You’ve watched the news clips. You’ve listened to the experts. You’ve checked your social media sites regularly. You’ve signed online petitions, attended marches and joined prayer circles.
You’ve explained to your child what systemic racism is about and why someone would shoot innocent people in a church. Or why a police officer would deliberately throw an African-American teenage girl to the ground at a pool party. Or why another unarmed black man has been shot by the police.
As the words poured out of your mouth, you recognized this as an age-old conversation had between a black parent and their child – a talk that is at least 400 years old.
If we are honest with ourselves, systemic racism is not likely to end in our lifetimes, our child’s lifetime or even our grandchild’s lifetime. But it’s when the media trucks have rolled out of town and the social media users are back to commenting about the Kardashians that we must draw upon the resilience of the ancestors, gather our reserves, renew our partnerships, stand together with our allies and move forward.
The National Black Programming Consortium has engaged in a dialogue about race and discrimination for more than 35 years. We have done so by funding documentary programs that enlighten Americans about the black experience – on public television and beyond.
Our films explore how many Americans have confronted race and discrimination – from the Freedom Riders of the civil rights era, to the black photographers whose pictures of everyday African Americans served as a form of self-affirmation. If we are sincere in our efforts to change how we address race and discrimination in our country, it will take the efforts of all Americans, black, white, brown, red, yellow, gay, straight, trans, Christian, Jewish, Muslim and atheist.
My charge is for you to become active viewers. Parents, if you sit at home with your child to watch a program, keep a laptop or tablet close by so that you can search for answers as soon as the questions come to you. Educators, work with your parent-teacher associations to set up public screenings at your school followed by a group discussion.
Teens and young adults, get together with your friends, decide on what to stream, watch it and then hold a Twitter discussion.
Politicians, screen a film to discover topics from which you can connect legislative policies that have helped or harmed the battle to end discrimination in your community. Share that information with your constituencies. The best solutions to a problem occur when people engage in dialogue.
The more we understand our collective pasts, the better equipped we are to find the solutions that will bring all Americans closer to a just and more equal society.
Leslie Fields-Cruz is executive director of the National Black Programming Consortium, the nation’s primary presenter of stories on the black experience on public television. For a list of films, visit blackpublicmedia.org.
