Who We Are (Links)

An urgent and timely documentary. A sounding alarm for America, and the world, to grapple with its original sin. Expertly crafted and beautifully articulated through the lens and words of master storytellers. Could be the very best documentary feature you'll see this year.

Parents need to know that Who We Are: A Chronicle of Racism in America is a must-see documentary centered on a powerful lecture about racism given by Jeffery Robinson, the deputy legal director and director of the Trone Center for Justice & Equality at the ACLU... Be prepared to have meaningful but possibly challenging conversations with teens about race in the United States, including how to combat racism, prejudice, and racial privilege...

...Who We Are: A Chronicle of Racism in America is meant as a wake-up call to Americans about the truth of their country's history: Not only is racism still alive and well in the United States, but it's a fundamental part of the country's foundation. The film is also a call to action -- Robinson makes it clear that it's up to all Americans to stop the tide of racism in order to put the United States on a better, more equitable path.

It’s unlikely that any lecture documentary since “An Inconvenient Truth” has had the galvanizing potential of “Who We Are: A Chronicle of Racism in America” ... The film presents a talk that the lawyer Jeffery Robinson (a former deputy legal director at the A.C.L.U.) gave at Town Hall in New York on Juneteenth 2018. His subject is nothing less than the history of anti-Black racism in the United States...

... Robinson brings nuance to topics — unconscious bias, reparations, how to deal with the fact that George Washington owned slaves — that have become flash points in society, without ever losing the core of his progressive message. It’s a confrontational film, but never an alienating one, and so much of what’s in it is persuasive.

I shed tears during Who We Are, yet I also became angered by the images before me and as the closing credits scrolled by I found myself wanting to use my own platforms with an even stronger commitment.

Robinson doesn’t just tell you that racism is structural, but he shows the receipts.

Who We Are is a significant work, both for its confrontation of a nation’s troubled past and for its hopeful look to the future.

To hear him speak is to feel his words and learn our shared, collective history. With a wider audience, this film and the Who We Are Project could easily change some hearts and minds. Here’s hoping the film earns that opportunity.

...Jeffery Robinson’s guided tour through the past that anchors and divides his country is the best contextual primer for all those documentaries which came before and, hopefully, will carry on his mission to educate and advocate for change in the future.