Commentary
Letters for Black Lives
In doing anti-racist work, the question often arises within immigrant communities of how to discuss systemic racism with older family members who may have little exposure to the vocabulary of social justice movements. Thus enters Letters for Black Lives.
Letters for Black Lives was born in 2016 in response to the murder of Philando Castile by a police officer in St. Paul, Minnesota. A group of Asian Americans recognized the persistence of anti-Black sentiment within their communities and desired to ignite a conversation about the importance of building intergroup solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement across racial lines.
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It is very important to press upon our immigrant communities what racism and prejudice are and how directly and indirectly affect them. It is important to remind them also, how at one point they too were subject to such prejudice and racist attitudes, and still are in most cases. It is not a matter of who racism and prejudice are directed to, or who finds themselves at the receiving end of such attitudes. It is the act itself that needs to be condemned. This article, and the letters, shed light on the issue attempting to enlighten and educate, although it is not always easy to break the mould of received habits and engrained attitudes towards others (or ‘Odars’ in our case). That is why we, at SR Socially Relevant Film Festival NY, put together a retrospective of films from our previous seven editions, under the heading SR for Black Lives, that will stream FREE of charge August 21-22. Details are on http://www.ratedsrfilms.org. The program can serve as a means of educating and enlightening those who still insist on their own superiority over others…