Cold Mountain’s view of history

Erik Dellums makes some important points about the new film, Cold Mountain. Among them is his question: “how could a three-hour film depicting life in the heart of Virginia and North Carolina during the Civil War use only momentary shots of black people picking cotton and a few black actors portraying runaway slaves as its total picture of slavery during this period?” He calls for people to boycott the film. I think at a minimum we ought to be talking about the issue. Institutionalized racism is still too deep and wide reaching in the US for us to enjoy this film without comment.