What I have learned

I come to this subject not as an expert or even a filmmaker. I think of myself as a public policy analyst with a camera. This is not a new subject; there are many scholars who have done a great deal of work on this issue, and I have gratefully borrowed from their work. The benefit of exploring this issue through a camera lens is that it captures emotions, reactions and conversations that academic research may not. So after 30 screenings, I have gained some key insights that I hope will inform further research:

that this is the moment for the conversation;

that the weakness of institutional memory among student groups creates a constant reinvention of the wheel among African Diaspora groups

that black people are confused about what to call themselves;

that white people are confused about what to call black people;

that I have left some people more confused than I found them (sorry);

that some people are quick to point out that race is a social construct; yet can’t tolerate people who don’t describe themselves in simple racial terms;

that identity is fluid and context-specific;

that Black is universal. In the year that I’ve been screening this documentary, I have met many people who are not quite at ease being called African American, but all except one person at University of Pennsylvania are comfortable with being called black. Makes one wonder why there appears to be something wrong with calling people “black”; and

that, perhaps most revealingly, people just want to be people. In the informal poll on www.neoafricanamericans.com, there are several options, but the option with the most votes is “A Person.”