 Hello everybody good evening and welcome. I'm Susan Collins the Joan and Sanford Wildein here at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy and we're delighted that all of you could be here to join us this evening for a very special event. We are doing a preview screening of American Denial by Lou Ellen Smith who'll be introduced in just a moment but I did want to say that we're delighted that he traveled to join us here this evening. I also would like to start by thanking our co-sponsors so in particular the National Center for Institutional Diversity and also the Institute for Social Research and we're delighted that the managing director Marvin Parnes is with us here this evening. Great to see you and this evening wouldn't have been possible without the assistance of women's studies professor James Hesinger who helped to connect us with Lou Ellen Smith and so thank you very much for that. We're delighted to have you join us as well. Well as you all know recent events have sparked a national dialogue actually an ongoing dialogue on race dynamics in the United States. The Ford School and the University of Michigan have been involved in a variety of ways and in particular through the month-long symposium in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. and this featured event is a part of those symposium activities. It is a great privilege for me to be able to welcome our special guests who are here with us this evening as part of that event and let me start with producer director Lou Ellen Smith. We are again delighted that you are here with us today. He has engaged the contemporary on contemporary social justice issues and American history through a great number of films that I suspect many in the audience are very familiar with. In particular let me highlight Eyes on the Prize American Civil Rights Years Africans in America America's journey through slavery and there are a great many others. He also served as series editor for the superb PBS series The American Experience that I suspect many of you like me saw and found extremely provocative and informative. He's also co-founder of the Blue Spark Collaborative which is a media company producing films that challenge perceptions of race and encourage intercultural conversations. He also examined some of the underlying structures that really helped to foster inequality in the United States and in recognition of his many major achievements he has won the Peabody, the Dupont and Emmy Awards and so that's quite an impressive feat and so we are particularly honored to have you here with us this evening. Thank you for being here. Martha Jones is an associate professor here at the University of Michigan with appointments in history, African American studies and law. She earned an Arthur F. Thurnau professorship which as many of you know means that she's a superb teacher. Those are distinguished teaching awards. Her work examines slavery and freedom, citizenship and the rights of women. She's also an active writer and I suspect that those of you who are on Twitter have read her political commentary on issues of rights and race in the United States. She's also a gifted author and I look forward to her forthcoming book which is entitled Birthright Citizens, A History of Race and Rights in Antebellum America. So thank you very much Martha for joining us this evening. And last but certainly not least, the Ford School's own Joy Rode who is an assistant professor here. She will moderate the discussion after the screening and Joy is a historian whose teaching includes courses in ethics as well as science and technology. She's also a phenomenal teacher I should mention. Her book Armed with Expertise was published in 2013. She's very interested in the role that social scientists play in domestic and foreign policy debates and I suspect that she like me shares fellow historians affinity for Gunnar Murdal who is featured very prominently in the film that we are about to see shortly. Just a quick note about format. We will begin with a moderated discussion immediately after the screening. Our speakers will have a brief discussion among themselves and then open the floor for comments and questions from the audience. If you have a question please raise your hand. We do have volunteers with microphones and please wait for a microphone before you speak and ask your question. For those watching online, we are delighted to take your comments through Twitter so you may tweak your questions using the hashtag American Denial Doc. With that I would like to invite our special guest Lou Ellen Smith to the podium to introduce his film. Good evening and thanks for first of all I want to say I'm really honored and excited to be here to screen the film with you. I don't often have a chance to screen a film that I produce or direct with an audience so this is a unique experience for me. A couple of one housekeeping note. The film will be broadcast, American Denial will broadcast on PBS Tuesday, February 24th. So this is at 11 p.m. So this is actually a this is I think one of the few screenings that I'm aware of the film before it's broadcast. I would say just a couple of words and then I think the film should just play and speak for itself. But I would say it does continue my interest in looking at history as a way of interrogating how we understand the present. And and looking at the way in which famous figures, lives help us understand something about ourselves and about how we are shaping and examining the world. That said, I would let the film play and we'll have a discussion afterwards. Thank you very much. Thank you, Lou, for such a fantastic film. This is the second time I've seen it. And I'm glad I'm not a discussant because it's the second time it's left me speechless. So I would like to turn the floor over. The way that this format is going to work now is that our discussants are going to have a conversation about the film just briefly for about 10 or 15 minutes. And then I'll open the floor up to your questions. We really want to hear, especially from you today. So Lou and Martha, please. So thanks very much, Joy. It's really a treat and an honor for me to be here with Lou. I've had the distinct pleasure to have a chance to talk with you over the last week about this film and the ideas underneath it. So I'm just going to jump in and get us started. I think my first question is one that maybe other people are asking also, which is sort of why Myrdal, why an American dilemma, why now? In other words, why come back to this study to this moment? On the one hand, I think we could suggest that Myrdal and his moment are remote in time, a pre-civil rights moment, a moment that predates the explosion in scholarship, including economics and history and sociology, anthropology, all taking up the questions that Myrdal asks. So why now? You know, I'm a historian and I'm a little skeptical about the historical analogies, which is to say so much has changed. But at the same time, my sense is that you thought there was something quite important that Myrdal had to offer us for thinking about the present. That's a good question. The film originated among myself and other producers, Christine Herbie-Suppers and also Kelly Thompson, when we were working on another film, which we've talked about a bit, Hearst's Commits at the Heart of Blackness. And Myrdal's story came up in the film and we want to tell a little bit about it and we decided we couldn't. But we saw that as an opportunity to explore his story in a separate film. And one of the things I think that was very compelling for me about his story is that he's he's fundamentally asking a question, which I think is a kind of, in my view, kind of eternal question, which is who are we as a society and who are we as Americans and who are Americans? And another way to think about it is who gets to be an American? He's not so crass. But I think there's a fundamental question there that he's asking. We have values, we have beliefs about what citizens, what it means to be a citizen, what a citizen should enjoy, what kind of rights a citizen should enjoy. Is this true for all of us? And how do we all share this? And in Myrdal's time, he was essentially coming to the conclusion that he was seeing something that was profoundly skewed from the extraordinary values that he embraced and he honored in America and that the world was honoring America and the world does honor in America. And the the answer for him was that the problem was not with the people who were being denied those opportunities, who were being debased, the people who were being repressed or oppressed. It was really, as he says in his writing, fundamentally, it's something that is embodied in the structures and the institutions in the mind of America. And I think that what we're trying to pose in the question, in the film rather, is the question, is that true today? And I think that's, I think, for, in my opinion, for any people who are concerned with social justice, concerned with understanding who we are as a people and do we honor justice truly? That's a question that continues to need to be asked. That's not a historical question. As I said, that's an eternal question. And so I think this is just the moment when we're asking that question. The film actually was, and I'll wind up by saying the film, we started production on this film, my gracious. I wish I could remember at least I'm going to say about four years ago. I think we started the first, we received the first small grant and began to try to build out the film. So it's not like we thought that this would be a great film for this moment. I think there are a lot of things that are happening in this moment and time that really begin to resonate with the questions that are being asked. But it's been a long time, a long, long journey, and the film has had many different iterations before it's come to be what, what you saw. So would it be fair to ask you whether this is an optimistic film or a pessimistic film? I think in watching, I feel like I sort of tacked between those two points of view. And then there's that moment when Michelle Alexander, who, who's important, important book, the new Jim Crow really lays out a historical and sort of sociological analysis of the contemporary moment through the question of mass incarceration. Even Alexander says, but I'm not that pessimistic. And I wonder, as a filmmaker, do you have that license to be, where is the license in being optimistic or pessimistic or having a point of view? We talked earlier about being an artist and about having the capacity to put questions on the table. But I'm trying to understand better sort of where you think the film sort of comes down on what is clearly, and it, you know, it seems like an eternal question, like an ever-present question. It's a very good question. I was, when I'm listening, I was listening to your question, and I was remembering that, that moment where Michelle Alexander says, but I'm not so pessimistic. And I remember going, I remember, I, I remember a discussion in the edit room and a discussion within myself about, are we gonna let her say that last phrase? You know, it was really, because when you come to the, there was a point at the, coming to the film where at least thinking about as a narrative, my feeling was I did not. I really, I'm trying to create, we talked about discomfort. I'm trying to create a kind of creative, I think we were trying to create, that's my vision, I think in terms of the producers, I think is also a sense of this. Trying to create a creative discomfort for the audience, a real discomfort. And there's a desire not to let the audience off the hook, that's my feeling. So even the last bit of text that says that the US, the New York courts, you know, struck down this, this law against about frisking. There was some controversy about whether you should include that. Because, because, and I'll come to the, I think I'll come to the answer of what you're, this is a long way to get to your answer, because I think that it's important for us to, to really struggle with these questions in a real way. And so in the film, I'm trying to, I feel as a director, I want to create a space where those answers are not easy, and you can't really get away from the discomfort and what you're beginning to talk about, which is a kind of sort of pessimism. I don't feel, I don't think the film is so much pessimistic as it's really, and I think, I think that Kelly and Christine would agree it's, it's forcing, it's trying to force us to ask really hard, difficult questions that are not the answers which may not come so easily or so comfortably. And if we can do that, I think that that's an optimistic thing, actually. I think in the difficulty of being able to do that creates a kind of optimism for me. I think the pessimism comes when we say that this is a question we can slip by. This is a question that we really, somebody else can address. I don't need to address. I think that's the response that makes me feel pessimistic about what might happen, what the possibilities are for us on this issue. So you opened the door to this scene, right behind the scenes, which is the debates that are going on among you as creative folks behind this film. So I have to ask you about the decision to include that image of, I think it's a young Trayvon Martin. Am I, am I mistaken? Well, that's really interesting. It's not. We, we actually wanted to include Trayvon Martin. And there was a, there was an image that we actually had in the film for a long time. And what happened was that we couldn't get the rights to the image. We, and I think it was just that we, the conversations, it wasn't that we were denied, it's just, we just couldn't in time get a clear, honest answer that, yes, you can use this image. And so we decided we would not use it. But we did, you're right, we were trying to, with the image that we use, we're trying to, to bring that to the fore. You made me think of one thing when I was watching the film, I just want to say this, it's interesting in terms of just the creative experience. The, that scene where we have the young people being frisked, which is a scene I directed and we can see that scene. Those are high school kids. The two guys actually behind them are both filmmakers. They're not really cops. But the kids, when they did this scene, it was really interesting because we sort of blocked the scene and walked through it just the way you would in a feature film. And now this is going to happen. We're going to do this shoot. It's all shot with stills. It's not film. So it's hundreds of stills that we're building to the scene. And I remember after we did the frisking part, these guys were, you, two things happened. One is you can see their body and their faces change. And part of it is because they've been frisked a lot. And what, one of the things that they said to me was after we shot this, he said, actually, when the cops do this, they're way rougher with us than you were. So it was, it was one of those moments where you think that you really understand the reality of what you're trying to portray. And then after you sort of put it together, they're saying, no, no, it's, it's way worse than this. And how their physical bodies changed from, we're acting to, no, this is really happening, was very powerful for me anyway. I'm going to assert my privilege as moderator and turn your question around your first question to you, Martha, which is, can you talk a little bit about the ways in which you see gaps between Mirdal's argument, his assessment, and, and what we're experiencing today, or and, and another piece which you may or may not have an answer for, which is, you know, if not Mirdal, what other figures might we want to think of in terms historical figures that might be maybe more resonant? It's a great question. On the one hand, I think that I, I don't think today we might lean as heavily as Mirdal did on this notion that there was that there was a higher American ideal, right? I think today we might more rely on a narrative that suggests about the ways in which inequality, racism, colonialism are themselves elements of the American creed. And so whereas I think it doesn't mean politically and rhetorically that we still don't hold the nation up to those ideals as Mirdal maps them out, but I think that is in some sense more rhetorical, more strategic than it is analytic. And that in the analysis, I think we would say, right, slavery, racism, genocide are, are all part of the founding fabric of the nation, that it is that paradox, that dilemma, that is the American dilemma. It's not the disjuncture between the creed and the ideals. It is the way in which the lived experience of, for example, people of color, or those who we come to call people of color, are part of the foundational fabric. My other reflection in watching this is on the other hand, I was hard pressed to point to, and gosh, I wouldn't do this in front of a live room point to who I think might be appear to Mirdal today because I'd leave someone out and offend someone maybe. But more to the point, I was just struck by Mirdal's range and ambition as an intellectual. I had forgotten that he was trained as an economist because so much of what we learned from an American dilemma is about psychology, sociology. And so this style of an intellectual who's interdisciplinary long before places like the University of Michigan sort of trade on that notion, he just is working that way because it makes sense and it's a part of his ambition. So in that way, it's quite remarkable to imagine that way of working. And he's also working outside the academy in this moment. So he's working for Carnegie, which is this extraordinary project in and of itself that is neither the academy nor the state that has this enormous worldview about race, about racism and race relations and is doing many things in this period in addition to commissioning Mirdal's study. Carnegie is sort of a core philanthropist in the very circumstances that Mirdal is studying. So that's very hard to point to the parallel, the easy parallels I think. So we've taken our 15 minutes and we could probably go forever, but we would like to open up the floor now for discussion. There are two mics circulating. Cliff has one. Thank you. First of all, thank you for the film. It was if your purpose was to generate discomfort, I believe you succeeded. I wanted to ask a question about an American dilemma itself, the master work of social science. I believe Mirdal wrote two books, a really thin one, which is the one that people read, the beginning of the two volumes set and the rest of it. And what's impressive to me is the mountain of evidence that he collected compiled with a very substantial staff. On the problem of racism and racial discrimination, how deeply entrenched it was. The portrait he paints of the American South and the Great Depression and the way African Americans in particular suffered is very hard to read, but extremely powerful. And there are chapters on corruption in the political system and the police as tools of oppression and violence. You know, it's just one thing after another, horrible thing after another. And at the very beginning of the book, he writes this, I think, concoction of a conflict between our commitment to moral values in the one hand and our practice of racial discrimination on the other. And if you only read the first part of the book, how could he come to that having written his other book? And so this gets back to a point that Martha Jones made earlier, pointing to Michelle Alexander, who makes a very compelling persuasive case about mass incarceration as a tool of racial domination. And she says in your film, nevertheless, I'm feeling pretty optimistic about the future. I don't think I would say that. I hear you. Right. And you weren't sure that that should be part of the film. Okay, I get that. So this is a question, I suppose, primarily about an American dilemma. How do you reconcile his extremely persuasive thousand page book about the entrenched problem of racial discrimination in America on the one hand and this story at the beginning about how if we just live up to our values, the problem of race discrimination will go away. You may have some thoughts about this. I don't know that he's only saying if we just live up to our values. I think that he's... And I think the question of values is a really tough one. I think that just as a side note, I think it was very important to have the note from Ralph Bunch who basically says I'm not with you on this. I don't think that people are really so absorbed about this as you are. And in fact, among his staff, there's some controversy of whether that was really the appropriate or the power lens. But I think that just from... And this is a slightly... I don't know if this is not an academically informed view, but I think that there are several things going on and I think they have to do with that. I think he's trying to embrace this idea of America in a almost... The word is not romantic, but it's a very... The idea of these values are really quite profound for him. And one of the things he talks about and writes about is that in Europe and especially in Sweden, there's no fundamental statement that the state that's in a document is about this is who we are as Swedes, is what we believe or this is what we believe all Swedes should... There's nothing like that. And I think the fact of such a statement about these ideals had a very profound effect for him. At the same time... And I think he did have genuine affection and real hope for the country. At the same time, I think that you're right, how do you reconcile that against what he's looking at, in the end, it adds up to a profoundly almost corrupt sort of a system of history that goes on further back than we want to think of oppression and racism. I think there's a... I think that what you're kind of implying is that there is a kind of... There is a kind of a dance he's trying to do a bit. But at the same time, I think that again, I'm not sure that it's unjust to sort of say he's being disingenuous. I don't think it's just to say he's being disingenuous. I think that the last thing I would say is I'm not sure how you could... I imagine, I'm trying to imagine him, I'm trying to imagine him sort of reconcile those two things. And I think it's a very big challenge in a place that he has great affection and connections with and also trying to understand how it can also be this other piece that he's just discovered that he's never been part of, that he's never seen. And I thought for me, it's the moment when you focus in on his relationship with Alva, right, that you suggest a kind of thesis, a lens through which we might understand Meridol but we might understand ourselves as our profound capacities for denial. And at least for me in thinking about where we are in the mid-20th century, we're on the cusp not only of a civil rights revolution but a women's rights revolution and it seems to me Meridol, in any way to let him up the hook, is of a moment in which he's quite capable of not seeing the questions that he's deeply embedded in. I think, thanks as well for the presentation and the discussion. And I was thinking about a strain or maybe a tension that I think is in both American dilemma and at least the elements of which I think are in the film which is minds versus structures and maybe not somewhat piggybacking on what you were saying dilemma is talking about psychology attitudes of belief, this American psyche which the film rather goes into and talks about how that was in Brown v. Board and the Clark-Dahl study that it's about attitudes and beliefs but then we do have Meridol saying we need large structural reforms and I think that tension continues because that I mean, not necessarily people citing American dilemma but the myth of that it's just about attitudes and beliefs and no one would say attitudes of beliefs are unimportant but rather than looking at the era of causality from institutions, structures historical inequality and state promotions and public policies leading that and thus coming up Meridol wasn't really he talked about big structural reforms he wasn't really policy prescriptive but we can be at least the elements of that tension are I think both in American dilemma and the film and I think those continue with us today we can look at issues like affirmative action where that tension is the case of leading at least legal defenses where it's been upheld is its diversity and really of the white mind will benefit the white mind, the white student will benefit from attitudes and beliefs not unlike his which again no one's going to say it's unimportant but doesn't say oh we can do affirmative action or other remedies as a part of the least we can do to remedy historical and ongoing racial inequality but I wonder if you saw that tension or see that tension or they're doing the film or any of you ongoingly in any kind of interesting way this comes back to what you were saying about Meridol and the blindness I mean I think the thing that we sort of begin to at least for me I think it's important to remember I think it's very important is that you know we can talk about structures and we talk about policy but our policies are created by minds they're peopled you know so again I mean I think that there is I think there is a tension between we want to say that we can sort of create these policies these things could actually happen but again who's in the room and who's a part of the conversation about what these policies are going to be and I think that's not an insignificant that's not an insignificant blind spot just as Meridol has these tremendous ideas and this amazing intellect and he's got this amazing vision that he can execute he's got this one amazing blind spot which is that he's an absolute un-reconstructed patriarch and his wife eventually calls him on it in an extraordinary way so it's sort of to me it's a similar kind of a thing there is the structure but the structure is also people the structure is also shape it also comes from somebody it doesn't policies and the institutions that build them don't just sort of appear out of thin air so I think that's part of the tension and I would describe that as the question of who's at the table question I guess I connected to that one of the moments that really stuck with me is when you remind us A that Carnegie can't imagine an African-American social scientist running this study exactly and then and then Bunch being sort of the lone sort of African-American figure and ultimately a critic in some sense he wasn't the lone he wasn't the lone he was certainly clear the most important and the most impressive and the most dynamic you're absolutely right I'm sorry just to say I think it goes to it's one of those spots where you can think about how minds and structure are intersecting in that moment when Carnegie is talking about the structure and who's at the table and the deep structures of American philanthropy and all of those things coming to play but it's also a space in which you've got those more intimate sort of scenes between Myrdal and Bunch where we see also attitudes coming to bear so maybe I'm just trying to suggest that there's spaces where it's not where we can see the two and play what's interesting for me about the film that's really interesting because many folks here may already know WB Du Bois essentially invented American sociology and he's in America and he's not somebody that they want to bring on I mean so there again is this idea of policy and this institution with this great vision but there's an extraordinary blind spot and their assumption is it's going to have to be someone outside of America and it's going to almost certainly absolutely without much question anywhere be a white person that's who they're looking for and that says a lot about them there's a real powerful tension there here's what we want to do it's high minded, it's wonderful nobody can do it and we're just as blind as everybody else that we're trying to as a society that we're trying to understand um I'm hearing a lot of things described as questions which to me aren't questions at all they've really been answered and very concretely and particularly over the last let's say 25, 30 years by the gentleman down here said the mounds of evidence that Gunnar Meerdahl put together but there have been mounds and mounds and mounds and mounds and mounds and mounds and mounds hundreds and hundreds of books films like this one and other great films that have been produced that clear up things that are being described right now as questions it is unquestionable that this country was created with a racial hierarchy built right into the structure it is unquestionable that the way that our minds are not allowed to see the disconnection between the so-called freedoms and our ideals and the reality that we live has been skewed and has been told in story form and has been played out for us in our history books and thousands of different ways that prevent us from being able to see those connections we have not taught it in school when I was a kid I went to school every single day said the Pledge of Allegiance every single day Pledge of Allegiance, Liberty and Justice for All and I never thought never thought of the massive contradiction that existed between what I was saying and the way and I grew up first 15 years of my life under legal Jim Crow segregation never thought to compare what I was saying with the reality that I lived because my teachers the society in general didn't make those connections didn't allow us to see those connections it had a story why things were the way they were and a big part of that explanation was the pathology of race that black people were pathological as a racial group now today we tell a different story and John Powell in the film addressed this when he talked about how in the past they would have said that black people are racially deficient today they say we're culturally deficient and that's the explanation that we all get that we deserve to be arrested that we're criminals etc etc etc and other people of color get the same and different stories but similar stories as well so to me the dilemma is not so much how do we continue to not make those connections as how do we get that information the mounds and mounds and mounds of information out into the broader the general public get it I call it down to the streets how do we get that down to the streets this film is better than we're giving it than this discussion is giving it credit for being it on earth it reveals a ton of wonderful stuff it's wonderful that Michelle Alexander is in there it's wonderful that John Powell is in there and they're saying things that could help to pull the veil away from our eyes but so the question is how do we get those and the implicit bias I could go on and on talking a long time but how do we get that stuff down to the street how do we get it out into the the general public and how do we stop talking about these things as if we don't have the answers they're not questions for a lot of us they're very very clear I mean that's the 64,000 I like question no really because I think that one of the things that's powerful about film that doesn't happen with you know one of the things that's powerful about film is that it is accessible it's immediately accessible and one of the challenges in terms of the streets in terms of just I think you're talking about the public you're talking about the public you're talking about in other communities in terms of just getting it out there film makes many of these ideas really really powerfully accessible the challenge is the challenge for me has always been a question of distribution and that's a very good question too what you should do if that's really a concern seriously is you should talk to your local public television station because the way that ITVS is scheduled unfortunately is it really has a lot to do with local stations and where they want to put it and our film is a part of the ITVS series so that's part of it but the other part of it is I'm especially interested in trying to understand how these things happen and are available even outside of broadcast you know I'm excited about the broadcast I'm excited about festivals but it's also something that could have a life in communities that could have a life in environments like this in teaching institutions and so on and that's something I hope is going to happen as well this is the third time I've seen this film and I'm more thrilled each time and see more to ponder and to make use of I think the question about what do we do with it is really pertinent but I want to say that I appreciate this film in part because of its complexity its multi-disciplinarity it's looking into multiple streams of scholarship and it's resisting a tendency to participate in processes that slice and dice are thinking about complex social problems I'm a psychoanalyst and so I'm concerned with how the mind gets sliced and diced and I know that or how identity is built around processes that are about splitting and about the repudiation of that which is uncomfortable and painful and ugly and if we continue to engage both at a large social level and as an individual level in that kind of repudiation unconsciously we can't make the kinds of changes but you've given us ways to think about that repudiation and ways to become curious about the organization of our own minds thinking and I really really appreciate that thank you very much Hi, I'm Sylvia Pedrasa professor of sociology and American culture I want to defend Gunnar Myrtl's choice of pointing out the contradiction between the American creed and the values that we hold dear and the actual practices because I think that for example when one compares the history of race relations in the United States and Latin America in the Caribbean there's a number of differences and profound similarities they both start with the institution of slavery but in the end in the Caribbean and Latin America you end up with a much softer pattern of race relations I call it softer because that's what the literature calls it I don't know what else to call it but basically there was no Jim Crow a much larger mixed race population relationships in terms of friendships for example and neighborhood patterns than in the United States so the United States is a much more harder case of race relations and one of the differences between the two why do you get such different outcomes when the beginnings are so much more similar one of the differences between the two is that in the United States there is the statement of a creed and also the contradiction and the denial of creed in actual practice it's not the only one there are different patterns of colonization the Spanish and the Portuguese are one saying and the British are another there is different family structures and gender patterns different rates of manumission for whatever set of reasons there's just a lot more free people from slavery in the Caribbean than there is in the South of the United States there is a number of differences and I will reveal it down to one but I think that one key difference is that in the United States there is a statement about who we are and who we believe what we believe in that doesn't exist in Latin America and again that was one of the things that attracted him was that he didn't see it in Europe he didn't see it in his own country I just wanted to make a comment about the title denial and also going to what the gentleman said about the mound of evidence it really seems that the film is great this is really powerful documentary but we've got tons of these things and it seems that it's not so much the content presenting it's dealing with the recipients with the we're talking about the whole public here in terms of addressing issues of denial how do you go about that in terms of specifically trying to break down those defense mechanisms that are going on that's a really powerful block and I'm not sure just as much evidence in films and information that we put out that it gets through because this has been going on since the framers the constitution the denial began right back then with the people that penned the constitution and this is what I say a lot of us are probably very frustrated with media and with our leaders in terms of not trying to approach that and it has to be approached in a sophisticated way to try to break through defense mechanisms of people and you need to have the people there at the top who are savvy to that which you know I guess is questionable and it seems that we have a very opportune time right now because we are resurrecting all these issues they're fresh right now but what's going on is we have two camps going on it's just falling back into the old patterns and a lot of defense mechanisms are kicking in and you can look at New York City and the police and the protesters but there is an opportunity there if it could be grasped by the right folks to really use this to you know make those connections and have that dialogue start so just coming in I think you're touching on I think when we create films like this when filmmakers create films in terms of the work we're doing as filmmakers there's no silver bullet I don't imagine that people are going to take this film and suddenly it's going to be the lights are going to go on and that's the end of it I think there are several things I would say is what happens afterwards and also whether there are conversations or situations like this where people can actually talk about it I think that's one thing and I think the other thing is that we're trying to even in creating this film and not having a sense that several years later that we were going to be in this sort of political moment in America where race is sort of in your face and back on the table in such a visceral sort of important way I think that even without knowing that what we're trying to do is to create a piece that act a film that can be part of a public conversation that can be part of what's already sort of being discussed around these issues and there's always been a constructive or a sidelined or a dead end or a inspiring or a devolving or a fragmented conversation around race to go away and so when we created it we wanted to be part of that and I think that the last thing I would say is that anything that in my view and we were talking about this earlier but anything that begins to encourage us to see this is going to sound sort of tripe but to begin to see this question of race as a human question that involves all of us that affects us you know I think it's very powerful I mean in some ways that's really the power of what you know when you started to defend Gunner Murdoch I mean that sort of brings us back to the power and the importance of what it means the difference between what the law says and what I believe you know the law can provide all kinds of remedies but do I believe that when your children are harmed that's the same as my children getting harmed do I believe if I'm a teacher that I've got to struggle to make sure that all the children in front of me get the same thing what do I actually believe and I think that's what we're trying to begin to probe in a way that's very difficult to sort of get to we all can talk about what we think the law should be and we all should obey the law and the law should be for everybody but there's something else that we're trying to get to in the film which is a bit more to my mind which really drives society and drives the questions that we're talking about you know at some level they're not legal questions at some level it's about what do we believe about equality how do we live it what really happens when we're in those situations and how and so that's what we're trying to really explore and I think that anything that begins to put that on the table in a in an undeniable way or an important way is a very important piece of this conversation as well I so I'm going to put you gently on the spot because you you offered up a really I think a really what was for me a powerful and a provocative way of thinking about racism and the place of racism in American culture you remember it was your environmental analogy you know and and I asked you you know so I want to say what the analogy was and because I think that it goes to this question about whether our work is about on the one hand the work the answer might be right that we're not that abolition is not is not the vision right abolition is not what's possible and that keeping racism at bay right mitigating racism so where are you today at quarter to seven on that four o'clock you had a powerful analogy there the analogy is not my it's not it's an analogy that's stuck with me but it's not mine originally I was saying that I was some years ago we were Ford Foundation was a funder of unnatural causes which is a film that I was one of the producers I was an executive producer for and we were in a room full of Ford lawyers and they were talking about the race the work they were doing around racial injustice around the world and when they were all doing different kinds of pieces and they're all extraordinary pieces I mean difficult and and even dangerous and just amazing work that they were talking about there's a sort of reporting and sharing is and at one point someone in the room was listening to this litany of of sort of cases and setbacks and assaults and not individual but sort of assaults on human dignity and and and it was basically saying where does this end what what's how do what when does this come to an end and another person in the room and I can't I wish I could remember his name said essentially you we have to think about this in terms of as an economic kind you think of it as a sort of of an environmental kind of a problem it's not that there's a bullet or something that ends it but if you think of it as an environmental problem it's almost like there's a river and we want the river to be pure we want to drink the water we all want to drink the water people are dumping things in the water it's it requires vigilance and continual work sometimes the water is going to be really dirty but we can sort of begin to find the sources of that dirty and begin to deal with it sometimes it'll be but the idea is that it's not that there's an end it sort of requires continual work and continual vigilance and I think that's that to me I found very realistic and somehow not so much reassuring but it was a different sort of way of thinking about why I'm doing the work that I'm doing because you know I I take what you're saying in terms of I take what you're saying in terms of of the and also what you're saying and it's what's called several times we sort of know this and we sort of we and sometimes it's sort of when do we when does the things begin to click and things begin to sort of shift in a really dramatic way which so we can really begin to see progress but I think part of it is there's continual work that has to happen because we're dealing with individuals and we're dealing with structures and some of those structures have really long long roots when Michelle Alexander is talking about the massive incarceration system that's a long ancient sort of shadow that we don't even want to talk about in some ways that goes that does go back to I think slavery so how do you begin to face those kind of challenges without being ready to throw up your hands and find a corner and I think that's this idea of sort of of environmental of thinking about the race question in terms of activism as a kind of an environmental question I thought was really quite affecting for me anyway. That's a long way to go to Europe and I think I do come back as a touchstone question I still sort of I still sort of feel that way because otherwise you know is the answer then that I've got to sort of create a piece of work that actually I can actually see actually changes this or actually has this effect or actually and I'm not sure that's the I'm not sure that's what's in terms of my sense of work as a producer required of me you know because it was I don't think it's something I can actually do here's the piece of work that's going to actually make a 90 a degree turn in this that's just not I don't have that I don't know what that subject is tell me I'll find the money I'll make it this is going to be our last question this is not an academic question can I ask it I appreciate what you just shared about that environmental analogy because we're all I feel very impatient and the watching the film almost makes me more impatient but my question is that I am struck by this one moment in the film where one of your voices talks about incarceration with a maybe he says there are people who believe or I don't I don't remember what he says exactly but he isn't definitive about our our structure of incarceration even though Michelle Alexander is you probably are I am and so I'm just wondering back in the editing room was there any conversation among you and your other producers about how to frame that because it seemed as if you softened it I wish I could remember it does anybody else remember what I'm talking about is it a voiceover no it's I'm sorry is it a voiceover no he's it was a narrator was it my voice was a narrator I don't know if it was your voice but it seemed like it was coming from the man with the very long dreadlocks so he made a statement about incarceration that was not definitive he says some people argue that or something like that so I just wanted a little back story about why you decided to be so soft on that I wish I had the actual I think I know what you're talking about I think he's trying I think what he's doing is he's beginning to set up what follows which is Michelle's Alexander's socio-historical analysis of what we're actually seeing with mass incarceration and I think that the only I think what's if I remember correctly I think part of what was first of all that's a statement from a much longer interview that we did with him and that was one of the things he was talking about was the same issue of mass incarceration and I think that what we were trying to do is to use him to sort of set that up but he's a historian and actually his area of expertise is Caribbean history and slavery and the Caribbean so he's trying to be careful about putting himself out there as a I think putting himself out there as an expert in this area and the film we're asking him to do a number of different things which he does very well but he's also trying to be careful about saying that this is an area that he's really got as much expertise in as Michelle Alexander it's a place where we're really wanting him to work he's doing what a narrator would do but maybe not as effectively in your view. What I heard is that there are variously interesting and not interesting academic debates that Michelle Alexander's thesis is generated and historians are right at the center of rethinking the ideas that she is so powerfully articulated so that's an academic answer in a sense to a question that I know wasn't about academics but we could ask a question in this room I think it would be a fair question about that tension which is to say about sort of academic thinking which takes us back to Myrtle which is to say why Myrtle's ideas don't carry the day is that certainly in academic conversations but not only right Lori in academic conversations in political conversations all of this is profoundly contested terrain which is to say Myrtle is writing and then we get we could ping pong between Myrtle is some version of the left and insight about race in America and then we could pong back to Moynihan half a generation later who takes us to another position and we could go back and forth and appreciate I think that one of the answers I think to the question about how and why it is that these ideas don't get traction is that they're deeply contested and that that contest is undergirded by the equivalent of Carnegie on the other side to not only facilitate the studies but to promote the ideas both in academic and in political and in popular culture when I think about your film and I think about how deeply insightful and persuasive it is I also know that then Americans flip 16 channels to the left or to the right and they're watching eerily some of those very same scenes that you stage could have been lifted from some reality TV program about cops in America and that's the so it seems to me television is a battleground and that's why it's hard for these ideas to carry the day in part because for me that's why that's part of the reason it's hard for those ideas to carry the day is because we can flip the channel and someone is promoting a narrative that trades on some of the very same imagery and reads it in a very different way and so it seems to me you're working not only to educate another generation that each generation has to learn this history and this story and so there's that work but that you're also bumping up against other sorts of popular cultural representations and narratives that are interested in your questions but have a profoundly different so thank you so much we're out of time but thank you Martha thank you Lou and I just wanted to say some thank yous as well to Joy and Martha for joining us and to Lou for his very powerful film and also for taking the time to be with us this evening thank you all for joining us and for your comments and your questions we hope you'll stay we have a reception just outside the double doors to continue the conversation a little bit more informally please join me in a final round of applause thank you