any guys who's ever played high school football doesn't dare ask for a water break if they know what's good for them? stupid stupid movie


Left Coast Dude

Anonymous said...

Another fine piece.

While not a sports movie lets not forget the granddaddy of BRA. The plagiarized and fictionalized 'Roots'. It played no small part in all of this.

Dissident said...

Great piece thoroughly deconstructing the black racial mythos. Once again SBPDL, a well written and researched article.

I can't wait for you to feature the Jamaican bob-sled team in one of your brilliant expose's.

I want to plug a web-site for those interested in learning more about the truth's of black and white sports, and how black athletic supremacy is largely a myth.

CASTEFOOTBALL.COM

Anonymous said...

I really enjoy the part of Reel Life vs Real Life. It really shows the true brainwashing that the movie industry is trying to accomplish. "Never mind the truth. We have an agenda!"

SG

Anonymous said...

"I can't wait for you to feature the Jamaican bob-sled team in one of your brilliant expose's."

Although very PC, "Cool Runnings" was a comedy, not a white-guilt sledgehammer.

Anonymous said...

If blacks were really as benevolent and well behaved as they were depicted in Remember the Titans, this website wouldn't exist. That is easily the biggest Hollywood fantasy. I played football from junior high through high school, and ran track.

There are so many stupid people in this country that get their "history" from tv and film because they're too stupid and lazy to pick up a book and read.

North West European said...

SBPDL, I love reading your movie reviews, they mirror my sentiments closely. After my eyes were opened I can I look back and remember specific episodes where I silently and subconsciously absorbed BRA propaganda. I remember enjoying "Remember the Titans", now I think it's preposterous. I guess white Americans must start to feel like the Germans the way they're vilified in each and every movie, the worst of which is "Higher learning" in my opinion.

Anonymous said...

The phenomenon isn't limited to sports flicks,either. And it's been like that for quite a while. A few months ago,I grabbed a copy of "Buckaroo Banzai-Across the 8th Dimension",since I was in a mood for some brain candy,and generally enjoy sci-fi flicks.

There were good aliens and bad aliens. The bad aliens were naturally dressed like white guys wearing business suits. The good alien was disguised as a Jamaican Rastafarian who could high jump an 8' fence from a standing start.

And this was in a relatively low budget,max-velveeta sci fi flick from 20 years ago. This is propaganda,and the only way it can be avoided is to take a video cam,go out in the backyard,and make your own movies.

Ex Gladio Libertas

Anonymous said...

Yes, it seems it is necessary to "invent" black contributions to Westsern Civ. CONSIDER THE FOLLOWING QUOTE ATTRIBUTED TO CHARLES DARWIN:

“Since the dawn of history the negro has owned the continent of Africa - rich beyond the dream of poet’s fancy, crunching acres of diamonds beneath his bare black feet. Yet he never picked one up from the dust until a white man showed to him its glittering light. His land swarmed with powerful and docile animals, yet he never dreamed a harness, cart, or sled. A hunter by necessity, he never made an axe,spear, or arrowhead worth preserving beyond the moment of its use. He lived as an ox, content to graze for an hour. In a land of stone and timber he never sawed a foot of lumber, carved a block, or built a house save of broken sticks and mud. With league on league of ocean strand and miles of inland seas, for four thousand years he watched their surface ripple under the wind, heard the thunder of the surf on his beach, the howl of the storm over his head, gazed on the dim blue horizon calling him to worlds that lie beyond, and yet he never dreamed a sail.” — Charles Darwin

A Equals A said...

"black contributions to Westsern Civ."

What have you personally "contributed" to Western Civ?

The answer: probably nothing.

Why call others out and hold them to standards you can't even hold yourself to?

Anonymous said...

Hey! Where are all the Africans? Why no comments comrades?

Anonymous said...

Anonymous said...
Yes, it seems it is necessary to "invent" black contributions to Westsern Civ. CONSIDER THE FOLLOWING QUOTE ATTRIBUTED TO CHARLES DARWIN:

Attributed? I hope you're just trolling. That actually comes from Thomas F. Dixon, Jr.'s The Clansman: An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan, pg 292.

B.B.

Anonymous said...

Why should I waste my time responding to such racist comments? The truth hurts and you are only speaking out of what comes from your hearts.

melva lynn said...

ITS JUST A MOVIE WHO REALLY CARES ITS ENTERTAINMENT THE PRODUCERS ARE STRIKING IT RICH THEY DONT CARE IF ITA 100% TRUE.... TRY TACKLING HUNGER IN AMERICA If everyone stands by what they are writing and feel so strongly about us blacks then why is most of everyone anonoymous or some other name this site is very lame and so are the people writing this stupid shit i will leave my name cuz i stand by whats right melva lynn vinson look me up on facebook