Accidental Courtesy a timely look at race
Black artist’s interaction with white supremacists opens CUFF.docs fest
It is easily the most uncomfortable and heated scene in Matt Ornstein’s debut documentary, Accidental Courtesy: Daryl Davis, Race & America.
For a film that is largely based on the interactions between an African-American musician and his white-supremacist “friends,” that’s saying something.
It takes place at a restaurant in Baltimore. Daryl Davis, the mediasavvy and affable subject of Ornstein’s documentary, sits down with young Black Lives Matter activists Kwame Rose and Tariq Toure. In what starts as a pointed but relatively calm discussion, the two question whether Davis’ approach in showing racists friendly respect as he attempts to convert them has actually achieved anything and suggest he might better spend his time addressing the economic inequality at the root of racial discrimination in the U.S.
It soon devolves into a shouting match, as Davis condescendingly points out that Rose is a college dropout. Later, he gets an earful from community organizer JC Faulk, who refuses to shake Davis’ hand and scolds him for showing more respect to racist Klansmen than front-line AfricanAmerican activists.
“It was certainly not how I expected that scene to go,” says Ornstein, in a telephone interview from Los Angeles.
“I didn’t know if they would agree with Daryl’s methodology. But I did not expect the disagreement to be the most vehement one in the film, among people who agree on pretty much everything. That fascinated me too, that the people who disagree the most ultimately have the most in common.”
For the most part, Ornstein’s provocative film paints a flattering picture of Davis. He is a well-educated, charismatic activist and musician who has dedicated decades of his life to battling racism in his unique way. His approach is based on a logical question: “How can you hate me if you don’t know me?”
So Davis has taken to meeting members of the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist groups, not to angrily confront them but befriend them and eventually at- tempt to talk them out of their racist views.
When he’s successful — as he has been with a handful of high-profile former racists, including a few that appear in the film — he accepts their KKK robes and hoods.
He claims to have amassed a collection of 20 to 25 of such artifacts, which he is only too keen to unfold and display whenever a camera is rolling.
“I became aware of Daryl initially through a newspaper article about him,” says Ornstein, whose film will open the Calgary Underground Film Festival’s CUFF.doc lineup on Thursday at the Globe Cinema. “It just had the broad sketches. It was like: ‘Black musician goes up to KKK member in a bar’ or something like that. I was interested because race is such an ongoing issue and we really come at it from the same angle over and over again.
“Here was someone, for better or for worse, coming at it from a totally different perspective. I wanted to know more about why he did it, what he got out of it and what led him to that perspective.”
Still, the film may be most interesting when his approach is questioned. It happens in Baltimore, but also in a much quieter discussion with Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Centre.
He has dedicated his life to eradicating racism by attempting to sue the groups into extinction, a tact he sees as being much more effective than befriending them.
Some viewers may actually ques- tion whether Davis is doing more harm than good. His heart seems in the right place and there is certainly value in him converting former racists who then become role models for others who want to leave the white supremacist movement.
But there is also those he doesn’t convert.
His sit-downs with racists seem to send the dubious message that all opinions, no matter how vile or ignorant, are worthy of respect and courtesy. Then there’s the photos he poses and grins for, including some that show him shaking hands with racist imbeciles who haven’t renounced their views.
“Some of these people can point to Daryl when they are running for local office and point to a picture of them and say, ‘I’m not racist, this is my black friend Daryl,’ ” Ornstein says. “That’s a real offshoot of it. Daryl will tell you those people whose minds are changed and their children, people whose lives are directly affected by his contact, offsets the collateral damage of someone using him as an example of why they are not racist. But it’s certainly a discussion worth having.”
And the film has certainly been discussed, occasionally with fireworks.
This may be one of the reasons it has been a hit on the festival circuit and a perfect fit for CUFF.docs, which has been programming thought-provoking programs for the past four years.
For instance, there was a heated Q&A with Davis and Ornstein in Austin, Texas, after the documentary debuted as part of South by Southwest in March.
“What they really want to talk about, in America at least, is race in general and their experiences with it,” says Ornstein. “It’s still a taboo subject and this film’s Q&A’s and discussion groups give people a reason to talk about this and opens the door. Once that door is open people talk until they shut it down. People are just so hungry for an opportunity. Ultimately, most questions I field aren’t really about the film, they are about the state of race in America and the state of what we call the alt-right, which is the online name for all of these sh--heads. It’s a lot of group talk about race, which I’m happy to encourage.”
Accidental Courtesy opens CUFF.docs on Thursday at 7 p.m. at the Globe Cinema. Matt Ornstein will be in attendance.
CUFF.docs runs until Nov. 20. Visit calgaryundergroundfilm.org.
I did not expect the disagreement to be the most vehement one in the film, among people who agree on pretty much everything.