Social Justice Archives - Point Made Learning

Understanding Orientalism and More We Learned

Black Students Marched Against Gun Violence in Florida, But You Likely Didn’t Hear About It

Think critically about the ways we look at protest; why #NeverAgain and not #BlackLivesMatter? Why are the organizers of the former lauded as the leaders of a generation while the latter are deemed terrorists? Gun reform must be intersectional. The conversation must include a discussion about race and how gun violence disproportionately affects people of color. And why concern for that violence is only heard in an echo chamber of the folks who regularly experience that violence.

‘Like Stoneman Douglas, if they can … let their voices be heard, why can’t we do the same and let our voices be heard?.. Why can’t we do the same thing? It’s because we’re black? It’s because we’re in the ghetto … because we’re poor … and they’re richer? I don’t understand.’

We scorned addicts when they were black. It is different now that they are white.

The American Opioid Crisis has energized legislators and leaders in medicine to detach archaic opinions of morality from the conversation of drug addiction. Instead, they are focused on addiction as a medical condition and have made strides in providing appropriate care for drug dependent individuals, particularly for opioid dependent people. This changing tide in opinion about addiction differs greatly from that of the 1980s and 1990s during the height of America’s crack-cocaine crisis. That crisis primarily affected black people and the response to treating those addictions was to incarcerate and demonize an entire generation of people.

Though the difference in response to each crisis may not surprise some, this article digs into the qualities that make one crisis an issue of health and the other an issue of criminality.

Orientalism Is Alive and Well In American Cinema

Asian and Asian-American representation has only scratched the surface of American media. As characters begin to permeate film and television, we must continue to criticize the way Asian characters are portrayed. Orientalism refers to a colonial or otherwise Western representation of Asian cultures, particularly East Asian and Middle Eastern cultures. Snake charmers, for example, are classic caricatures in the Western

"The Snake Charmer", Jean -Leon Gerome, 1879
“The Snake Charmer”, Jean -Leon Gerome, 1879

Orientalist lexicon. Suffice it to say, representation begins with authenticity and truth. And in that vein, the author argues that Asian artists should have the agency to tell their own stories without the voices and perspectives of oppressive powers. 

[tweetshareinline tweet=”Orientalism surfaces in the New Age commodification of Eastern spirituality, in the predilection to glom separate cultures into a blurry whole…” username=”PM_Learn”]

What can ‘The Simpsons’ do About Apu? A lot, actually.

Similarly, comedian Hari Kondabolu challenges representations of South Asian men, through the lens of The Simpsons character, Apu Nahasapeemapetilon. His documentary, “The Problem With Apu”, unpacks the power of seeing a South Asian character represented for the first time on national television and the subsequent manipulation of that power to further marginalize the community Apu reflects.

“…the creators and writers of “The Simpsons,” like the rest of us, have a responsibility to upgrade and evolve their characters to align with cultural norms of the day. Tokenized stereotypes won’t cut it for an emerging generation that is demanding full and equal representation.”

Racism in Journalism, the Classroom, and the “1%”

Here are some interesting things we read this week about race, racism and equity in the United States.

From Barb Lee

 

National Geographic Acknowledges Its Racist Past Coverage

This is a very good first step. Who else is ready to do the same?

As National Geographic editors prepared an issue dedicated to race, they realized the 130-year-old magazine might face questions about its troubled history on the subject. So they asked John Edwin Mason, a University of Virginia professor who studies the history of Africa and photography, to dig through the magazine’s archives to examine its shortcomings in covering people of color in the United States and abroad. ‘Through most of its history, National Geographic, in words and images, reproduced a racial hierarchy with brown and black people at the bottom, and white people at the top,” Mr. Mason said in an interview on Tuesday.”

Parents, students say there is culture of racism at private high school in Arvada

This school in Colorado has started the journey.  It’s never fun, but people should know what’s happening there.

Parent Nancy Felix describes the culture of the private school in Arvada, Colorado as one of “silencing, of denial,…of no repercussions, [of] no accountability from the current superintendent and principal.” In January, one of the teachers hosted a “chapel,” similar to an assembly, to discuss the topic of racism with students and parents.

“And that’s when the firestorm happened,” Felix said. The Fox News journalist states that, “white students and their parents reportedly felt uncomfortable with the dialogue and content of the presentation” and the teacher who hosted the convening was fired. Felix went to the principal and explained how she felt about the situation: “you can’t fire the only person these children have to go to that’s safe that they trust because he tried to do something that was, in my opinion, really good.”

The Marley Hypothesis: Who Actually Sees Racism?

Fascinating and promising.

“In a study published in Psychological Science last year, researchers at the University of Kansas and Texas A&M set out to test what they call the “Marley Hypothesis.” The theory is that minorities may perceive current racism differently because they have more accurate knowledge about the racism of the past. The dominant group, in contrast, may deny racism because they’re ignorant of history. The thesis is more or less an academic attempt to test the assertion of “Buffalo Soldier” by Bob Marley: “If you know your history/then you will know where you’re comin’ from/and you wouldn’t have to ask me/who the heck do I think I am.”

 

From Catherine Wigginton Greene

 

What the Second Amendment really meant to the Founders

Both sides of the debate about gun laws “invoke what the Founders would have thought,” and this article breaks down what they actually intended with the Second Amendment.

“At its best, the Second Amendment was a commitment to citizen participation in public life and a way to keep military power under civil control. At its worst, it was a way for whites to maintain their social domination.”

For Decades Our Coverage Was Racist. To Rise Above Our Past, We Must Acknowledge It.

The article starts by examining an issue of the National Geographic that ran in 1916, where Aboriginal Australians are described as, “savages” who “rank lowest in intelligence of all human beings.” It then goes on to illustrate the portrayals of people color throughout the 20th century. This story is the beginning of a series about racial, ethnic, and religious groups and their changing roles in 21st century life. The series runs through 2018 and will feature Muslims, Latinos, Asian Americans, and Native Americans.

“Race is not a biological construct, as writer Elizabeth Kolbert explains in this issue (There’s No Scientific Basis for Race- It’s a Made-Up Label), but a social one that can have devastating effects. ‘So many of the horrors of the past few centuries can be traced to the idea that one race is inferior to another,’ she writes. ‘Racial distinctions continue to shape our politics, our neighborhoods, and our sense of self.’ How we present race matters.”

 

Additional

 

Extensive Data Shows Punishing Reach of Racism for Black Boys

New research conducted by Harvard, Stanford, and the Census Bureau finds that racism has far reaching effects for black boys despite their socioeconomic status in the United States. In most cases, black men earn less than their white peers who were raised in households with comparable income and familial circumstances. The data also concludes that this issue is exclusive to black men as black women with similar financial circumstances to their white peers earn about the same in annual income.

The research cites race bias as the primary reason for this disparity, debunking the notion that class is a deciding factor in economic mobility. Black boys are more likely to be disciplined on all levels from the classroom to the courtroom. Race bias towards black boys insists that they are more prone to violence and the denial of access to wealth is a direct result of that bias.

As professor and director of American University’s Antiracist Research Policy Center, Ibram Kendi, asserts, “One of the most popular liberal post-racial ideas is the idea that the fundamental problem is class and not race, and clearly this study explodes that idea… but for whatever reason, we’re unwilling to stare racism in the face.”

Cutting SNAP Benefits Further Marginalizes the Poor

The Summary

Last week, President Trump proposed a major cut to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), also known as “food stamps”, in an attempt to jumpstart his plan for welfare reform. It’s the administration’s latest effort to further marginalize Americans on the fringes or economic privilege without an introspective look at the limited access to resources that keep them on those fringes.

The new program would require able-bodied SNAP beneficiaries to work despite other limitations including access to transportation, job insecurity and child care assistance. It would also institute a program, called “Harvest Box”, through which SNAP beneficiaries would receive a box of USDA-approved groceries to supplement the cut to food stamps, a program that already allots low-income folks access to groceries of their choice. The President’s proposal has been scrutinized by advocates for public assistance and welfare programs but especially by SNAP beneficiaries who interpret a cut to the program as damaging regardless of its positive intention. It has also inspired a discussion about a “war on food” in which poor folks are systematically denied access to fresh groceries and healthy food options.

What Is In the “Harvest Box”?

The USDA anticipates that the Harvest Box will include “shelf-stable milk, juice, grains, read-eat-cereals, pasta, peanut butter, beans, canned meat, poultry or fish and canned fruits and vegetable.” As the SNAP program currently

Food Stamp Sign in Maine Grocery Store
Food Stamp Sign in Maine Grocery Store

exists, recipients have the autonomy to purchase their own, fresh groceries. This reform in welfare benefits is intended to mobilize poor people upward, requiring them to work in order to earn their benefits in some cases. This amendment is made, of course, under the assumption that welfare recipients don’t already work.

Food As a Weapon of Control

Nina Martyris reflects on Frederick Douglass’s analysis of “food as a weapon of control” in a recent article for NPR. Douglass’s writing explores the ways slave owners employed hunger to establish a hierarchy between slaves, often privileging house slaves with food consumed by the master’s family and guests while field slaves were afforded an insufficient cornmeal dish, comparable to dog food. Douglass even mentions that he and other slaves would compete with the slave master’s dog for the evening’s dinner scraps.

Perhaps the most poignant moment in Martyris’s article is a recounting of holiday festivities on the plantation where slaves were not only expected to participate in the revelling but often required to engage in drinking competitions as entertainment for the master’s guests. Douglass mentions that refusal to participate reflected a sentiment of ungratefulness and that ultimately, “we had almost as well be slaves to man as to rum.” Slaves had no autonomy, let alone the jurisdiction to decide when and what they wanted to eat, yet the expected response for one, balanced meal a year was gratitude.

The Big Picture

Food options in low-income communities reflect what the community can afford, which often means fast-food restaurants comprise the majority of eating establishments along with locally owned restaurants and grocery stores that offer limited, fresh produce. The Harvest Box initiative might also perpetuate what the Food Research and Action Center calls a “feast or famine situation”, a term that refers to parents who will skip meals to increase food options for their children. And, of course, it might contribute to the myriad health issues poor people face including hypertension, diabetes, obesity, and a host of other diseases related to malnutrition.

There are many comparisons to draw here, though that is not to say the President’s proposal to cut SNAP benefits is comparable to chattel slavery. But there are comparisons to draw. Most important is the question of autonomy; do the oppressed have access to agency under a capitalist bureaucracy? This question is further complicated by this nation’s legacy, built on the free labor of slaves who, of course, had no agency in the matter of their work. In deciding how poor Americans are nourished, the Trump administration participates in a legacy of surveillance and population control that has changed its face over the course of the country’s foundation. SNAP benefits already limit food options for poor people but it still affords them the autonomy to choose. Under the President’s initiative, underprivileged communities will be further dependent on government resources for something as basic and necessary as food. And all of that despite the work they do to uphold the country’s economy. While data indicates that most able-bodied welfare recipients work, there is still an insidious assumption, from the Trump administration in this case, that they do not. As president of the National WIC Association, Donald Greenaway, put it, “removing choice from SNAP flies in the face of encouraging responsibility… the budget seems to assume that participating in SNAP is a character flaw.”

We must be vigilant about the way politicians will weaponize the oppression of women, the queer community, the poor and people of color in the future. In just one year we have witnessed an assault on all of the aforementioned communities; the exclusion of trans people from restrooms matching their gender, staunch support of a politician accused of pedophilia (on multiple accounts), and xenophobic legislation aimed toward expelling Middle Eastern and Latinx immigrants from the United States. This recent effort to punish Americans for their lack of access to food resources indicates a nearsighted understanding of wealth disparities in the United States and how they are inextricably connected to the same denial of those resources.

Here are some interesting things we read this week about race and equity in the United States.

“‘Resist White Supremacy’: A sign. A farm. And the fury that followed.”

Cox Farms has a history of practicing free speech through their business, a practice that has elicited controversy for the owners’ family. Their recent poster, as detailed in the article’s title, stirred their Northern Virginia town into a frenzy. Aaron Free speech at Cox FarmsCox-Leow, daughter of the farm’s owner, expressed that, “when it comes to speaking out against systems of oppression and injustice, wwe see it as our moral responsibility to se our position of privilege and power… to engage visibly and actively in the fight for justice.”

“Secrets, statistics and implicit bias.”

Microaggressive behaviors reflect the ways we, as a society, have been conditioned to respond to specific demographics. For example, clutching one’s purse when a person of color enters an empty elevator is a response to our conditioned understanding of men of color as inherently criminal. Implicit bias tests seek to exploit those conditioned responses and use them to uncover our own biases, regardless of gender, race, and other intersections of our identity.

“Jones and Williams Discuss Racism During Focus Week Chapel”

From Barb Lee: “Go, Baptists!  If I had not heard this “sermon” myself, I would not have believed that this happened in a Baptist Church in Oklahoma. Bam! Caught in my own biases again. This video is incredible for those of us who grew up in white Southern Baptist churches. This makes me hopeful.”

“ South Carolina Lawmakers Want to Ban Baggy Pants Because What Other Political Issue Could Possibly Be More Pressing?”

Link: https://www.theroot.com/s-c-lawmakers-want-to-ban-baggy-pants-because-what-oth-1823225714

The title speaks for itself. In an effort to further police people of color, politicians in South Carolina plan to criminalize sagging pants, overlooking the racially loaded implications of instituting such a law. It is a boldface attempt to criminalize citizens based explicitly on their race, though politicians from the area would like to convince us that the law will affect people across races. 

“A Pound of Flesh: The Criminalization of Private Debt”

From the ACLU: “Arrests stemming from private debt are devastating communities across the country, and amount to a silent financial crisis that, due to longstanding racial and economic inequalities, is disproportionately affecting people of color and low-income communities.” Attached is the full report conducted by the ACLU. Read this article for a synopsis of the report.

Since the release of our documentary film I’m Not Racist… Am I? (INRAI), Point Made Learning (PML) has held more than 400 screenings and workshops across the United States. This antiracism programming engages diverse audiences and helps communities think, learn, and talk, about race and racism in ways they don’t often get a chance to do.

We’ve now developed an additional tool for deepening understanding of the film’s content: The I’m Not Racist… Am I? Digital Experience). Vassar College is one of the first institutions to license our online course as part of the their INRAI package. Keep reading to learn about how they used the course, the film, and our workshops for a comprehensive first-year orientation program. And send us an email if you’d like to do something similar at your school or organization: programming@pointmade.com

The Vassar Screenings

Starting off the 2017 fall semester, several members of Vassar College’s faculty and administration wanted to take the university’s programming on diversity, equity and inclusion to the next level. Vassar already considered itself a progressive institution. But recent race-related issues on campus had highlighted a need for more work on these topics.

Enter I’m Not Racist… Am I?, Point Made Learning’s documentary film and new INRAI Digital Online Course, which Vassar used this October to engage its entire first-year class. Coordinating with several Vassar departments, we coached faculty and administration members on how to facilitate discussions of the film.

First-year students at Vassar College gather in discussion of INRAI for orientation antiracism programming.
First-year students at Vassar College gather in discussion of INRAI.

Then, we screened the film three separate times for the school’s first-year students. After each screening, we led group Q&A sessions, followed by smaller discussion groups facilitated by Vassar staff. In all, our workshops reached more than 600 students and educators — and they made a lasting impact on campus.

An article in the Vassar Miscellany News described the decision to bring I’m Not Racist… Am I? to the first-years as “a significant move by the administration.” It fostered discussion and helped deepen the student body’s understanding of racism in an effective, inclusive way.

“Because we realized that our students wanted to continue that conversation.”

Vassar conducts a first-year Orientation program which includes a diversity component each year. “This year, we decided to supplement that with this film,” said Associate Dean for Campus Life and Diversity Edward Pittman. “Because we realized that our students wanted to continue that conversation and have more opportunities to explore issues around race, gender, and other identities.”

“We had a large number of students who said, ‘This is great, we need to do more of this.’” Pittman added. “For us, it meant that our students are thinking, were engaged. And that’s exactly what you want a program like this to do — open up dialogue.”

Pittman and Associate Professor and Chair of Drama Shona Tucker and Associate Film Professor Mia Mask, (and other faculty and school departments who came on board) helped bring the film to Vassar. The idea to host the screenings originated when Tucker saw clips from the film at her son’s school and thought Vassar could use the content, too.

[tweetshareinline tweet=”What resources would you bring to your college campus to address issues of race in the community?” username=”PM_Learn”]

“Seeing the responses of the parents and the teachers who were there at my son’s school — and hearing the responses from my 11-year-old — it really hit me in poignant ways,” Tucker said. “So I thought, ‘This would really go well at Vassar,’ because Vassar had been having some serious racial disturbances on campus. So I started talking to Mia (Mask), and the deans, and anybody who would listen, really, saying, ‘We ought to bring this to Vassar College.’”

“We felt we needed a trial run with students,” she said, “so we did a screening for 30 students from all different backgrounds, and the students were, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah — this film should be shown!’ And then the discussion was, ‘when should it be shown, and to whom,’ and it was decided that freshman would be the ideal start.”

First-Year Orientation

The planning team chose first-years as their target audience because the film screenings could tie in to the existing Orientation programming. They also wanted to reach first-years because, as the newest students on campus — many of them may be inexperienced in dealing with these issues. And they have four years ahead of them for continued education and exploration.

It took the planning committee almost two years to make the screenings a reality. First, they had to clear the hurdles of administrative and financial red tape. Once they got through that, however, they agreed the effort was worth it.

“I was surprised it went so smoothly”

“I was surprised that it went so smoothly,” said Mask. “All of our screenings, our post-screening discussions, all of the breakout groups — all of that went as planned, and we were delighted.”

“After the film, so many students were standing up and offering honest, open revelations about their experience,” she said. “And we were really happy to see that. It’s been two years in the planning. It took so much to bring it to fruition, and it all just went off so well. For the vast majority of students, my sense is that this can be a positive catalyst for change.”

“It opened up a channel of conversation”

One student who attended the screenings, Chloe Crawford, agreed. “My group of friends, we’ve been having race-related discussions at lunches and dinners the past few weeks, and that’s because of the film,” she said. “My friend group is fairly white, except for myself and two other people of color. I think it’s great, honestly, that as a group we can have these discussions … I think it opened up a channel of conversation amongst us.”

Campus shot at Vasser College
Campus shot at Vasser College.

For Crawford, this was an important starting point for what she hopes will be an ongoing discussion that she and her classmates will have the rest of their college careers. And into their adult lives. One thing she emphasized was the film’s ability to create a safe space for people of color to come forward with thoughts and feelings that they may have shied away from expressing in the past.

“After the film, so many students were standing up and offering open, honest revelations about their experience. For the vast majority of students, my sense is that this can be a positive catalyst for change.”

“Empowering”

“I think that the discussions afterwards facilitated by staff members seemed to allow for some of the people of color on campus to finally be able to speak in front of white students,” she said, “and not be seen that they were in the wrong, or be perceived that they were over-emotional or aggressive. So I thought that was empowering.”

In the future, Crawford suggested that Vassar consider showing the film to all students. Pittman acknowledged that’s something that’s already on their radar.

“Next semester, we’re thinking of showing I’m Not Racist… Am I? to sophomores, juniors, and seniors,” he said, “because they heard about the freshmen seeing it, and they said, ‘Why don’t we get to see it?’”

The Planning

In our interviews with Tucker, Mask, Pittman and Crawford, we discussed the steps they went through to actually make these screenings happen. Here are some of the highlights from our Q&A’s.

PML: You used our I’m Not Racist… Am I? Digital Online Course to introduce faculty to the film and prep them for facilitating discussions with the students. How was your experience with our online learning modules?

  • Mia Mask: “The online modules are ideal for people who are actually committed to doing more. I think you need to watch the entire film once straight-through, and then the modules help you unpack the film afterward.”
  • Ed Pittman: “Everything that I saw in the modules — and what I’m hearing from faculty and administrators — is that it’s very helpful. I’ve received nothing but positive feedback.”

“Know your audience.”

PML: What advice do you have for other people who want to hold similar events? Say, your top 3 tips …

  • Shona Tucker: “One: Do as Ed had us do — meet, and meet. I thought meeting and meeting was going to be a real pain in the butt, but it actually kept the channels of communication clear. We knew who was supposed to do what.

“Two: The pilot program was not a bad idea, but know who you’re going to show it to.

“Three: Be prepared to have several follow-up conversations — not just immediately afterwards, but weeks afterwards as well to learn more about what’s happening.”

  • Mia Mask: “One: Know your audience.

“Two: Build a community of folks who want to work on this project with you — a good planning group or committee, that’s very important.

“Three: Make sure to follow up and follow through, because this film can be a great catalyst for change if you do your follow-up work.”

Setting Objectives

PML: Did our programming meet your objectives?

  • Ed Pittman: “Our objectives were to introduce a conversation that some students have had, but others haven’t had that opportunity, and to have a challenging dialogue. 

“The other day, a student emailed me saying, ‘I want to meet with you to discuss the movie.’ And we met and talked about a question he had that he had been discussing with one of his friends. That’s indicative of what’s out there. I know that the students are ruminating on the content of the movie, and that’s what we wanted to happen.”

“Whether people like the film or not, it creates discussion.”

PML: What’s the value of I’m Not Racist… Am I? And would you recommend that other universities and organizations screen it?

  • Chloe Crawford: “The value of the film is that it creates discussion. Whether people like the film or not, it creates discussion. And I would recommend that other universities screen it. I think Vassar tries really hard to open conversations on these issues. But I have friends at other schools that say things are really segregated there, and there are issues of violence against people of color. So it would be extremely important on those campuses.

“It raised a lot of questions for our students”

PML: What do you see as the long-term impact of this programming, and how does it fit into your overall strategy?

  • Ed Pittman: “I think the long-term impact is that it raised a lot of questions for our students. And I would like to see those students enroll in some of our coursework that addresses these issues. Or to attend lectures on campus around these subjects. It also raised the question of what more we can do beyond orientation, in a substantive way, for our students. For the first year, second year, third year, fourth year, it’s, ‘OK, now we’ve done this. What’s the next step?’ And that’s a good thing.”

“We need the tools, we need the skills, and we need the training.”

PML: Why is hosting events like this one important? Why did you do it?

  • Mia Mask: “We worked on this for two years because of what’s happening in our nation, and because of our national history. Because issues of structural inequality are omnipresent at every moment, at every juncture. Whether we’re talking about mass incarceration, college admissions and affirmative action … it’s clear across our society that we need healthier dialogue on race, racial difference, and structural inequality. We need the tools, we need the skills, and we need the training to talk about these issues.”

Bring INRAI to Your Institution

If you are interested in hosting a Point Made Learning film screening or workshop, please send us an email: programming@pointmade.com

Also, check out our new I’m Not Racist… Am I? Digital Online Course — a valuable program for corporations and individuals who want to Look Deeper into race, racism, and bias.

About Point Made Learning

Point Made Learning is the consulting and programming extension of Point Made Films, a production company focused on telling stories about the many layers of American identity. We use documentary film to facilitate productive discussions around the most uncomfortable topics we face in American society – starting with racism. We’ve taken an innovative approach to raising awareness and organizing communities through our unique combination of storytelling, real talk, and digital tools. We tell true stories and teach powerful lessons about issues that matter.

 Since the release of the documentary film I’m Not Racist… Am I?, Point Made Learning (PML) has held more than 400 screenings and workshops across the United States. Facilitated by senior members of our staff, these events engage diverse audiences and help communities think, learn, and – most importantly – talk about race and racism in ways they don’t often get a chance to do.

André and Catherine address the crowd at OSU
André and Catherine address the crowd at The  Ohio State University’s screening of “I’m Not Racist… Am I?”

Some of our events involve a screening of the 90-minute film, followed by a 30-minute Q&A. Sometimes we get a chance to go a lot deeper, when organizers make a commitment to plan a series of events that engage every segment of their city over the course of several days. It takes a ton of work to make that happen, but the impact can be far-reaching and significant.

For those of you thinking about hosting your own I’m Not Racist… Am I? screenings and workshops, we think that reading about what other groups have done might be helpful in your planning process. We’ve reached out to a few of the people who have been instrumental in some of our larger programs across the U.S. and asked them to talk about what went into planning and executing, what worked/what didn’t, and what they wish they’d known.

Keep reading to learn about our March 2015 programming at Ohio State.

“I envisioned a big screening, and then a smaller set of workshops for people we thought could be allies and leaders on the campus moving forward,” said Koritha Mitchell, Associate Professor of English at OSU and the events’ principal organizer. “And oh my goodness, it went much better than I thought!”

Mitchell partnered with the Wexner Center for the Arts, a major Ohio venue for all things theater and film, to find a space for the screening. As the guest list grew, though, the Wexner Center suggested moving the event from their own space to a larger one — the Mershon Auditorium — and it’s a good thing they did: On the night of the screening, approximately 750 people turned up to watch the film and participate in the post-screening discussion led by PML’s Catherine Wigginton Greene and André Robert Lee.

“The workshops were really powerful… I heard nothing but positive things about them for months afterwards…”

“I was amazed at how many people came,” Mitchell said. “It was the Monday after Spring Break, so there was plenty of reason to be worried that no one would come, but we still ended up with such a good turnout. I left that thinking that people want to have the language to be able to talk about this stuff.”

The day after the screening, OSU held two workshops to, as PML likes to say, “Look Deeper” into the questions of race and racism that come up in the film, and to learn how to lead productive conversations about those topics at OSU and in the greater Columbus community.

“The workshops were really powerful,” Mitchell said. “I heard nothing but positive things about them for months afterwards. It made my co-sponsors feel like they were getting special treatment, and it capped off that experience and took it to a more personal level. It felt really good.”

Attendees of the workshop at The Ohio State University
Attendees of the workshop at The Ohio State University in Mershon Auditorium,

Reflecting on the Event

In our discussion with Mitchell, she discussed what it took to bring the screening and workshops to life. Here are some of the highlights from our Q&A.

PML: Once you had the idea, what were the steps you took toward making it a reality?

KM: I started by working with the Point Made team, and they sent me all the details I needed. That allowed me to go to my department chair and say that I wanted to put this on, and my department chair was willing to support me. We put together a small committee with people that we felt should be stakeholders … I contacted all the department chairs and decision makers to see if they’d put money toward it, and I underscored that I thought this could be something we could work toward continuing, to identify people who would be invested in this going forward.

I also booked a caterer. Even though a lot of people didn’t think it needed to be catered, I was adamant about it because I didn’t want people to be hungry and fidgety … and I feel like that worked to our benefit as well.

 PML: Once you knew the event was officially going to happen, how did you go about promoting it? What strategies/methods did you use to attract an audience?

KM: I had all of the cosponsors send it to their listservs so that the departments would announce it, and anyone associated with those departments would see it.

I think what I did that was unusual was that I was able to get myself on the radio, the urban station here, because they have a community show where they interview people about community things. And I used one of the contacts from a partner department so I could get on the show.

I also contacted leaders at all of the private schools here. I sent personal emails to the leaders at each school, and they clearly shared the message.

Catherine chats with local reporters at OSU
Catherine chats with local reporters at OSU.

Also, I got 10TV (the Columbus CBS affiliate) to come. They did a story in advance of the screening, and they aired it more than once because we did it well enough in advance. On the night of the event, they came back, and they interviewed people in the crowd before they saw it, and afterward. And once I had clips (from the TV and radio press), then I could share those clips on Facebook and social media. And I sent people emails including those links to former students, and lots of people.

PML: How did you ensure that the audience attending the event would feature a diverse representation of different communities and groups? And why was this important?

KM: I think I ensured it by having so many co-sponsors (14 of them) who had contacts that were different from mine. And I really pestered them to see who they thought I should reach out to.

PML: During the event, what were the most positive things you observed?

KM: Definitely realizing that I had a decent representation of high school students from the area … I thought, OK, they’re not having these conversations in their classrooms, and they want to be. And the impact from the Q&A — we could have gone on and on.

[tweetshareinline tweet=”I left… thinking that people want to have the language to be able to talk about this stuff” username=”PM_Learn”]

PML: What did you learn from this experience?

KM: I learned that I don’t mind organizing half as much as I thought!

PML: What advice do you have for other people who want to hold similar events? Say, your top 3 tips …

KM: One: For promotions, use a personal touch, plus whatever media you can get.

Two: Cultivate your stakeholders and make them feel like you need them to help you do everything. Like, you’re not making a decision without them, you don’t believe you can get the word out without them — it’s not just about them supplying money for the budget, it’s about them being as involved as they can be throughout this process. That gives them the belief that they are as committed as I am.

Three: Don’t miss the opportunity to spend as much time as you can with André, Catherine, and the Point Made staff. If it’s a budget issue, spend the extra money to have the additional workshop, or whatever other interaction. They model how you can continue to work in your space — watching them in action gives you tools for how you can facilitate difficult conversations going forward, because you’re going to need to have those conversations, and having the model from André and Catherine was one of the biggest things that I took away from it, as did everyone who encountered them.

If you are interested in hosting a Point Made Learning film screening or workshop, send us an email: programming@pointmade.com

Also, check out our new I’m Not Racist… Am I? Digital Online Course — a valuable program for corporations, educational organizations & institutions, and individuals who want to Look Deeper into race and racism.

Point Made Learning is the consulting and programming extension of Point Made Films, a production company focused on telling stories about the many layers of American identity. We use documentary film to facilitate productive discussions around the most uncomfortable topics we face in American society – starting with racism. We’ve taken an innovative approach to raising awareness and organizing communities through our unique combination of storytelling, real talk, and digital tools. We tell true stories and teach powerful lessons about issues that matter.