MovieChat Forums > The Birth of a Nation (2016) Discussion > Was it a mistake to teach him to read?

Was it a mistake to teach him to read?


Did his use of Bible verse against his owners lead to the rebellion?

Discuss...

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Or...

Was it more of a mistake to artificially create and violently perpetuate a system whereby hundreds of millions of people would be completely deprived of a litany of their most basic human rights over a 350 year period???





No man lies so boldly as the man who is indignant.

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Well the movie framed it as the one slave taught to read was the one who rebelled. Surely you didn't miss that implication.

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That's called compartmentalizing. And it's a lie too. There were actually dozens of slave revolts -- by lots of slaves who could not read. But in the name of preventing mass hysteria (and ESPECIALLY copycats) it was imperative that word of those revolts be silenced to the maximum extent possible.

Quite simply, he didn't rebel because he could read. He rebelled because he was sick of seeing and enduring the fundamental violence and inhumanity of chattel slavery. No more, no less.

Is that REALLY that hard of a concept for you to comprehend and accept???





No man lies so boldly as the man who is indignant.

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Again, not the point. The movie framed it as the one slave who could read would be the one to revolt, using his interpretation of the Bible against them. Again, that is clearly implied in the movie. Clearly.

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Regardless how they framed it in the movie, the events didn't happen in a vacuum. The issue of his reading is simply a misdirection from the truth of what precipitated ALL slave rebellions.






No man lies so boldly as the man who is indignant.

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The issue of his reading is simply a misdirection from the truth of what precipitated ALL slave rebellions.

Which is what I said. We are discussing the movie, not the issue or history of slavery. And that is how the movie framed it; that their "good deed" in teaching him to read was their nemesis that backfired on them.

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We are discussing the movie, not the issue or history of slavery.


You have no remote idea how psychologically gnarled and contorted that makes you sound!!! A movie about an authentic slave uprising that actually happened...but we're NOT talking about the issue or history of slavery. WOW!!! That's some really, really creepy rationalizing and compartmentalizing you have going on there!

Thanks Alex, but I think I'll pass on the rest of my turns.





No man lies so boldly as the man who is indignant.

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Wow, I give up now as you are committed to being (or at least acting) thick. It is what we are discussing about the movie. Re-read this thread if the concept is too hard for you to grasp.

And I sincerely hope you'll "pass" if you can't grasp the concept, but somehow my gut tells me you're the type who will persist.

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Why did you ask the question if it was clear to you?

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[deleted]

Only bad to racists. No one should live on their knees. Clearly God has punished the US down the generations for the terrible sin of slavery

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Well said.

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