In a new video from social justice-oriented T-shirt company FCKH8, several Ferguson children lampoon the excuses white people give to avoid getting involved in ending discrimination in America and deliver a call to action to stomp out racism.
It’s the provocative and thought-provoking question that acts as a catalyst for a frank discussion about race in a new video from the Jubilee Project, a creative collective who make short films, PSAs and documentaries in collaboration with non-profits to increase awareness about social justice issues.
On the afternoon of Aug. 9, a police officer fatally shot an unarmed, black teenager, Michael Brown, in Ferguson, Missouri. Details remain in dispute.Eyewitnesses have said that Brown was compliant with police and was shot while he had his hands up. Police maintain that the 18-year-old had assaulted an officer and was reaching for the officer’s gun. One thing clear, however, is that Brown’s death follows a disturbingly common trend of black men being killed, often while unarmed and at the hands of police officers, security guards and vigilantes.
After news of Brown’s death broke, media-watchers carefully followed the narratives that news outlets began crafting about the teenager and the incident that claimed his life. Wary of the controversy surrounding the media’s depiction of Trayvon Martin – the Florida teen killed in a high-profile case that led to the acquittal of neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman – people on Twitter wondered, “If they gunned me down, which picture would they use?” Using thehashtag #IfTheyGunnedMeDown, users posted side-by-side photos, demonstrating the power that news outlets wield in portraying victims based on images they select….
He (Barack Obama) has done nothing for African Americans. You look at what’s gone on with their income levels. You look at what’s gone on with their youth. I thought that he would be a great cheerleader for this country. I thought he’d do a fabulous job for the African American citizens of this country. He has done nothing.
Darius Simpson and Scout Bostley begin to speak into their individual microphones – but then they stop, switch mics and start talking again.
In the video below from the 2015 College Unions Poetry Slam Invitational, the two Eastern Michigan University students perform their spoken word poem “Lost Voices”and discuss white privilege, reproductive rights, male privilege and dating while black.