What I Hear When You Say | Code Words | Episode 8

The media would never refer to a white person as a terrorist.

They’d refer to them as someone who’s having psychological problems.

People are getting kick off airplanes just for speaking Arabic.

Terrorist Thug All lives matter.

What do you think they are really trying to say there?

[MUSIC] The media uses code words all the time.

I think they know that they are doing it.

Like when you say the word thug that is going to color people’s perception of young black males.

I mean that immediately is going to come up.

When kids shoot up their school and they are white, they never get called a thug.

It's like an Indian word, it’s been around for hundreds of years.

And it means, thieves or a group of hired assassins.

That’s how awful racism is - where a word with Indian origin is used to hurt black people today.

That’s how awful it is.

Being white is code too.

Like white isn’t even a real thing.

It’s basically like a light skin union.

There was a time when the Irish weren’t white; when the Italians weren’t white; when the Polish weren’t white; when the Germans weren’t white.

Jews were double agents.

Like it wasn’t a real thing.

As a brown person in America with those dehumanizing words that are said over and over again, you lose the ability to connect with people immediately.

Because when they see you, they come with all these preconceived notions.

White people can be thugs or terrorists because there are white people who are thugs and terrorists but they don’t get called that.

We view terrorism as this narrow thing with brown people, specifically Muslims.

But when a white person does it, immediately it’s mental illness.

Look at the family, what is the mental illness.

It’s not to say that it’s not valid.

But in order to blow yourself up or fly a plane into a building or harm other people you don’t know, maybe there is mental illness involved or do we not see it because of the brownness overshadows that.

All words matter.

The point of words is to convey images to other people.

That’s how ideas work right?

When you say all lives matter, you’re just discrediting a movement; you are discrediting what’s actually happening, like when you are saying - what about me?

Why is it about you?

Say for example, you have a house.

I have a house.

All houses matter.

But if mine’s on fire?

Can I talk about getting an EMT?

Can I talk about getting an ambulance?

Can I talk about getting a fire truck?

I think thug is a code word for white people’s fear.

We often in American culture we manipulate language to convey different meanings.

And if you can describe the people that appear to be engaged in rioting as thugs, then what happens to them next?

Right, if they’re arrested, if they’re shot.

It’s justifiable because these are bad people, these are thugs as opposed to citizens exercising their rights in a democracy to protest.

That process of using language in that way is very deeply rooted in the American culture.

And it’s one of that many Americans don’t think critically about which is why it’s so powerful and effective.

We have huge issues with suspension rates for 5 year olds in kindergarten.

African American males are 8 times more likely to be suspended as a kindergartener.

We have data for example showing that with black children experience trauma less likely to receive help from a psychologist or from a medical professional.

Psychologists have done a number of studies showing that a lot of the times projected image of a black male subject triggers a fear that then results in an irrational response to the information at hand.

There’s a lot of research now showing that the stress that comes from racism in society, the subtle forms that manifest themselves in what many people now regard as microaggressions.

These things take a toll on a person if you are constantly wondering – is this another incident of prejudice or this is simply someone who’s busy and rude.

And just the fact that you have to go through that calculation.

I think adds a degree of stress that takes a toll on you.

The dilemma is that in preparing children for those interactions.

You are also conditioning them to see that it’s normal, conditioning them to subject themselves to a different kind of treatment than we would expect any other child to go through.

We really need to check ourselves on what we actually see when we see these images.

It’s kind of like a Rorschach Test.

As a father, I think even more how words and media will affect my son.

When I can see all the different ways that those things are cumulatively affecting him at even a very early age.

So it’s kind of increased the urgency in that mission for me because while I was always interested in that.

Now that I’m very aware of how important it is.

So Question Bridge is a transmedia project, art and creative projects that use multiple platforms to deliver their content to the viewer.

It exists as an art installation, as a film, we have a book, is an interactive website; we also have a mobile app.

Can you leave my hat on please.

You left your hat on purpose.

Now that you are stealing mine?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So with Question Bridge, what essentially we have done is we had black men from all walks of life post questions and answer questions of each other via video.

And so the videos are kind of like the bridge that bridges all the different demographic gaps within what started as one demographic.

So it kind of highlights this idea that there’s often more diversity within a demographic than outside of it.

There are a lot of words get misused.

As a father if I do my job, I hope that I can teach him how to be critically and analytically thinking.

I think that’s something that’s lacking a lot in our society these days.

Alright let’s go, the light is green.

Let’s go walking now.

Let’s cross the street.

It’s a weird concept to be named all the time.

Like, look at that black guy.

If you just said guy, you’d assume white.

Indian women, you have to be named something or coded.

It’s an urban room.

Everything has to get named.

Everything else default is white.

It gets tiring.

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