IMPENSIVE

But watching [12 Years a Slave], being forced to confront its depiction of the unrelieved brutality and sorrow of slavery in the context of the brutalities being committed in the here and now, should turn all our heads sharply backwards and unloose our tongues to revive King’s question for our times: “How Long?” And in unison we should answer, the arc of the moral universe is still bending toward justice, but it has not yet reached its mark.

♦ Deborah E. McDowell, “How Long?—Not Long”