Return-Path: <nifl-povracelit@literacy.nifl.gov> Received: from literacy (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by literacy.nifl.gov (8.10.2/8.10.2) with SMTP id h8N92vV28826; Tue, 23 Sep 2003 05:02:58 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 23 Sep 2003 05:02:58 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <003a01c381b1$78681f30$1522a5d1@air.org> Errors-To: listowner@literacy.nifl.gov Reply-To: nifl-povracelit@literacy.nifl.gov Originator: nifl-povracelit@literacy.nifl.gov Sender: nifl-povracelit@literacy.nifl.gov Precedence: bulk From: "Mary Ann Corley" <macorley1@earthlink.net> To: Multiple recipients of list <nifl-povracelit@literacy.nifl.gov> Subject: [NIFL-POVRACELIT:1235] Matters of Race, Airing on PBS September 23-24 and October 13 X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2800.1106 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Content-Type: text/plain; Status: O Content-Length: 7053 Lines: 126 >From PBS: This innovative series challenges its audience to reconsider the architecture of race, its role in American democracy and its relationship to power in America. Using personal memoirs, autobiographies, interviews and letters from several leading authors, the series explores the complex demands of the country's rapidly changing multiracial and multicultural society. Race, culture, power and identity are the four themes at the center of each episode. Each program is thematically, rather than chronologically, organized and uses personal stories of American writers as the centerpiece. Upcoming and recent airings: -- Tuesday, September 23, 9:00 p.m. Race Is, Race Ain't/The Divide -- Wednesday, September 24, 9:00 p.m. What Does It Take to Heal?/Tomorrow's America -- Monday, October 13, 9:00 p.m. What Does It Take to Heal?/Tomorrow's America A Website provided by PBS on the subject: http://www.pbs.org/race/000_General/000_00-Home.htm And more on Matters on Race from http://www.pbs.org/previews/Matters_Of_Race/ Matters of Race The nation's newspapers never fail to chronicle the many people of color who collectively struggle for a place in this democracy, a struggle that often seems to break down starkly along racial lines. Whether it's racial profiling, police brutality, changing demographics, affirmative action or what exactly national security advisor Condoleeza Rice "owes" to the black community, the debate about race in this country is no longer about how race is defined. Today, the most-asked question is: how is it lived? MATTERS OF RACE, airing on PBS Tuesday-Wednesday, September 23-24, 2003, (check local listings), tackles that question with six unflinching films that look not only into the personal experiences and relationships that affect this crucial debate, but also the institutions and structures that sometimes make it seem so difficult to change language, ideas and practices. First-person stories provided by novelists, essayists and poets in MATTERS OF RACE provide a poignant complement to cinéma vérité accounts that highlight changing communities across the nation. Featured writers include acclaimed author John Edgar Wideman, two-time winner of the prestigious Penn Faulkner Award; Jane Lazarre (Beyond the Whiteness of Whiteness: Memoir of a White Mother of Black Sons); Eric Liu (The Accidental Asian: Notes of a Native Speaker); Ruben Martinez (Crossing Over: A Mexican Family on the Migrant Trail); and the work of Danzy Senna (Caucasia). But it is the stories of ordinary Americans, sometimes pushing and shoving their way to a place at the table, that really propels MATTERS OF RACE, sometimes uneasily. The first film, "The Divide," seems ripped from today's headlines. Catapulted from the rural areas of Mexico and Central America to low-wage jobs in small towns from Virginia to Missouri, a new generation of immigrants has completely changed the face of the American South in less than a decade. With changes to the workforce have come changes to schools, housing and culture. Siler City, North Carolina, featured in the program, has found it impossible to ignore the explosive situation caused by its rapidly transforming main street. The personal stories of Eric Liu and Ruben Martinez are featured in this hour. The second hour, "Race Is, Race Ain't," goes inside the executive offices and the operating theaters of one of Los Angeles' busiest hospitals. Erected as a result of a bargain with community leaders following the Watts riots of 1965, the King-Drew Medical Center has long been claimed by the African American community as proof of the value of collective political struggle. But the hospital sits in a changing world, surrounded by a Latino population that now constitutes the majority of its patients. This struggle over leadership and language at King-Drew is framed by the personal stories of Wideman and Lazarre. "We're Still Here" is a contemporary look at two communities often overlooked in the race dialogue: American Indians and Native Hawaiians, who confront challenges to an externally imposed requirement to choose between centuries-old methods of identification based on kinship and spiritual practice and what many in both communities see as an American obsession with race. Most important, this third hour allows viewers to hear and see the realities of day-to-day life on reservations. Through the lives and stories of three generations of families on the Pine Ridge (South Dakota) Reservation and perspectives from a community struggle in Hawaii, the film considers the historical construction of Native "otherness" and its influence on the ways a new generation of Native peoples will determine their identities. "Tomorrow's America," the final episode of MATTERS OF RACE, explores youth culture and the values of the next generation by putting the camera into the hands of three young producers. Through their short documentaries, these producers explore the way race is imagined and understood by the next generation, a generation influenced by cultural cross-pollination and the information superhighway. * "EveryOther" examines the new racial classifications on the U.S. census through the concerns and deliberations of "mixed-race" people. Incorporating a stylistic blend of satirical fiction and cinéma vérité, the personal meets the political in this identity war story. Using the writing of Danzy Senna, the film explores what this "mix of races" means for the future of racial identity in America. * "Who I Became" is the story of Pounloeu Chea, a first generation Cambodian American. As a child, he escaped the Khmer Rouge with his family and fled to San Francisco in the early 1980s. Four years ago Pounloeu's father returned to Cambodia, leaving his wife and three sons. Last year his mother returned to join him. Without his parents, Pounloeu gets into trouble with the law and begins a family. But what will he make of his life when all he knows is displacement and the street life common among the children of many Southeast Asian immigrants in his community? * "I Belong to This," the final film in MATTERS OF RACE, is a personal look at the idea that mere survival is no longer satisfactory for American Indians. Dustinn (25-year-old White Mountain Apache) and Velma (24-year-old Navajo) are working for positive change in this new millennium. The realities of living in an environment plagued with drugs, alcoholism, racism and violence have given the young parents inspiration to change the course of their lives. This poetic yet unsentimental documentary is filmed on the White Mountain Apache Reservation, the Navajo Nation and Tempe, Arizona, where Dustinn and Velma Craig reside. "These stories are not about people of color as victims," says executive producer Orlando Bagwell, "they are about people of all colors, all of those who live and work and survive in this country, as Americans. What do we lose when we deny opportunities or even common humanity to one another based on race? What do we gain?"
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