Thursday, April 26, 2012

Echo, Book/DocuFilm Backstory: She Spoke


I am putting together a storyboard for my Book/DocuFilm Echo. I had a meeting last week with a really amazing filmmaker and his advice to me was to have something visual to show people as I am putting together my team. I thought that it was an amazing idea. I decided to do a picture storyboard with poetic words. I began my hunt.

Today I came across this picture of this slave women
(Source: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part1/1h308.html). I have seen it before but today it "hit" me in a new way. The vile muzzle device was used when slaves were accused of insubordination or eating more than their allotment of food. The device locked the mouth so tightly that the slave could not speak. 

How do we stop the growth of twisted roots of pervasive generational evil from bubbling up and sending out dark echos if we are not willing to confront the brutality of our past, grasp it, level it back into the blood soaked earth, listen compassionately to its blistered screams, acknowledge it in love, soothe it in unified sorrow and understanding, and restore it into the fullness of what it was ...always meant to be. so long ago. we cannot. its just that simple. problems die when the root is nor more. and the root of trafficking today greatly lies within the hidden sorrow of past day slavery. the notion of dealing with such a sorrow is for us all. all colors. all creeds. all races. we are connected. that is truth.

Sometimes Echo possesses me. When I see pictures like this I understand the force of the flow of the story of Echo even more. Past Day African American Slavery and Sex Trafficking/Human Trafficking (what we are experiencing now in our very own nation many decadesupondecades later) are a reflective mirror of one another. Think about it....long and hard. Greed, subjugation, family displacement, rape, brutalization, oppression. Different "plantation". Same evil brew. Same. Same.

Yes. Think. Selah....
And the souls of her eyes spoke: "Tell my story. tell. my. story." Let it be so.


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Echo: A Poetic Journey into Justice. The DocuFilm. Coming 2013 

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