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Melvin Van Peebles' 1998 Doc

"Classified X"

- A History of African American

Stereotypes in Cinema

 

Melvin Van Peebles' 1998 documentary, Classified X, explores racist stereotypes of African Americans in the history of cinema, beginning with the silent film era.

 

Video by Vanessa Martinez | January 4, 2012 

Van Peebles narrates throughout; you are highly recommended to see it if haven't done so by now. The documentary, directed by Mark Daniels, is quite compelling and provides a poignant and relatively thorough insight on the historical portrayal of African Americans on screen in both non-black and black films.

It's now streaming on Netflix; feel free to watch it there. However, I was able to find it in full on YouTube, although divided in six parts; which I've embedded below.

Watch!