When I first saw the trailer for Judas and the Black Messiah months ago (years ago in COVID time), I was excited for a major motion picture about Fred Hampton. But as the movie inched closer to release, I started to question my excitement. After all, the movie was actually going to follow FBI informant and Black Panthers “Judas” William O’ Neal. Would it be a disappointment? After watching the movie, I can definitely say that it was not a disappointment at all. But in reading differing and legitimate opinions on the movie, I feel that passionate supporters of Fred Hampton, the Black Panthers, and Black liberation have missed a key, recurring theme of the movie that haunts us to this very day: the oppressive, unrelenting, and destructive American police state.
For those unfamiliar with “Judas and the Black Messiah,” the Shaka King-directed movie follows criminal William O’Neal who is forced by the FBI to infiltrate the Black Panthers in exchange for money and freedom. But as he spends more time in the movement, he…I’m going to stop there so I don’t spoil the movie. This is a story that deserves your full attention in a first person viewing. As you watch the movie, you will encounter Judas (Bill O’Neal), the Black Messiah (Fred Hampton), and the group that hasn’t received the focus they deserve from most online reviews….Rome, the torturers of the Black Messiah (the American police state).
I knew of Fred Hampton’s powerful life and legacy before watching the movie. As the tragic tale unfolded, I couldn’t help but notice the ever-present and downright suffocating nature of the American police state as manifested in the FBI and the police. J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI agents, and the Chicago Police Department all felt like innumerable hands slowly crushing the life out of Hampton, the Black Panthers, all the Black characters, me (vicariously)…and the informant Bill O’Neal. It is here that I believe we must address a messy and infuriating truth: Bill O’Neal deserves no love at all for betraying Fred Hampton, Mark Clark, the Black Panthers, and a better future for Black children. But even as a snitch, O’Neal was also a victim of the same oppressive police state that killed Hampton, Clark, and the dreams of so many Black people generation after generation after generation.
To my friends and kinfolk who have a significantly different opinion than me, I understand and respect your perspective. You will not see a defense of O’Neal here. In fact, the movie made me even more disgusted with his betrayal. However, I think we can feel legitimate anger at this traitor and recognize that he and other Black people were tools of an oppressive American police state that tyrannized Black people with government support and taxpayer funding. In addition, I understand your desire to see the movie center on Hampton. From a screenwriting standpoint, Fred Hampton didn’t have a “journey” like O’Neal’s. Hampton knew who he was and what he was about from a young age. That doesn’t make for a good protagonist. However, O’Neal had a (traitorous) journey that allowed the audience to follow him into the Black Panthers and the story of their community and liberation work. He made for a better protagonist but not a better person. Therefore I understand an argument for the construction of this movie.
Unlike some of my esteemed friends and colleagues, I didn’t see a movie that glorified or praised Bill O’ Neal. I also didn’t see a movie that hid the anticapitalist and anti-White supremacist philosophy of the Black Panthers. Instead, I saw a movie that chose to keep an unflinching focus on the political strangulation Black people faced in the American police state in the era of the Black Panthers. I saw federal, state, and local law enforcement repeatedly inflict suffering on Black, Hispanic, and poor White people merely for existing and seeking human dignity. I watched the Feds coerce, manipulate, and kill Black people in a vicious, secret war against Black people and “anti-Communism.” In my eyes, this movie showed the utter evil and inhumanity still currently present in our American police system. Nothing in this movie showed the FBI or police as redeemable. I thought this was perhaps the most important revelation in an altogether heartbreaking work of a beautiful yet tragic story.
Addendum: For those who would like more information on Fred Hampton, Mark Clark, and the Black Panthers, you can check out videos and documentaries on Youtube here. To learn more about the Black Panthers Ten Point Program, click here.