cineSOURCE magazine

cineSOURCE Turns 15, Bets On Radical Multiculturalism
by Doniphan Blair

Randy Gordan (cntr) and Doniphan Blair (lft) collaborated on an article at the Sonoma International Film Festival. photo: D. Blair

DESPITE OUR SMALL BUDGET AND STAFF—mostly me but with essential help from Karl Cohen, see his new animation survey, Randy Gordon, read his film review of a new San Francisco indie, and a few other great Samaritans—cineSOURCE has been quite successful. Not only was our 15th birthday on April Fool's Day, we had a massive year.

Indeed, my Ukraine article, "Meet the Kids of Maidan", was one of cineSOURCE's most popular—despite the stiff competition, see our "Best Of" list below—and it was picked up by two news sites, including Northern California's respected Reader Supported News.

Thus inspired, we decided to mount a GoFundMe campaign to rebuild our site, which needs it after 15 years, and to cover my next reporting trip to Ukraine, also desperately needed, given continuing confusion about the war in the progressive community, see "Twilight in Ukraine”.

cineSOURCE merits your support, I feel, because it keeps punching way above its weight. Along with some media reporting, it provides investigative journalism, like “Kerner Collapse: Hubris, Hustle or Outright Scam?” or "Letter from Oakland: A Progressive City in Crisis”, and big ideas, like "The Tribe Versus Civilization Manifesto” or our theory of radical multiculturalism, first mentioned in 2020.

Blair with a young man from Mariupol (2nd lft) and Anne, a pianist who said she'd never play Tchaikovsky or Rachmaninoff again, Golden Rose Synagogue ruins, Lviv. photo: D. Blair

Multiculturalism is a critical concept for a modern society. Indeed, it has been pushing us with incredible power ever since scholars like Edward Said began producing revolutionary analysis, like his “Orientalism” in 1978, a brilliant critique of colonialist aesthetics. What’s missing, however, is a self-reflective, universalized multiculturalism.

While Said proved that western views of other societies were perverted by implicit bias and perspective, he neglected to note the next level of understanding, despite his obvious ability to do so. As a prominent Palestinian spokesperson but also a Columbia professor, classical pianist and New Yorker, he knew about code switching and "occidentalism," the inverse of Orientalism.

All societies have travelers, traders, artists or intellectuals who mix, match or monetize their diverse cultural influences, often more than they or their historians care to admit. Moreover, there is always intermarriage, the ubiquitous bridging of gendered cultures that inevitably accompanies societal mixing. Despite pervasive prejudice, most humans are well aware that both genes and cultures need variation to avoid inbreeding.

As it happened, I grew up three blocks from the Saids in New York, albeit in a completely different world, or should I say worlds. While his place overlooked a park and was part of the Columbia University neighborhood, my family's 13th-floor apartment looked out on a tough housing project and was in Harlem.

Edward Said's groundbreaking 'Orientalism', the 25th anniversary edition. photo: courtesy E. Said

I knew nothing of Palestinian issues until my late teens, but my building was an apogee of integrating other cultures, with many notable Blacks and Jews, while my own family was a delicate balance of European Jewish and all-American values. Given I also played baseball in the Harlem Little League, attended an elite private school, and my best friend was from an upper middle class Greek-American family, a day in my life was a vertiginous slalom through vastly varying cultures and economic strata.

Alas, they were all part of the overarching culture of New York, which I was eager to escape by the end of high school.

Five years of world travel provided me a profound immersion in the other. As well as hitchhiking across America ten times, I traveled the back country of Afghanistan and India, hiked the wilds of Guatemala, Bolivia and Brazil, and slept on the streets of Athens, Mumbai and Rio. Although I made a few rookie orientalist mistakes, they were far outweighed by the incredible experiences, enlightening moments and fantastic people with whom I became friends.

They included urban professionals and artists but also street hippies, rural farmers and indigenous people as well as other world travellers. “In my region of Mato Grosso [Brazil]," my friend Tepe Kahok told me, "Every tribe has at least one European member and one has a French chief,” reflecting a common openness in isolated places to foreign input.

In fact, it wasn't that hard to integrate those rational perspectives with my New-York-City, melting-pot, center-of-civilization worldview. Eventually, those views inspired my search for the sweet spot between science and spirituality, classicism and avant-garde, tribalism and civilization as well as acknowledging the equality of all races, tribes, religions and nationalities.

Radical multiculturalism, I find, serves as a common sense foundation from which to tackle the big issues of our day: extreme identity politics, the epidemic of conspiracy psychosis, the Ukraine crisis, the nurture/nature controversy and more.

Thanks for reading and please help us get these ideas out. If there ever was a time to support cineSOURCE, it is now.

Indeed, with your help of our GoFundMe campaign, cineSOURCE can produce another 15 years of articles like:

Director László Nemes accepts his 2016 Oscar for 'Son of Saul', about 'life' in a death camp. illo: D. Blair

Big, Complicated Issues

The Black Panther Filmography
Holocaust Films/Books: What’s Been Achieved/Missed
Meet the Kids of Maidan: My Journey into Ukraine’s Democratic Revolution
Why Trump and QAnon Are So Hard to Stop: Conspiracy Theories and LARPs
The Tribe Versus Civilization Manifesto
Darwin and Love: What I Learned Making a Holocaust Movie
Romanticism and Its Discontents, East and West
My Father's Spanish Civil War

Alt-filmmaker Bruce Baillie, a good friend of cineSOURCE, surveys the sky in a film, circa 1998. photo: B. Baillie

Filmmakers and Artists

Was Hitchcock a Misogynist or a Feminist: See Chart
The Jew and the Cowboy: Saul Zaentz and Creedence Clearwater
Leader of the Wolfpack Revealed: Crystal Moselle
Bruce Conner: A Filmmaker/Artist's Cracked Vision
Rob Nilsson: Enfant Terrible, Old Master of the Indie
In Memoriam: Alt-Filmmaker Bruce Baillie”
Aaron Kurzen: Art Master, Nice Guy, Wild Surrealist
Om Prakash Sharma: Painting, Post-Colonialism and Tantra
Should We Re-Censor Henry Miller?
Quest for Heartfelt Film and the Santiago Rizzo Interview
Interview with Roger Guenveur Smith: H. Newton, History and More

Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda in 'Easy Rider', 1968. photo: D. Hopper

Hipster History

Dennis Hopper: A Wild Life of Art, Success and Sorrow
Summer of Love Shows, Movies & Festivals Beg the Question: What Went Wrong with Hippie Intellectuals?
Brief History of Modern Lovers Commune and Ancient Currents Gallery
Finally, cineSOURCE’s Weed Report
Cine Collectives Come Back, Finally!
Magic Trip: Ken Kesey's Search for a Kool Place

Oakland police carefully count the 73 rounds discharged on October 15th, 2021, right behind cineSOURCE's building in West Oakland. photo: D. Blair

Oakland Stories

Letter from Oakland: A Progressive City in Crisis
Sorry to Bother’ Busts Wide Open Oakland Cine
Oakland’s One-Man Social Service
Four Indies Out of Oakland, Some with Bullets
DeWolf Smokes Monster Oakland Joint Film

Researching Conspiracy Theorists

Why Trump and QAnon Are So Hard to Stop: Conspiracy Theories and LARPs
Conspiracy Mirroring: A Schoolyard Psy-Op Goes High Tech
Anti-Jewish Conspiracies & Conspiracy of Love

Film Stories

Tippi Hedren: The It Girl Interview
Feminist Makes Movie about Boys and Babies plus Interview
Steady as She Films: Panzica's America's Cup Doc
East Side Sushi Sweeps California
Predicting the Future Thru Film: The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari
‘The Green Prince’ of Peace Documentary

Prejudice

Black Lives Matter and Oakland
Soros, Jewish Bankers and Interest Explained
Feras Fayyad: Fighting the Syrian Regime Thru Film
CAN ALL BE FORGIVEN? Art, Sufism and Radical Islam

Avant-Garde and Esoterica

Film Manifestos: Hot or Just Hot Air
Interview with Tobias Schneebaum: Artist, Author, Cannibal?
The Nude in the Age of Trump and Porn

Posted on Mar 31, 2023 - 10:25 PM