America to Me

Not everyone will agree, but the divide still exists. Loved it!

Oprf is a very great school with mostly high income family's. They try to make it out to be as a rough area where most of the kids have a rough up brining

This doco gives great insight into the lives of high schoolers in 2016, not only in Oak Park, but effectively highlights the challenges of cross-cultural / cross-racial education in the context of continuing white supremacy even against ongoing efforts in schools ad schooling to address racial inequity. The overall message is that even when everyone can see more or less where the problems are on the ground, and everyone knows which individual teachers are making a difference (good and bad), the system does not appear to change. The portraits of ambitious teachers (black and white) seeking to make a difference and enacting this in their relationships with students is the strength of the series and every teacher would I think learn from these. The filmmakers also get great insight out of the students, who are often savvy about the opportunities and limitations of the camera but nevertheless give great content at no small personal risk - mostly I felt that I am privileged to have lived my own teenage-hood largely away from the camera.

The series is let down by its self-satisfaction with its own role on behalf of those who agreed to appear in the film, and its lack of interest in the lives of those who chose not to be interviewed (the Black principal and Asian-American Superintendent being the most prominent). We get no insight into the very real political constraints that play a part in what is not unfairly characterised as their lack of engagement with the life of the classroom. Here Steve James makes the poor choice to interview the principal's white predecessor to comment on the current principal's performance, and unsurprisingly the current principal is found wanting for their lack of bravery as leading to the lack of success (a critique echoed elsewhere in the series). The scenario of a white filmmaker interviewing an old white man to get quotes about the poor performance of the principal is literally the only insight we get into the many political relationships up the chain every administrator knows is part of the art of survival. In this respect, it mirrors some of the racial dynamics it attempts to critique - there are other Black school principals of many different ideologies who, I am sure, could have shed light on the dynamics of the situation, but James chose not to include them, preferring to keep the camera on the side of the more clearly worthy.

But in documentary ethics today, we discuss the need to study up rather than down, if we are to avoid making works that unwittingly satisfy a privileged demand for an experience of outrage on behalf of those who the privileged would never actually engage with. I enjoyed the series but couldn't help but feel that a Black filmmaker would have distributed our attention and sympathy differently. This is perhaps the lesson the series is asking teaching administrations to understand, but the series also needed to ask it of itself, and we don't get that.

If you deny the accuracy exhibited in this film, you are part of the problem! As a parent of black sons, I know all too well the diminished expectations for minority children. As a black woman, I remember Honors, AP courses where I was the only black face. Where teachers dismissed my questions. Where no one wanted to participate in group projects with me, as if my mind wasn't as brilliant as theirs.

We have to do better by our children. We have to embrace everyone and set high expectations for all. If you expect less, they strive for less. Again, I enjoyed watching this series.

"America to Me" is a film that shadows minority students at Oak Park High School in Chicago, Illinois revealing the racial inequalities they face on a daily basis in the academic school year. The film exposes the growing achievement gap between black and white students within Oak Park High School and the administrative attempts to sew the gap. Filmmaker, Steve James, follows individual students at home and school to uncover racial injustices they and their family face in society as well as the individual student's injustices faced from the school board. The film draws parallels between the overall societal prejudice toward minorities such as racial profiling, the intersectionality of oppression, and poverty and translates them to problems faced within the diverse public schools of the struggles and uncomfortableness of speaking about race and unequal education dependent on race. By the end of the film, the administration and community of Oak Park does little to nothing to solve the achievement gap but gives insight to viewers about minority's challenges faced on a daily basis.

Everyone should watch this film because it unveils how the Chicago School Board is allowing to create unequal education and gives a voice to those who are making a difference, such as Jessica Stokes, and the future generations opinions, experiences, and difficult conversations about race. Anyone should watch this film if they are interested in the achievement gap, equity within the public-school system, and to learn the intersectionality of race and identity.

The strength of the film is following different black students because it reveals the different perspectives about race but also how it affects their everyday lives at school and within society. The different stories of the students were very insightful and understanding for white people which will hopefully spark conversations about race with having understandings of both sides, white and black. The film's weakness is that it did not have commentary of what was going on or which injustices were highlighted so you have to piece the film's themes together, but it only made it more engaging.

I give "America to Me" by Steve James, a 10/10 because a major theme throughout the film was the struggles and perspective of white student's, teachers', and parent's creating conversations about race and how uncomfortable it is for them and the lack of progress because white people cannot fully understand the struggles and oppressions of black people. Conversations about race are uncomfortable as it should be because it is a difficultly subject matter to talk about that affects us all but the level of comfortability unveils how much this conversation is needed.