Education
This documentary is an exploration of the strengths and fallibility of humanity through the lens of the current racial, social and political divides in the United States. With a mix of dynamic on-the-ground footage and raw authentic interviews, our project brings together perspectives that seldom reach outside their own echo chambers, shedding light on why we are so divided and why we’re struggling to understand each other through these times. The Backstory The year of 2020 has brought a myriad of struggles. Racial tensions have spurred the longest consecutive wave of protests in US history, political polarization is at an all time high, and all of this is occurring in the wake of a global pandemic. Like many, we were initially drawn to the streets in the wave of palpable outrage that swept the nation after the death of George Floyd. What began as a documentation of the subsequent protests, has unfolded into a greater search for meaning across racial, social and political lines as we began to search for answers to questions such as: How did we get here? We’ve seen these issues before, so what is different this time? If we all feel so morally right, how do we begin to communicate with one another? What happens if we don’t? Our quest to answer these questions has led to expansive exploration and meaningful discovery. Our Journey We have filmed on the ground for over 150 days of Black Lives Matter protests in Portland, amidst clouds of tear gas and other less-lethal weapons. We’ve traveled to cities such as Kenosha, Los Angeles and Chicago to explore what the same issues look like across the United States. We even found ourselves witnessing and documenting history on election night Washington DC and Philadelphia as new narratives unfolded. We’ve poured over research regarding moral and social psychology and dug into the racial history of our nation’s past. We have traveled across the country filming racial and political rallies and interviewing activists, police officers, business owners and academics all over the country. We’ve done all of this to build a multi-faceted perspective of what it means to be human amidst the racial, social and political tensions we are currently facing. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app