I made this film because I think it's important to deepen the national conversation on race.
It's a conversation that tends to be both shallow and difficult to have. And so I made
this film for all people who want to have that conversation whether you want to have
it in your family, in your classroom, where you work, or where you worship. This film
is meant to support you in having a conversation that matters. What we owe to ourselves and
to each other is to have authentic, clear conversations.
What's really moving to me is when something is transformational not just educational and that's what that film was.
I hope it sparks conversations with people across the country and basically changes the
rules of how we relate to each other around issues of race.
Fact: racially we are almost completely the same, ask an anthropologist. We are all, every people, less than .1% different.
The other 99.9 is what makes us human kind but the human mind is a master at building barriers.
By definition a large number of folks who carry around this sort of baggage of bias
and prejudice are willing to carve out these exceptions for those who make us comfortable,
who seem different from the norm. You lose your own humanity, and what's the humanity in
like, treating someone more poorly than another person. Identity is complex, how we navigate and negotiate
it is complex and therefore I think we have to come up with solutions
to how we navigate the complexity of our identities that are more flexible than the rigidness
of racism and race. Huge systems that one is born into will bear on what one can do
with one's life. At the level of structures and institutions, we don't talk about division
of resources, we don't talk about larger structures of schooling and work force, we don't talk
about the whole system of racism. And that's a problem. The box that it traps you in,
is you feel like, to be healthier, to be in a more sound mind state, to to think and know
and come from a place of foundation in your life is something that you have to be ashamed of
and you have to denounce...can drive you crazy. When we talk about race
we often think about it as something that's personal. Am I a good person? Am I doing the right thing? However,
disparities, inequities actually function as a system and a system has many parts that
work together. In this case we define the system of racialization or the system of inequities
as something that is embedded in history, in culture and identity and it has internal
and external components, is moved by power and economics.
Internal components: bias, privilege, and internalized racism and these elements play out in relationships that are
interpersonal, institutional and structural. What's fascinating about any system is that
all of these things are happening at the same time.
I feel transformed for life, I can'twait to bring this film into my work and to share it with everyone I know, everyone I
care about and to bring this into the healing of our world.