WHO WE ARE: A CHRONICLE OF RACISM IN AMERICA (A) - I dare you to watch this presentation by Jeffery Robinson and not learn something about the history of the United States. This is an expansion of his lecture on the history of racism. It would be belittling to compare it merely to a TED talk; this operates on a much higher level -- a Theodore talk, maybe.
Robinson marches punctiliously through American history starting with the arrival of the first slave ship in 1619 through to the present day. A prelude to the story involves a current-day interaction between Robinson and a Confederate cosplayer defending a traitor's statue and spouting zombie lies about the Civil War being about economics and not slavery. Robinson shakes the man's hand but walks away shaking his own head.
Such frustration undergirds this entire exercise. Robinson -- launching from a quote by George Orwell about who controls the past -- repeatedly tells his lecture audience that the proof of the white supremacy in our DNA is in the clear words of the founders of the country and those who fought to perpetuate "southern culture." He digs deep for lacerating words that expose the hypocrisy of anyone who would rewrite history in order to gaslight the rest of us. The indictments of former presidents Andrew Jackson and Woodrow Wilson are based on the men's blunt utterings that are still shocking today.
Robinson does not shy away from the horrors of violence against black people. He hits the road to visit with older women -- a survivor of the Tulsa massacre 100 years ago and the daughter of a man lynched in Alabama in 1947 -- and young black people who are preserving the history of slavery, opening eyes about the role of New York financiers, and tearing down Confederate statues in Memphis. (Robinson's own story of growing up in Memphis will bring the proceedings full circle; this is personal for him, and that's a good thing here.)
One of his most scathing rhetorical points involves a hot take on reparations. He points to Congress' 1862 gift of compensation to former owners of freed slaves and Lincoln's land-grant program as handouts to whites to give them a leg up in creating generational wealth, a disparity that exists to this day. A clip of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in May 1967 breaking this down is powerful.
Robinson is kind but tough, earnest without losing his sense of incredulity. He grounds this exercise in academic rigor and suave storytelling. The project is guided by Emily and Sarah Kunstler, who profiled their father, the rabble-rousing civil rights attorney William Kunstler, in 2009's "Disturb the Universe." They have a touch for poking at our collective conscience.
This bald narrative is designed to nag the viewer and seep into that poisoned collective DNA. But how many open eyes and open minds will dare to engage with it?
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