Well it must be something of a first (for me anyway), to be referred
to as a Scumbag by a member of the NFT staff. Still if you run your
festival with volunteers, the peanuts on offer will naturally attract
its fair share of monkeys (anyway my letter will be in the post).

So onto 'Shirley Chisholm' who was the first black female
congresswoman (post Civil Rights struggle), and who in 1972 decided
to run for the Democratic nomination for President. Thus using
archive footage combined with up to date interviews with the main
players, this documentary is a telling commentary on the status of
both black people and women at the beginning of that era. Now
obviously she had no chance whatsoever in getting the Democratic
nomination, the phrase 'Don Quoixte' being used somewhere along the
line. However for 'Shirley Chisholm' this was both an opportunity to
test her democratic rights, as well as to blaze a trail for those who
would inevitably come after her.

I once read a book about 'Ted Kennedy's attempt to get the 1980
Democratic nomination from the then sitting Democratic
President 'Jimmy Carter'. Thus what was 'Ted Kennedy's major campaign
mistake, was to believe the electorate still consisted of the same bi-
polar Democratic/Republican make up as it had in his brother's JFK's
day. Instead it had long since been fragmented into: black, feminist,
gay, pro life, pro choice, fundamentalist Christain etc. etc.
factions. In a way 'Shirley Chisholm' makes the same mistake. Thus
she campaigns as a woman not exclusively campaigning on womens
issues, and a black person not purely campaigning on black issues.
Thus just at the moment in history when the American electorate is
becoming thus fragmented, 'Chisholm' was trying to reach out to white
middle class America, whilst neglecting her grassroots powerbase.
Embarrasingly for her therefore, the black electorate end up ignoring
her campaign and instead ended up flinging its weight behind 'George
McGovern'.

That aside the whole campaign was a learning curve for any minority
candidate. A telling moment is when 'Chisholm' has to go to court to
earn the privilege to take part in a TV debate with the other
Democratic candidates, 'George McGovern' and 'Hubert Humphrey'; their
patronising smiles when she speaks being enougth to make anyone throw
up. The other oddity for me was that of 'George Wallace' who
thankfully was gunned down mid campaign. 'Wallace' being a Democratic
candidate who was further to the right then 'Hitler'.

Anyway as another campaign trailer pointed out "more than ever this
country needs Nixon", who was duly re-elected. Isn't 'Dubya'
currently pedalling a similar line ?

Mike
filmfan99uk