America to Me

A documentary series on Starz, at 10 p.m. on Sundays starting tomorrow.

Excerpts from the New York Times review:

O.P.R.F. is the sort of school you might think would have race figured out better than others. In the 1960s, its community resisted white flight as black families moved in, along with liberal whites. Now, the school has a faculty conscious of diversity and reflective about bias.

But for all the good intentions, students of different races find themselves on different tracks, in different classes, with different outcomes, in a school that one teacher says “functions as two schools in one.”
But there’s also an intraschool racial dynamic on the sidelines. The cheerleaders, who are largely black, are relegated to a remote end of the stands where more of the black students sit. The central location goes to the drill team, composed, its coach says elliptically, of “girls who come in with more dance experience.”

Technically, more of them are white students,” the coach adds.

“America to Me” is full of moments like this, where you see how racial imbalances are perpetrated by people who don’t see themselves as perpetrating them. It just somehow happens, they believe. Technically.
(Most of the students followed are black. It was harder, Mr. James says in his narration, to get white students and parents to speak openly about race.)

and in other news, rain is wet.

(sorry, America is depressing me today.)

not to denigrate the series, but exactly how many times do we have to be shown the same thing? It's so frustrating.

OTOH, I'm grateful that there still are journalists and media outlets willing to tackle these issues. So kudos to STARZ, (which, unfortunately, I don't think I get.)


drummerboy said:

not to denigrate the series, but exactly how many times do we have to be shown the same thing? It's so frustrating.

Good, you’ve got your biases and blind spots all figured out. I don’t.


DaveSchmidt said:


drummerboy said:

not to denigrate the series, but exactly how many times do we have to be shown the same thing? It's so frustrating.
Good, you’ve got your biases and blind spots all figured out. I don’t.

 and you have once again gone straight over my head.


drummerboy said:

 and you have once again gone straight over my head.

From what I’ve read about the series, my guess is that the director would say anyone who asks how many times we have to be shown the same thing (it’s so frustrating that other whites aren’t all just as woke) is pretty much his target audience.


DaveSchmidt said:


drummerboy said:

 and you have once again gone straight over my head.
From what I’ve read about the series, my guess is that the director would say anyone who wonders how many times we have to be shown the same thing is pretty much his target audience.

 hmmm.

so what you're saying is that the documentary's intended audience is people like me, who already see racism lurking behind every corner? What do you think they want to tell me?


drummerboy said:

 hmmm.
so what you're saying is that the documentary's intended audience is people like me, who already see racism lurking behind every corner? What do you think they want to tell me?

From the Paste article: “The takeaway, James and the others say, is not to shut down the well-meaning progressives like physics teacher Podolner. It’s to get them to listen and learn before they act.”



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