For my Social Justice Project I watch the 25 Mini-Films for Exploring Race, Bias and Identity With Students from the New York Times. The twenty-five films were all on the topic of race and how race is factored into many American's day to day life. The films were separated into four categories being The Conversation on Race, Who, Me, Biased?, Confronting Racist Objects, and Hyphen Nation.
The first heading was The Conversation on Race, in this sub-section of the article there were seven mini films talking about problems that come with race and racism. The seven videos were titled; A Conversation With My Black Son, which was parents shared the emotional conversation they had to have with their black sons when it comes to dealing with police. A Conversation About Growing Up Black, which was black boys of all ages talking about the challenges and racism they have gone through thus far in their lives. A Conversation With White People on Race, A Conversation With Police on Race, A Conversation With Black Women on Race, A Conversation With Latinos on Race, and A Conversation With Asian-Americans on Race.
In the film, A Conversation With Black Women on Race, African American women were talking about the effects of social media and beauty standards had on them as children. One woman shared how in school many of her African American friends were single or didn't interest any boys, she was confused by this because she thought they were all beautiful. And this was because society paints certain beauty standards that many black apart of, such as long straight blonde hair, blue eyes, etc. This film went hand in hand with Linda Christensen's Unlearning The Myths That Bind Us. Which talks about Media feeding the youth ideas on how they should be/look, stereotypes that may not be so apparent to everyone and how they effect us, and how race and gender are portrayed in media such as cartoons. In Christensen's section A Black Cinderella? Linda talks about how Disney's lack of colored princesses can have a negative impact on the younger girls of color watching.
The second set of mini-films talks about implicit bias. Implicit bias is the unconscious attribution of particular qualities to a member of a certain social group. These sets of videos reminded me of a test my roommates took for their psychology class. The test is conducted by students at Harvard and the test shows a series of attributes and you connect it with either a race or a word such as "good" or "bad". What I found interesting was my white roommate took the test and it said she favors white people, my other roommate who is hispanic took it and her test concluded that she has no bias with either white or black people. Now because my white roommate took the test and it ended up she in fact did show bias does not mean that she is racist at all it is just that she has an unconscious bias towards people who look more like her. In one mini-film in particular Check Our Bias to Wreck Our Bias talks more about this. Here is the link to the test my roommates took. This section reminded me of the article by Peggy McIntosh White Privilege Knapsack. In McIntosh's article she compares white privilege to an "invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools, and blank checks." which is similar to the implicit bias it is something that no one can see including yourself until it is pointed out to you.
The third set of mini-films is about Confronting Racist Objects, this section includes three videos on a collector, activist, and a seller of these racist objects. In the mini-film "The Collector" Harriet Michel shows her collection objects that presents African American's in a negative caricatures type of way. However Michel keep these objects in her house to keep as a reminder "of how we were seen and depicted and not to forget that lesson.” In the mini-film "The Activist" Robert Roche, an American Indian has fought for decades to change the Cleveland Indians’ Chief Wahoo mascot, which appears on the baseball team’s uniforms, and promotional items of all kinds. Racist mascots are used in many sports teams my own high school used a Native American as their mascot, which was protested by a teacher at my school. Here is a link to even more famous mascots that are racist. And lastly the film "The Seller" Caitlin Sevier manages her parents’ auction house, she is conflicted on whether to sell certain objects because they will be used in a joking matter when she believes they should be sold to museums so they are showed off properly.
The last section of mini-films is titled Hyphen-Nation. This section consists of nine Americans talking about there struggle of belonging to a nation that rejects them and embraces them. They talk about things that made them feel the most American, and things that made them feel least American. One man Ayman talks about how America can mean so many things to so many people but to his family it meant opportunity. But to him speaking Arabic and being muslim made him feel rejected by the other Americans around him. Ayman's mini-film made me think of Kristof's USA, Land of Limitation? article. Because although America is looked at to be full of opportunity for some people it is clearly not equal for all. Each of these mini-films really opened my eyes even more to the struggle of these people dealing with what almost seems like two identities. Like in Ayman's case to white Americans he not from here, he is not viewed as an American but in Sudan he is viewed as American not Sudanese.
In this article Nicole Draffen wants to get rid of the hyphen and just be called American. The Hyphen adds a certain stigma that a person is not American. Taking away they hyphen however could take away a persons ethnic identity. However keeping the hyphen divides the American people.
Overall the 25 mini-films gave incredible insight to the lives of Americans that must deal with daily bias and prejudices. The films made me question my conscious and unconscious ideas I may have. And wonder what can I do to promote equality in the world. How can I work to fix these things? And as a teacher the best thing you can do is teach the students how to not base ideas off of stereotypes or prejudices.
