The Birth of a Nation Race Quotes

It's hard to figure out what exactly Griffith is trying to say here. Is he saying that slavery was a fundamentally evil institution? Or is he somehow blaming Africans for causing the Civil War? Based on the rest of the film, we're guessing the latter.

We don't see much of the institution of slavery, but what little we do see is meant to show us that it isn't all that bad. To that end, slaves are depicted as being content with their lives, if not joyful.

Throughout the movie, Griffith emphasizes the idea that Black Southerners only turn against white Southerners due to the influence of hostile white Northerners. Putting aside the patent absurdity of this idea, it's a way of taking away the agency of Black people and dehumanizing them further.

Now this is just crazy. The Reconstruction Era had ended barely fifty years prior to the release of The Birth of a Nation, which means that there were plenty of people alive then who actually lived through it. And we're expected to accept this disclaimer that it's not supposed to reflect on them?

And what's this dangerous policy he's opposing? It's that Black people are fully equal to white people—for real. We wanted to give The Birth of a Nation the benefit of the doubt, but this is some next level racism.

Related to the idea that freed slaves are manipulated by Northerners is the idea that the only good Black people are those who remain loyal to white people—i.e., the people who formerly owned, abused, and subjugated them. It doesn't make much sense to us.

Griffith argues that Black Southerners are incapable of being leaders by showing them acting in an assortment of unprofessional ways during a state legislature session, such as eating, drinking, and taking off their shoes.

We know that Griffith wants us to sympathize with Flora here, but this scene actually provides a pretty great metaphor for racism. Gus most likely wasn't going to hurt Flora, but her irrational fear of him leads her to do something that ultimately hurts herself and gets blamed on him.

Alrighty, folks—we're now in Nazi territory. The Camerons' relationship with the two Union veterans conveys the idea that their racial bond unites them against Black people. This is an attempt to frame the Civil War as being unrelated to slavery.

This might be the most accurate depiction of racism in the film, though that isn't saying too much. There are many people out there who are supportive of racial equality in theory, but shirk when they're forced to put that belief into practice in their personal lives.