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- [Koven] Uh, right there?
- [Greg] Yeah.
- [Koven] Uh, right there?
- [Greg] Mm-hm.
- [Koven] Mmm, right there?
- [Greg] Let me see, wait one second.
There you go.
Okay, start right there.
- [Koven] Look, animal.
- [Greg] Animal?
- [Koven] Yeah.
- [Greg] And it is an animal?
- [Koven] Animal. - [Greg] Yeah.
- [Koven] Woo- Woop! (giggles)
- [Greg] Show daddy.
Here we go.
The Little Engine That Could.
- [Koven] Right there.
- [Greg] Yeah, it's a red choo-choo train.
- [Koven] There.
- [Greg] Is that Sophie?
- [Koven] Ding dong, ding dong.
- [Greg] Oh no, that makes ding dong, yeah. - Yeah.
- [Greg] Is that an elephant?
- [Koven] Yeah, boom. - [Greg] What noise does
an elephant make?
(Koven squeals)
(Greg's lips squeal)
(Koven and Greg laughing)
(Greg's lips squeal)
(Koven laughs)
- [Greg] Yeah, okay.
You ready to go night-night?
- [Koven] Okay. - [Greg] Okay.
I love you.
- Mm-wa.(smacks lips) - Mm-wa.(smacks lips)
- [Greg] Okay, good job buddy, I'll see you in the morning, okay?
- [Koven] Okay.
- [Greg] You were very good today.
- [Koven] Bye-Bye.
- [Greg] Bye-bye, hey, you're gonna be great,
'cause Daddy says so, right?
- [Koven] Okay, bye. - [Greg] All right.
(soulful piano music) ♪ Wire on the fences
♪ Mm
♪ Curved to stop the climb
♪ Hey ya, bars on the windows
(soulful piano music)
♪ What is walking by
- [Malcolm] It's often a double-edged sword
to be a black boy in America.
Because you have to tell yourself
that you are magnificent, and that you are free,
and beautiful, while simultaneously acknowledging
that the world is not built for you.
It's not built for your success,
it's not built for you to survive.
And you have to live in these two worlds
of I am whole and worthy,
but I am also the hunted, and hunted down, and sought after.
- [Dr. Howard] When people treat you as such an outsider,
as such a threat, where they see you
as somebody to be feared,
as much as we try to hold onto our humanity,
you realize you live in a world where your humanity
is constantly being challenged,
and constantly being questioned.
- [Chris] You can't run from it.
It doesn't matter what your socioeconomic status is
there is an assault on the black mind,
the black heart, and the black spirit and psyche.
- [Shawn] This is America.
And this is 400 years of what
this blood stained soil is about.
- [Sharif] The bottom line of why things haven't changed
is 'cause there's no love for black boys.
♪ These are dark dark times
♪ These are dark, dark times
(upbeat bluesy rock synthesizer music)
♪ These are dark dark times
(moves into slow ethereal music)
(men groan)
(slow music)
(men groan)
(slow music and men groaning alternatively)
(slow music)
- Good, good, good, good,
good, good, good, good, good.
(door slams)
(crowds chattering)
(man yells)
(train whistle hoots)
- [Greg] I was fortunate and blessed enough
to be able to go play on Sundays, win a couple rings.
I had some good experiences and bad experiences.
So injuries kind of cut my career short.
The opportunity came up to come home.
(footsteps crunching)
So this is the crib.
This is the crib.
I grew up here.
My mom was a single mom for the most part, four kids.
My father passed away when I was eight.
That made me kind of grow up quick.
(children playing)
It was a little rough, the neighborhood that I was in.
It wasn't the greatest place I could be.
The only thing I cared about was making sure
that my mother did not have to pay for school.
That's the only thing that mattered to me.
So I decided to play football.
(fuzzy rock guitar music)
(moves in heavy bass and rock guitar music)
Man, opened the floodgates of scholarships,
Tennessee, Ohio State, I mean, the big schools.
(crowds cheering)
I just worked, worked, worked, worked,
worked, worked, worked for as long as I could.
That was the only thing I knew.
(heavy, upbeat rock music)
(crowds cheering)
It isn't until you look at it from a 30,000 foot view
that you understand.
For us as young African American males,
what is my vision of success?
(crowds cheering)
- Well, the only thing I could see on TV,
entertainment, video music awards, or you see sports.
So this kind of imagery of using my body
and being blessed with speed,
the ability to cut quick, jump, shoot,
everything was pertaining to sports.
So.
I mean they better make it happen.
I mean these, (pats legs) these things better
become some money makers real quick, real quick.
(intense deep drums and chanting)
- [Jemele] There's always been a obsession with black bodies.
That obsession became the economic base
of America, in slavery.
- [Narrator] Cheap slave labor owned by the planter.
- And even during slavery
there were still athletic games played.
There was fighting, and all these things done
with black bodies for white entertainment.
And that was a tradition that kind of manifested
its way through sports.
- [Howard] The black athlete is the most visible,
most important, most influential black employee
this country's ever produced.
(upbeat intense low drums)
(men grunt)
- [Cris] White people like sports.
(crowds cheering and screaming)
- As a little black boy I found out about white people as
when you're walking out there with your equipment on,
white people would pick you up and take you practice.
They knew you was going to the ball field.
But when me and my buddies was walking out there
and we was trying to go to some friends out and everything,
wasn't nobody trying to pick up us, it was dangerous then.
- [Howard] Black aggression sells.
We love that when we see a football player
crunch a guy and sack a quarterback,
and then he does his sack dance
and snarls at the camera, and everybody loves it.
That black aggression is also being used
as justification for shooting you.
How many times do we hear the police say,
"Well I feared for my life.
And that's why I put 20 rounds in a teenager."
(flowing piano music)
- [Quan] Like so many black kids who are very athletic
I dreamed of going to the NFL.
And then when I actually started experiencing it
it blew my mind how disappointed I actually was,
starting with the combine.
(plaintive saxophone music)
Where we get broke down to our tights
and we get walked on a stage, and twirled around,
and my weight and height, length,
all the above is talked about.
And after that's done I walk down the middle
of 1,000 people making marks,
talking this, talking about that.
One of the most humiliating points of my life I feel,
because there has to be a better way.
I grew up in Texas and I saw cattle
being done the same thing.
(plaintive solo saxophone music)
- [Greg] The sad thing about it was they used to tell me,
the NCAA is a meat market, man they are looking for you,
because you are a gorgeous piece of meat.
Straight like that.
- [Howard] The black body is the commodity.
And I think when we talk about ownership,
and we talk about power,
today's black body is a multi-billion dollar enterprise.
(chalk scraping)
(bluesy full acoustic guitar music)
(moves into slow acoustic fiddle, banjo and guitar music)
- [Elijah] Everybody here grew up playing sports.
And we used to run in these roads
that has potholes in them. barefooted, so,
Like everybody here is fast, everybody here is strong.
(graceful acoustic music)
We feel like if you're black in Mart
then you should be playing football.
(folksy banjo music)
- [John] In this town there's more like,
you always want to be a Mart panther.
You wanted to play up under them lights
that everybody else before you played.
And you want to get out,
get out of this town and go play ball at college,
and do something with yourself.
(graceful acoustic guitar music)
- [Elijah] My dream is to go to a division I college, play football,
major in business management,
and hopefully go to the NFL.
- [John] Every Friday night the whole town is really shut down.
They come, they fill up the stands, and
it just feel like all eyes on you.
You score a touchdown and we're winning.
And the more we win the more people came.
(crowds cheering)
It builds your confidence that you was somebody,
and people knowing you that you don't even know.
It just felt like you was on top of the world.
- [Elijah] I knew that I was gonna have to be in
the weight room every day, run outside,
eat healthy, get bigger.
But I grew up big, bigger than everybody,
so that wasn't hard to do.
- [John] My sophomore year I was up for the Dick Butkus Award,
best linebacker in the nation my junior year.
The whole process of, wow, I'm going pro.
I just got to stay healthy I'm gonna get a big old check,
and I tore my ACL up.
(acoustic music)
And it's like everything just changed.
I felt like the world came down on me
and took away what I do best.
(twanging acoustic music)
And then,
I came back and tried to get on another team
and kept getting hurt, and I just, it's not worth it.
I was about 24 years old when I decided to stop playing.
(graceful acoustic strings music)
There ain't really that many opportunities
outside of sports in Mart.
You can be a correctional officer at that prison,
or, play sports, I think that's about it.
'Cause there ain't too much else in Mart.
- [Interviewer] What do sports represent to you?
- [Elijah] It represents ah,
life, represents
courage and hope for something better
than what I'm living right now.
(acoustic guitar music)
- [Coach] Come on, get up, get up!
- [Announcer] Steal by number 32, Carmelo Anthony.
- [Carmelo] Black kids want hope and need hope.
They just want people to have faith in them
and believe in them.
I grew up in Baltimore, so I know what that's like,
you're in survival mode.
So if I got to deal with how to be strong,
and being tough and surviving,
but then there's no one believing in me,
I really have nothing at the end of the day.
It's like a bottomless pit,
unless I can play sports.
- Anthony! (crowd cheers)
- [Announcer] And Anthony is now tied
with the most points-
- [Jemele] What happens is you're conditioned to think
that all you have to offer is your body, and that's it.
And I think psychologically it damages you into thinking,
well, what's the point of working on any other part
of who I am as a fully realized human being,
if this is the only part they're gonna value and accept?
(fans yelling)
A lot of it has seeped into how
Black parents, and family members, and community members
view their own children in the community.
Because they see the acceptance that athletes,
and entertainers are able to gain outside the world,
and acceptance and belonging that they've often longed for.
- [Justice Page] Football was the thing to do.
There was a tremendous amount of pressure
to be a football player.
When babies were born in that community during that time,
if it was a boy, they put a little football
in the crib with them at the hospital.
(children playing)
- Chatter...Ra, ra, I'm gonna get you.
I'm about to get you, I'm about to get you.
- [Jemele] So rather than send them through the trials
of maybe being a doctor, which seems unrealistic
in a lot of communities, or a lawyer,
they take them down the path of being an athlete,
and pushing that as like, this your way out.
This is how you equal the playing field.
When statistically if you look at just
the number of NBA athletes, or NFL athletes,
it's such a minuscule amount,
that you basically have a better chance
of either getting hit by lightening, or winning the lottery
than you probably do of becoming a professional athlete.
I mean, because it's just that hard.
- [Howard] There are streets littered with kids
who believe that dream,
didn't follow up with plan B on the educational side,
have nothing, and are watching the great ones play on TV.
And then you look at the few that reach the NBA or the NFL.
Man, if it wasn't for sports I'd be dead or in jail.
And I think about that every time I read those stories
and my heart breaks.
Because I'm thinking at this late date,
if dead or in jail is all there is, we have failed.
We have failed miserably.
- [Paparazzi] How about a peace out?
- And yet, people look at that dead or in jail narrative
as progress, because this one person
makes $20 million a year.
And there are graves all around him.
(insects chirping)
- [Greg] What up?
I'm Greg.
I wanted to come say what up,
'cause y'all exactly where I used to be.
You know what I'm saying? Same spot.
What you all gonna do when you all get out of here?
You all gonna go to high school, and then what?
- I want to be a football player or a lawyer.
- [Greg] A lawyer?
- You trippin', baseball.
- He want to be in baseball. - Like Pro basketball.
- I bet, well you all gonna go to college, right?
- I'm trying to go to a college away from Mart.
- [Greg] Away from Cincinnati? You trying to get out?
- Yeah.
- [Greg] Man, y'all go do it.
You say you want to go to college and be a mechanic,
you go do it, you want to be a lawyer,
you want to go play Pro, do it.
Just have a back up plan, you know what I mean?
I was able to do it, was able to get my degree.
And you know when I was down here,
shoot, I'd be happy if I graduated high school.
Man, y'all put y'all mind to it.
Don't let nobody tell y'all you can't do it,
just 'cause where y'all are, where y'all live.
It's the hood, so what? I'm proud of it.
Y'all do whatever y'all wanna do, man.
- Yeah, that's cool.
- [Greg] Yeah, all right y'all. I'll hola.
(somber music)
- [Howard] There has to be a collective belief system shift.
It's okay to envision something else.
And what is that something else gonna look like?
I don't know.
But this can't be all there is.
Because this doesn't work.
This isn't working for anybody.
(children playing)
- [Greg] I hope they believe me.
♪ Turning making enough
♪ Harlem say the little girl
♪ You fell, you fell, you fell
- [Greg] My little brother, he was working
to do great things with his life.
There was an incident where,
I don't know the ins and outs of it.
But apparently there was a misunderstanding,
and both ended up with firearms in their hands, and,
my little brother caught the short end of the stick.
♪ Are you able to find your ground ♪
- What's saddening about that,
besides the fact that my little brother was killed,
is the fact that the last text message I have
in my phone from him
was that he was working to be better.
♪ I can be a snowflake
♪ You believe you say you can't believe ♪
- I think he was a line worker at a restaurant.
And I always tried to challenge him to think beyond that.
Think bigger, because you have the ability to do it.
(door thunks)
But did he...
Did he have somebody showing him that day in and day out?
♪ Except that you can't be weak ♪
- It's just the epitome of what goes on in our world,
and it's so saddening and so,
so frustrating. ♪ Ooo
- At the same time so motivating.
(players chattering)
(whistle bleats)
What you need, you let me know what you need.
Huh? (players yelling)
For me, coming home meant a lot,
because now I can work with young men and women
who might be at the same crossroads that I was of,
you know, do I focus more on my athletics,
or do I focus more on my education?
So I get a chance to go back
and kind of reconstruct their mind,
and rewire their brains every single day,
to help young men know that, there's more to it.
There's more to you, more to life,
despite what they tell you, despite what
our blinders limit us to.
There's more, there's more, there's more, there's more,
you just got to believe me, just believe me.
Here you go, argh.
(plaintive solo violin music)
(traffic roaring)
(groups of people chattering)
- [Sharif] Malcolm X wanted to be a lawyer.
And his teacher, not some outside person,
not someone in a KKK robe, or some judge,
or police officer, his teacher told him,
"No, you're black, you can't be a lawyer."
(kids laughing)
I often think of the millions of black children
who's dreams have been just crushed.
(kids chattering)
- Hey Mom!
(kids chattering and yelling)
- Let's go, you come here. (drowned out)
(crowd conversations echoing in halls)
- [Sharif] So this is Mastery Charter Shoemaker Campus
in Parkside, Carroll Park neighborhood of West Philly.
As a turn around school, this is our 13th year.
(kids chattering)
We're a 95% black school,
and half of our student body are black boys.
- What's up buddy?
- [Sharif] Because I grew up not too far from here,
I understood that anxiety, that angst that a lot
of black boys experience.
- [Teenager] All right you coming?
- Hello guys.
(laughter and voices echoing)
- [Sharif] Five months after graduating
at Indiana University of Pennsylvania
I was shot three times.
I was in the hospital for a month,
they thought they were gonna have to amputate my legs.
It was a pretty traumatic experience.
Yet at the same time I was thinking about
the young man who was a very similar age.
I was 20, he was 19, and what that meant.
And why we had such different paths.
(bell dings)
That's the bell - That's the bell.
- So what I wanted to do was work with students
that were like the young man who shot me.
How you doing?
- What up?
- I heard the bell.
- Yeah?
- People always talking about the achievement gap.
A lot of times for black boys it's an opportunity gap.
And if people actually gave them the opportunity
they would just reach all of their own personal goals,
the community's goals, their family's goals.
And I think too often they're shut out of opportunities.
- [Russlynn] President Bush called it the soft bigotry
of low expectations, right?
That was riddled across America's schools.
When the truth is, it's not so soft.
If we don't believe that students of color,
that African American boys in particular can learn
at the same rate as their peers,
then we don't institute policies, or practices,
then we simply don't teach them to the levels
of which they should learn.
- I'm smart, if you put me in the right situation,
the right testing environment, the right everything,
I will really surprise a lot of people.
- I feel like I have to be better,
even though I feel as though I'm already good enough.
But they want to make you feel even lessor,
so I got to try to bring myself up even more,
which is kind of hard.
- As a black child growing up in America
they are getting bombarded with messages
that you don't matter, you don't belong,
you're worth less.
In that context, we have to work overtime
to make sure that we are countering
that message that they're receiving
about them not being worthy.
- Good job.
- [Sharif] And empower students
to recognize their own humanity.
- [Chawn] It is a peculiar sensation, this double consciousness,
this sense of always looking at oneself
through the eyes of others.
Of measuring one's soul by the tape of a world
that looks on in amused contempt and pity,
W.E.B Dubois.
(soulful guitar music)
- [Shawn] The amount of resources that are needed
to really shift and level the playing field.
When we talk about equity for black men and boys,
I often feel like I'm shooting a BB gun
at a aircraft career.
(upbeat guitar and bass guitar music)
- [Russlynn] We take kids that have less to begin with,
and we turn around and give them less
of everything that makes a difference in public education.
So then we get this burgeoning achievement gap
that starts and shows up as early as entering kindergarten.
- {Dr. John King, Jr.] We're in trouble,
because the majority of our kids are kids of color
in the nation's public schools.
And we just don't do a good enough job making sure
that students of color have access
to the full range of supports necessary to be successful.
And we see the consequences,
the consequences in unemployment,
the consequences in involvement
in the criminal justice system.
- [Russlynn] Quite frankly, that's how this system
was designed to happen.
We don't call it a caste system in this country,
we're too enlightened for that, right?
But when you look at it,
peel back the onions of inequity, systemic,
embedded, pervasive inequity in our school systems.
One can't help but see a caste system
with black boys at the bottom
in almost every community in this country.
- [Sharif] Education was always used as a control feature
of who gets it and who doesn't?
- [Jemele] There was countless educational material,
quote, unquote, that used to try to prove
that slaves, their brain sizes weren't the same.
Everything they could to just reduce them
to being just simply a physical being.
- [Sharif] So a long time ago, who deserved education?
It was the wealthy, landowner and white male.
When you look at today, it's almost the same mindset,
who actually deserves education?
Because if somebody deserves something
then I'm gonna fund it, if I'm the government
I'm gonna fund it.
If I don't think you deserve it, then I don't care.
You get whatever pennies fall your way,
but it's not gonna be a concerted effort to fix things.
And that's how you create power,
that's how you create choices,
that's how you create control.
(low bass ethereal music)
- So right now, independently, silently,
I'm gonna give you one minute.
Please write a summary based on the information
that you have for questions one through five.
Good, I see Maneer getting started, Ray Meet
has already gotten started.
A lot of things are fed to us on purpose
in order to keep you within a box.
I was one of those kids that thought
that football was gonna be my way out.
And then once I became a teacher
I started hearing a lot of my students
only talk about playing sports, being a rapper,
things that are only portrayed in the media.
It wasn't because there was nothing else out there,
but it wasn't being placed in front of them.
They didn't see successful doctors,
they didn't see successful engineers,
they didn't see successful teachers.
- [Howard] And the message that we send to each other so many times
is that being smart, and speaking in complete sentences,
and be aspiring to be educated,
and to be intellectual is anti-black, is inauthentic.
And this is a type of self hatred.
This goes back to the James Baldwin line that
"The most insidious piece of racism
is believing what they say about you."
- [Shawn] America created the greatest marketing campaign
in the minds and hearts of black people
to try and convince us that we were inferior.
- [Sharif] One of the things we talk about
is this windows and mirrors.
A black child in a typical school
in America, they get windows.
From the literature that's put in front of them
from the teacher, from all the messages,
they get windows to other people's world
and like this other world,
these other people are better than you.
Not a shared humanity, but a separate level of humanity.
White children typically get the mirror.
Who's in front of them, the literature that they're read,
the posters on the wall,
everything reinforces their whiteness and their superiority.
- You know who else is going to prom?
- Christa's friend, Bethany?
(digital smack)
- No, Barbie.
(both girls giggling)
- [Chris] There's been different research projects
around children as young as three, four and five
when they pick a doll,
they're picking a white doll or black doll,
the society, because of celebrating and privilegizing,
advantaging the beauty of whiteness.
And then everything dark, or black or brown
is bad and negative. Children,
it doesn't matter what color you are
well then pick up the white doll versus the black doll.
- [Carmelo] For me, I've never been told what
the word black means in America.
It was always, whatever I learned in school
at that point in time was what I knew what black was.
It was one thing, it was slavery.
That was the only thing that we were taught that we knew.
And it was almost like that's what they wanted us to know.
- [Russlynn] The week that it was Black History Month,
grabbed two assignments.
One from a district that was serving mostly white kids.
And they were reading the letter from the Birmingham Jail.
And they were, as you might imagine,
engaged in rigorous debate.
The black kids,
in a classroom serving mostly black boys
was told to read that same letter,
and draw a picture, because neatness counts.
You can only imagine what that assignment
looked like when completed.
It was a black man in jail.
- [Teacher] For the next five minutes we're going to label
all of the different places, the regions
and the land forms that are on the slide.
You're going to label those onto your United States map.
You're gonna have five minutes to do so.
You may begin.
- [Dr.John King, Jr.] We really got to tackle this issue
that the majority of our kids are kids of color,
and only 18% of our teachers are teachers of color.
Only 2% of our teachers are African American men.
We need kids of color to see educators of color,
but we also need white kids to see educators
of color leading in their schools and classrooms.
- [Teacher] You're only half way there if you only wrote the fraction.
So you write the fraction,
and then you have to do what with it?
Give a solve, give an answer.
(bell dings)
(crowds chattering)
- [Sharif] Hustle, hustle, hustle.
- [Student] I have to ask a really good question.
- [Sharif] All right.
- [Student] Want to hear the question?
- [Sharif] Well, I want you to go to class,
I don't want you to be late.
Can I catch you-
- [Student] It was real quick question.
- [Sharif] The trauma that a lot of our black boys face
it makes the work more crucial,
it gives us a higher sense of urgency.
- [Student] My mom was like she was in school,
taking us to school, had a job,
but it wasn't like paying her enough.
So we have like, eat what we have.
And we have to take little bits of what we got,
so we can have it for even longer.
- My uncle, he used to come outside
and play football with me all the time.
And then he went to jail, and he died in jail.
Or I think he got killed.
But they never told us why he died.
- My brother, he had passed, he was nine years old.
He had actually shot himself.
He was playing with a gun, I saw it right there.
- [Michael Smith] It's post traumatic stress disorder
that is taking place in communities across this country.
And young people are in this constant state
of fight or flight.
- [Carmelo] You hear about as kids, acting up in school,
he don't go to school, he's dropping out.
It's because they have so much inside of them
that they don't know what to do with that.
And they don't know who to turn to for that.
And then what happens?
You drop out of school, which leads to prison.
The hood, school, prison.
It's like a triangle.
(kids chattering)
- [Chris] We interviewed several thousand African American males
from kindergarten through 12th grade.
80% of black boys said when they were first on campus
the adults on that campus did not engage them,
did not say hello, or speak to them.
When adults would interface with black boys
from kindergarten through 12th grade,
then the response typically was negative.
What are you doing?
Why are you here? You're late.
Pull up your pants, take off your hat.
It was overwhelmingly, over 80%,
the response was a negative response.
- [Sharif] Black boys, their experience from very early on
is around submission.
Something black boys are approached with
just this firmness that's unnecessary
where you have to be controlled in such a way
I got to put my foot in your neck.
(ethereal wavy music)
- [Russlynn] Black male kindergartners are being suspended,
and expelled from our schools
at disproportionately higher rates.
That gap gets wider the longer
our young people are in school.
- [Sharif] A lot of times when people enter the learning space
not feeling that that child is a human being, one,
the child is my equal, two.
If you're not starting with that premise,
then it's very easy to oppress,
it's very easy to think I'm saving you.
And if you don't allow me to save you
I'm gonna punish you.
- [Akeia] It's so scary to have to feel like you have
to exist in those spaces, because how can you?
Because you exist in a world where nobody sees you,
but everybody sees you.
And when they see you, your silhouette doesn't
look like you, it's a monster.
- I went to school in Daytona Beach
when Trayvon Martin happened.
A white couple saw me sitting in my car
on my break from my job, called the police on me.
The police literally snatched me out of my car,
slammed me on the ground.
And when I'm asking like, "Why are you doing this?"
They literally said, "We got a report
of a suspicious black male."
I can't even explain the kind of emotional impact
that had on my because after the fact,
I literally was just sitting in my car.
And I was like, I literally did nothing.
I didn't have to do anything.
- I have so many questions like why?
- What did I do?
(boys laughing)
- How did my presence offend you?
- [Teenager] You generalized me, already.
- Yeah, how does my presence offend you?
What did I personally do?
You immediately think I'm a bad person,
you immediately think I'm violent,
or loud, or vulgar.
- Especially me, it might be a little different.
- Why do you say that?
- 'Cause I'm the big, black man in the room.
- Bro, we're dark skinned dudes.
- True, true.
- We all hang with dark skinned males.
- The big black man of America.
It gets deeper, it gets real deep.
- How deep?
- Like this morning, for an example.
- Yeah.
- I'm walking with my headphones in, listening to music.
- [Boy in White Sweater] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- A lot of white females walk past me,
and it's like they're on their guard,
they're holding their purse like this.
- You've seen it?
- Yeah, face-to-face. - That happens on the regular.
- And I'm just like,
for what, for what?
- I'm not a big, violent guy,
people have to understand that.
I'm very loving and caring.
And people are looking at me like I'm a threat.
- Yeah, I dig that. - I used to wear glasses,
because it makes you an approachable dude, right?
- You used to wear them fake glasses?
- Yeah, and I didn't even have to wear glasses.
I had to go out of my way to make people feel comfortable
that I'd never meet again.
- Yeah, and I'm tired, I get tired of that,
you know what I'm saying?
Why do I have to make you feel comfortable about me,
when I'm not coming in-
- We in the same situation.
- I'm not coming in with no mal intent.
I'm not coming in with no type of ill will.
- [Duane] I'm tired of having to be intentional
just to show that my hands are clean.
That's fatiguing.
I'm tired of stepping on an elevator,
and having people have to literally clinch.
We have to think about our blackness
in every intersection of our lives,
be it a black musician.
- I feel insecure.
- [Interviewer] You feel what?
- Insecure.
I didn't do anything to you.
You might have seen somebody else do something.
But you don't know me, so.
- We just met.
- We didn't even meet, that's the craziest part.
- I don't even know your name, first impression, I don't even know your name and you're clutching your purse,
walking all fast
- Walking with your head down.
- Exactly, you don't even know who I am.
Sometimes you have to take it in
and just accept it how it is.
(hand clapping and guitar music)
♪ I'm a black man in a white world. ♪
- [Jemele] There's a reason why Ralph Ellison wrote
about being "The Invisible Man."
Because that's just a reality, I think,
for black boys in general.
You see that you have the power to create
a level of fear and hysteria in white people
that will jeopardize your life.
♪ I'm a black man in a white world ♪
- [Dr.Edwards] I was walking down the street with a walking cane
in a neighborhood I'd lived in for 35 years.
And all of a sudden I'm facing eight squad cars,
police jumping out with guns drawn,
because some white woman
looked out her window and said,
"There's a huge black man in dark glasses
brandishing a rifle walking down the street."
- [Malcolm] As a black man to see a white woman afraid of you
is one of the most terrifying things there is, because
history will tell you how highly regarded
the white woman is in America.
And people have been hung and lynched just
in the name of protecting white women.
♪ I'm a black man in a white world ♪
- [Sonia] So when you see fear in a white woman's eyes?
- [Tyron] It hurts.
It hurts, it hurts so bad, I can't.
That's hard to talk about.
Cause it is different between boys and girls.
Let's save that till the end, how about that?
- [Dr. Bristol] I think it's the way that the American eye
has been socially constructed to see black men.
(intense digital slam)
And so it's not only white women.
It's all of us that have participated
in this American project, right?
- [Gerald Dessus] I want you to take a look at some of those stereotypes,
like the one about Latino men and women,
the one about black men,
some of the ones about white men and women,
and Asian men and women.
I want us to look at those stereotypes.
Look at the comments.
And start to think, are these stereotypes negative,
are they positives here?
Do I agree with them? Do I disagree with them?
This time we're not gonna take our sticky notes.
We're just going with our groups
and we're gonna have those conversations.
- [Sharif] The approach to education has to include social justice.
It has to prepare students to enter the world
where there is no cocoon,
there is no real protection for students of color.
We can't operate a school and ignore the realities
that are occurring on a daily basis.
(somber orchestral music)
This is sacred work, we can't falter, we just can't.
Their very lives are dependent on it, mostly our own.
(somber orchestral music)
- [Malcolm] This world built by men for men to protect them.
Holy war, say amen with aggression.
Throwin' money out of pocket,
getting intercepted.
Kaepernick could stand and never get respected.
They were writing history books down in Texas.
See their systems getting bigger
when you're asking questions.
Who am I to call myself a blessing,
if the god in my is constantly getting arrested.
The darker the berry, the darker the sentence.
I too sing America, so don't tell me to pipe down,
or sit at a table my granny used to wipe down, uh!
Fuck a system less it come with sin.
Look at all the dead bodies laying on the ground.
But still we rise like Maya Angelou,
step outside playing D'Angelo.
Chicago smile for Timbuk Two,
not many avenues for us to live up to, so what you want?
Benjamin or Aretha Franklin?
Respect on your name or a couple great faces, uh.
(elevated train engines roaring)
- [Malcolm] My name is Malcolm Xavier London.
When my mother was pregnant with me
she watched Denzel Washington as Malcolm X.
And in the theater she said,
"That's gonna be the name of my son."
(elevated trains roaring)
(kids playing)
Baby shoes we only got 2Cs, 4C, 10C, 11C.
And the youth sizes we got 6 1/2 or 7 Youth.
Those are the only sizes we got left,
and I'm so very sorry from the bottom of my heart.
We've been trying to organize this.
It's a lot of shoes, it's a lot of people.
But we will be doing this again.
I grew up on the west side of Chicago,
which is both all the things we hear in the news,
and there's also so much more.
The things the world told me about where I was from
make you not love yourself,
and make you question your own existence,
and the capabilities of the people around you
and even yourself.
I'm gonna give you a question.
Person A, person B, I'm gonna give you a question.
I want person A to ask person B this question
over and over again.
The person B it's your job to give
a different answer every time.
And the question is, who are you?
- Who are you?
- A rapper.
- Who are you?
- A black man.
- Who are you?
- Ambitious teen.
- Who are you?
- A hard worker.
- A little kid.
- Always alone.
- Class clown.
- High school graduate.
- Optimistic.
- Lost.
- Human. - Troubled.
- Ambitious. - Broken.
- Who are you?
- Ah. (laughs)
- Shortly after Trayvon Martin was killed.
I had a mentor come up with
this idea called Occupy Whiteness.
And we would go around the city
where folks who look like us traditionally weren't welcomed.
Now there's no sign in Chicago
that says no blacks allowed, right?
But there is an aura. (laughs)
And there is a policing that happens
that make you feel like you're not welcome there.
And so we would go to the art museum,
or the expensive restaurant downtown,
and just be black as fuck.
♪ (unintelligible lyrics)
- [Vic] I was in London performing
and it was the week that both Alton Sterling
was killed in Baton Rouge,
and Philando Castile was killed outside of Minneapolis.
And I'm in the hotel room and I just had
this extreme emotional breakdown,
and I'm just fucking sobbing,
and I can't keep it together.
I feel filthy, I feel dirty for being black.
I mean I was having nightmares.
I couldn't sleep, I'm having nightmares
the police are shooting at me in the alleyway.
(car clicks)
- [Officer] Can I see your license, please?
Get out of the car, get out of the car!
(gunfire popping)
Get on the ground! Get on the ground!
- [Malcolm] My mom used to talk to me about,
yo don't behave this certain way around police.
Do x, y and z.
And the only space for my identity was to be perfect.
And if I was not perfect, I could die.
- [Motorist] I just got my license.
You said get my license.
I grabbed my license right there, that's my license!
- [Officer] Put your hands behind your back,
put your hands behind your back.
Put your hands behind your back.
Put your hands behind your back!
- [Motorist] I can't feel my legs.
I don't know what happened, I just grabbed my license.
- [Officer] 866 I need a 1052.
- [Motorist] Why did you, why did you shoot me?
(easy going acoustic guitar)
- [Dr. Edwards] Slavery was eliminated.
But much of the values, the cultural sentiments,
the political dispositions,
the perceptions of threat from black males has persisted.
The control mechanism has simply gone
from the slave master to the police.
(man singing in foreign language)
- [Cris] People say, "Well man, are you still scared
of the police?"
Absolutely.
Don't have a police record.
Have a significant amount of money in my pocket,
don't owe anyone, haven't done anything.
But I've been raised to know better.
I've seen too many visuals,
I've seen too many truths played out.
Not myths, truths played out.
(man singing in foreign language)
(light guitar music)
(man singing in foreign language)
And I can either be 12 years old in Middletown, Ohio
in the projects, or I could be on 42nd Street
on the platform catching the damn D train.
And I'm just as black now as I was then.
(man singing in foreign language)
(light guitar music)
(man singing in foreign language)
- [Vic] We feel vulnerability as black men,
because we've been under attack from day one.
So weakness is to be feared.
(man singing in foreign language)
- [Malcolm] Why you talk like that?
With fake bass in your voice?
Like you got foundation.
Why you talk like that?
Speak up like police lights on street posts, up like that.
Like surveillance, like coffee, black but not strong
like they like they coffee integrated,
obeying the cream, talk like a playground in your lungs.
See your tongue crisp and crossed
like you momma done raised you on crucifixion.
Like you know she pray you never come home in a coffin.
(train roaring and rattling)
(kids playing)
- Hey you all. - This is so many feet.
(father laughs)
- Easiest way to get down is from the way
that I just went down.
- No I don't want to do that.
- Okay. - It's easy.
- All right, you ready?
- Grab me.
You got to get up.
Yay! - See, I told you.
You did it! I told you you could do it.
Oh. (laughs)
(mother laughs) - That was so funny.
- Okay high now.
- Whoa! - Oh.
- Blah, blah, blah.
- Okay. - This thing got big.
- I've had nightmares, I've had day nightmares,
you know, dreaming.
Not only do we worry about their physical safety,
but we worry about them being in a classroom
where they're already being defined as deviant,
they're already being defined as criminal.
They're already being defined as not,
potentially not having the same intellectual capacity
as their white classmates.
So their emotional and their intellectual selves
are also at harm, you know?
(train roaring)
(kids playing)
- Nope, watch out for the baby, Camari!
(kids playing and screeching)
- Sorry. (laughs)
He is going kind of fast.
- Yeah, a little bit. (laughs)
- Everywhere I go, people are always like,
"You know your son, he's like a beam of light."
Anytime that I can hear that,
counters anytime where I feel fearful.
- Watch out!
- [Young Mother] She's so independent, too.
She's not intimidated.
(boys yelling)
- I lay down.
(kids playing)
(train roaring)
- [Malcolm] Where I come from cats commit crimes a lot
because they have to, or they feel like
they have no other choice.
- [Vic] We've been assigned to these areas that are poorly funded.
The schools are not funded the same way
that the white schools are.
Access to clean food and infrastructure,
filling up the potholes doesn't happen
the same way in our communities.
- [Malcolm] And I always felt like if people knew
that it's a revolving door,
my education was subpar, and then I sold drugs.
And now I got arrested and then couldn't get a job.
If they could hear this story they could change it.
But then you learn that the world
isn't just not listening,
but they're deliberately not listening.
- [Dr. Edwards] These young black men are not born like that.
This society puts them in a situation
where that becomes a patterned,
coping mechanism for survival.
- [Conan] I remember someone distinctively in my life.
I was in 7th grade.
And a young man that was in the 7th grade with me,
and he got into a neighborhood fight,
and he ended up getting killed.
(ethereal music)
And so we went from playing basketball as young men,
to now knowing that we could really be hurt
and never come back from that.
And so at that moment it was like a shift for me,
because I did not want to be in those circumstances,
and I didn't want to be hung.
And so I adapted to that
and became more dangerous as a youth.
And my life took on a trajectory of its own because of that.
(echoing digital music)
- [Student] I live through this, and the only thing they do
they sit on this block and we do all this stuff
that we do, 'cause that's the only thing we saw.
Nine times out of 10 it's really not what you want,
but sometimes at a certain point in time
you're already caught up in it, you can't get out.
There ain't no runnin' away from the streets.
- Are we like lions in a cage?
Say it's two lions in a cage.
Me and my brother, I'm gonna find a way to eat.
So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna hurt
my brother so I can eat.
And it's like, oh they see it on the outside
that's the only thing we're portrayed on
on the news, like we're violent.
- The problem in this case is the cage.
Like when you're in the cage, you're a lion,
you're big, you need your space.
There's nothing you can do about the other one,
you're gonna have to fight them.
Nobody's considering why they're getting pushed
to the projects, and why they have to act the way they do.
- [Carmelo] You're growing up, you're in those neighborhoods,
seeing alcoholics, seeing drug addicts, seeing murders.
And you have these feelings that's so consumed
and so tight inside of a little boy.
And you become a product of that environment,
and everybody around you is kind of dealing
with the same thing.
- [Vic] And then we grow into adulthood
and the kids' fights start escalating
into people getting shot at, people getting stabbed,
people getting killed.
You've got a whole bunch of resentful
young, black men that have just
been mentally pummeled their whole life.
And the worst has been expected of them,
and everybody becomes a victim.
- [Dr. Edwards] There were 14 and 15 year old kids that I knew
who were going down and picking out
the clothes that they wanted to be buried in.
- [Interviewer] What is it like
to go to a funeral at such a young age?
- [Malcolm] I think...
I don't
know if I've interrogated my own trauma enough to tell you.
(strong piano music)
what I noticed is that in the world,
how it responds to death.
And where I'm from, there isn't much of one.
I think for me it was recognizing that oh, shit,
nobody cares when we die.
(low bass beats music)
- [Reporter] Are you surprised that you guys
eventually decided not to go to the White House?
What aren't we listening to?
- [Malcolm] You started see these images over and over.
You have people losing their lives at the hand of police.
And it was in 2016 with Philando Castile,
and Alton Sterling, that it was just enough was enough.
(light music)
I wanted to know how do I, as an athlete use my platform,
a voice to draw attention to these things
and be a bridge to reconcile this thing.
- [Carmelo] During the Freddie Gray situation,
well I first saw him, oh I have to do something, right?
Let me see what I can do by my presence,
by my influence, by my voice.
(crowds yelling)
(easy going piano music)
And I get there and you can feel,
you can feel the tension.
You can feel the death.
It felt like I was in a cloud.
Just a dark, dark, dark space.
That's what I felt by being there.
I also felt that being on that front line
with my community, those people felt
that I was a part of them.
And I will forever be a part of them.
- [Chris] It was right after Charlottesville,
and I just decided, hey I got to do something.
Malc, do you mind if I put my arm around you during
the anthem, I don't want to steal your spotlight.
I don't want to be center stage,
I want to be there with you.
And just tell you that hey a lot of people
that look like me, we can be there,
and we agree with what you're protesting.
- [Jemele] Only think that Colin Kaepernick
and other black athletes have said,
"Please just don't shoot us."
That's literally the basis of the message.
Don't shoot us while we're unarmed.
Don't beat us when we're unarmed.
Don't physically violate us in ways
when we're unarmed, or do so in a way
that is so overly physical, and out of bounds compared
to how you deal with other citizens.
They're just asking for dignity,
and fairness and accountability.
Which you would think all of us would want.
- [Malcolm} James Baldwin said, "To be a negro in this country
and to be relatively conscious means that you are enraged
almost all the time."
- [Carmelo] We've been angry for long.
And we're angry because of the notion that we do love.
We love our community.
We love our black boys and our black girls.
- [Dr. Edwards] When Malcolm Jenkins raises a fist,
when Kaepernick takes a knee during the playing
of the National Anthem, when Smith and Carlos raise
a fist during the playing of the National Anthem.
That's not against the National Anthem,
that's a statement of faith in America
that we're better than what we are doing.
That we better than what black people
and black males are experiencing.
That we are better than that.
- [Malcolm] Using your voice seems like a simple concept.
But we've also, as black men,
have seen tons of examples of what that can bring you.
And there is a danger to that.
And it's the old trick is those who actually
have the knowledge, and self awareness
that you speak up and fight up.
And you have to get rid of those people.
(crowds screaming)
- [Howard] The effect is to silence the player.
Because now you can't speak.
- Throwing this in the fire,
because Colin Kaepernick is now the face of Nike.
- [Howard] You see what happens to Colin Kaepernick and Eric Reed.
You saw what happened when players challenge
this authoritarian narrative.
They lose their jobs, they lose their careers.
(dramatic bass beats music)
- [Reporter] Could you hold it up again? We couldn't see it.
(dramatic bass beats music)
- [Reporter] What aren't we listening to?
(dramatic bass beats music)
- [Malcolm] When I say you aren't listening,
it's because I don't want to talk about things
that don't matter.
And everything is asked except for why are you protesting?
They'll ask you, "What do you think about the troops?"
(dramatic, strong bass beats music)
It's not about the troops, it's about systemic racism,
it's about a lack of education, a lack of equal housing.
Well, what do you think about Trump?
(dramatic, strong bass beats music)
It has nothing to do with him.
It's all about our criminal justice system,
systemic racism, our school systems.
And then they'll continue to go down this road,
and the conversation is about everything but these issues.
And so, when I say you aren't listening,
it's trying to force people to deal
with what is actually happening to real Americans
on a daily basis.
(intense bass drum music)
- [Malcolm] So, I believe that all the things that we are,
from our history to where we live,
it impacts us, it influences us.
And so I want you to write, I am, or I come from.
Essentially I want you to tell me who you are,
and where you come from.
And then we'll read around if you would all like
for 10, 15 minutes.
- I come from the city of pain
where it's kill or be killed,
where it barely snow, but it rain.
Corner junkies smell like liquor and beer.
(chuckles) That's all I wrote.
- I come from people drinking and smoking outside.
I am a band of builders churches and schools.
I am mom's meatloaf and mashed potatoes.
I come from a broken family. I am a felon.
I come from selfishness. I am a weapon.
- Where you come from?
I come from poverty in all honesty,
the neighborhood and the city that's incriminated.
Where you come from?
The brains of the projects
and in a low income two flats.
Where you come from?
Englewood, a place of sorrow,
where some people don't see tomorrow.
Where I come from is a good with bad intensions
and influences on different dimensions.
- I still can recall the night when my bloods died,
my eyes stay red like hot fries.
Even underwater I couldn't stop crying,
was healthy, but you can't tell me I was not dyin'.
Picked up a pen back then and I ain't stopped writing.
And I am no rug, I am not lying,
took a step on on that ladder
and I haven't stopped climbing.
Was healthy, but you can tell me I was knocked down.
Growing up, everybody was friends,
later we separated like Siamese twins.
And I'll be damned if they say leak or fake,
I just want to feel my family put a smile on my face.
Slipping, but I got to hold on.
How are you allowed to hate?
That an oxymoron, so please everybody.
I would need four arms just trying to find my way
in this world with no OnStar.
I'm on my ground, so I pray you're on yours.
They sleeping on me, but I don't mind the snores,
'cause no matter what I'm gonna rap my city it's on the map,
so they gonna respect my city 'cause it's Chiraq.
To the death my city, brain damage will make
me forget my city.
Can't stop the hustle til I'm famous at deaf people
while saying my verses in sign language.
And everybody with me gonna eat when I make it,
so then all the criticism, give it, I don't take it.
This is truth music.
No lies included, that's me.
(people snapping their fingers)
- Hey go crazy, bro. - Hey dig.
(classmates clapping)
(crosstalk)
I was hoping you had something dope
on all them pieces of paper.
He was right. - He put me right.
(guys laughing)
(train roars)
- [Interviewer] I have a question.
Have any of you ever cried at a movie?
- (laughs) Yes, I did.
I cried when I went to go see "Coco."
- I heard about it. - Yeah.
- Which part?
- The last part, you know the granny she never talked.
She was just out of it.
- Oh when she was singing, "I remember me."
- And then when they give.
Yeah. - Okay, yeah.
♪ Remember me.
And she starting singing with the grandson.
It's sad- - The way he did it,
the way he did it was definitely hard.
- I was literally emotional, I was like, (crying).
- And the ugly cry, just have the Michael Jordan going.
- When I saw "Coco" that was emotional I mean,
what can I say? - Like people told me
it made me cry, I didn't believe them.
- Anyone with a heart should cry to that.
Like should shed a tear at least.
I hope nobody at school sees this.
(boy laughing) - You're trippin' now.
- They are. (everyone laughs)
(windchimes tinkling)
- I'll sit my butt right here, thank you very much.
- [Instructor] Well talk about Blank Panther.
So what did that movie mean to you?
- Hey! The first time, we were, who?
- I saw it in Seattle.
- We were in Seattle.
- We see the text open 1992.
- Oh! We went wild that was crazy,
because we know where it's at!
We know the area and we know it's Oakland.
I mean, I thought it was beautiful.
- Yeah. - It showed the equality
that everybody had, you know?
There wasn't no division, everybody went together.
Now he did have that one cousin,
but he was from America.
- Oh he was. (boys laughing)
- You had that one cousin. (laughs)
- When you think about it the key motto just represented,
if a child does not feel the warmth of a village
he'll burn the village down to feel warm.
So- - I heard about it.
- That really connected to me. - That's deep.
- It was just anger every time he spoke,
whether it was to T'Challa,
whether to say, "Hey, Auntie," whether it was to Zuri,
or the people who are tending
to the Garden of the Heart-Shaped.
It was always anger.
It wasn't directly towards them it was just towards
the world for taking away his only sense of love,
which was his father.
- [Interviewer] How many of you have single moms?
- We sort of talked about earlier like,
if you could tell the world right now
what black boys need in this moment,
what do you think it is?
- [Student] Guidance.
- Guidance.
From whom? - Other men.
- [Student] All right from each other.
- I think maybe a mentor.
A lot of kids
they start out bad already because of
the neighborhoods that they grew up in.
But that could still, I believe the younger kids
that they had mentoring by the right people
they could still like grow up.
Like not have the world is right now.
Because they be giving up on the young kids.
As soon as they hit like 8, 9, they be like,
well, he gonna be in jail when he get out
of elementary school, high school.
So I feel that they didn't give up on us so bad,
we had a lot more mentor programs, a lot of kids
it's be changed and different.
- I don't know I just say
they probably need a father figure in their life.
Maybe someone that could mentor them,
like he said to help them, I don't know.
(elegant slow, piano music)
- [Shawn] The beauty of mentoring, it's really about relationship.
And at the heart of what we all need in our development
is a healthy relationship with a caring adult.
- [Dr. John King, Jr.] I distinctly remember in kindergarten
kids teasing me about my skin color,
saying that I was dirty.
And I remember coming home to tell my mom that.
And my favorite cereal was Cinnamon Life cereal,
and my mom told me that I was cinnamon.
And I remember being so happy.
And it was important that she took this moment
of being harassed and teased,
and tried to give me a positive self identity.
And I worry that some kids don't have someone
who's doing that for them,
helping them build positive identity.
(elegant classical piano music)
If you don't have that then you end up internalizing
that racism, that bias from others.
(kids and parents laughing)
- It's vulnerable, it is vulnerable for us too,
because we know that to raise black boys that are,
that express their emotions, right,
or that cry when they're sad.
Or have all the spectrum of joy,
then that means that they're open to all
the things that other folks are gonna say.
- Yeah.
- They're open to the harm and the harsh words
and actions of other people.
(slow, elegant piano music)
- [Interviewer] So, if you're willing
I want to return to this
idea of a white female's fear.
- Yeah, okay.
So my mom's white.
I go home everyday I see a white woman.
A white woman raised me, washed my clothes,
picked me off the ground whenever I fell.
That will hug and tell me she loves me
every time she sees me.
I guess you could say general energy projected
from white women that don't know me, just,
I see this fear in their eyes.
This fear that I can't imagine that
a black boy has incited in her before,
so why does she look at me like that?
It's just so hard to talk, to open up to them.
Just how I've just perceived them perceiving me.
And I've just, it's just so different from my mom.
I never scare her, she's my mother.
- [Interviewer] What do you want to say
to the black boy in you?
- I forgive myself.
I forgive myself for giving up at times.
For believing what the people said about me,
I forgive myself, you know? (sniffing)
Because
there's nothing wrong with me.
I was told something was wrong with me,
there's nothing wrong with me. (sniffs)
And not to be ashamed.
There's nothing wrong with us.
- [Shawn] It's not black boys that really have to change,
or be the one responsible for changing this nation.
This country needs to put the mirror up
and do the changing, and until that happens,
we're still gonna be having this conversation.
(easy going digital music)
- [Chris] We're passing this stuff on from generation,
to generation, to generation.
It's reinforced in every institution, every system,
every structure in this country.
So we have to think about in this process
of creating the discourse and building trust,
a way of healing.
- [Interviewer] What is white people's part
of the conversation?
- Yeah, I mean it would great if they joined it.
(laughs) Just in general it'd be great
if white people just joined the conversation.
- [Chris] I think a lot of people are actually feeling like
if they acknowledge some of these things,
then they're guilty, like they did something wrong.
You didn't do anything wrong.
The only thing wrong that you could do is ignore it.
- I think it's okay to acknowledge that
there is no simple answer.
And that love says I don't know,
but I'm committed to finding out.
I can see the complicated history.
And that because I love you, I won't ignore it.
(low bass beats music)
- [Interviewer] What do you love about yourself?
- What up? Well I got a few parts of me.
- Let me make a list.
- Let's see, one thing I love about myself
is the boldness that I have
to not allow what people think about me
determine what I'm gonna be.
So that's the part of me that I do love.
The fact that I know how to push through the storm.
And allow the storm to elevate me to where I need to be.
You know, it's like a eagle.
I view myself as a eagle.
- Talk about spirit animals.
- Eagles are the highest flying birds.
But they can see the ground so clear
as if they're on the ground.
- Yeah.
- So it's like for me I take that as I can soar high
over my situation, you know?
But see what it could it have been.
- [Friend In White Shirt] Yeah you always have clarity
of what it could have been.
- Exactly.
- You know what?
I'm gonna keep that bird thing going.
- What you gonna be a hawk? (laughs)
- No, no. - A hummingbird?
- No, no.
- Mocking Jay.
- You can't guess it! - Red robin.
- Ah-ha! - Woodpecker?
- No, no! A woodpecker? (boy laughing)
- Seagull?
- A seagull, no, no.
- Chicken?
- A chicken of all things.
- Hey it's a bird.
- Boy, I view myself as-
- A rooster.
(boys laughing) - An owl, an owl.
- Oh, okay, why, why an owl?
- You know what? Because I trust my instincts.
- No, no, no, you see what's around you,
that's a good thing.
- I trust my instincts.
And I believe in myself,
and I feel like I have a lot of self confidence.
So I view myself as an owl.
Because you know owls, they have this scope of vision.
They see other paths and other things.
I also believe that about myself.
I see different sides of different stories.
I'm not omnipotent, but I feel like,
owls are wise, I feel like I'm wise.
- You're like a senior citizen huh?
(boy laughs)
- You know what, you know what? Yes, yes.
- [Friend In White Shirt] You have matured
a lot, trust me.
(man singing in foreign language)
- [Interviewer] What do you need to receive?
- Outside of God's grace,
you just pay me with love.
If you could love me,
then I know that you truly care.
(man singing in foreign language)
- The kind of love that says,
I am committed to being accountable to you.
- I think we have to show love to the young black men.
to black boys, we have to love them honestly,
and critically and also unconditionally.
- Actual love helps to heal trauma.
- Love has no logic model, all right.
There are transformational things that are happening
in the lives of black boys that can't be found
in a theory of change that's found in
this heart to heart connection.
- To the degree of which we focus on them
and they feel safe, feel heard, feel validated,
it actually will impact the entire system.
A rising tide raises all ships.
And so we have to stay in that and that takes time.
(man singing in foreign language)
- Hair. - Huh?
- Hair.
- Yeah, that's Da-da's hair.
- Yes, Da-da's hair.
- Yeah, where's Koven's hair?
Where's Koven's hair?
I can't see, is that Koven's hair?
- Yeah.
- It is? - Yeah.
- Well, when I lost my dad,
it was one of the
hardest things to do deal with when I became
of the age to actually understand what had happened.
Oh come here, let me tie your shoe. Come here.
- No.
- It wasn't until
I started to have things happen and be around people,
and see things that I really wondered
what my dad would think.
How proud would my dad be
to see me even get to high school and graduate high school.
I'm going here because it's important
for every young father, for every person who understands
the importance of a role.
Especially in young African American males.
The day that I was supposed to get drafted
higher than I was, I paced up and down the street
for like six and a half hours straight.
End to end, didn't talk to anybody,
I didn't want anybody talking to me.
The only person that
I would have let talk to me at that moment
was my dad.
And for whatever reason when I pacing up
and down that street
all I could hear my dad telling me was... (crying)
(somber piano music)
The only thing I could hear pacing up and down the street
was my pops telling me he was proud of me. (crying)
♪ It's all right it's all right. ♪
- So there's one non-negotiable in this world.
♪ It's all right, it's all right. ♪
- And that is me being around my son.
Because so long as God allow it,
he'll always hear from me that I'm proud of him.
♪ It's all right, it's all right. ♪
- What's that in the bucket?
Oh, give me that, give me that one.
Hey. (water sloshing)
Bubby, what you gonna be when you get older?
Are you gonna fly airplanes?
- Yeah.
- Yeah, are you gonna be a doctor?
- Yeah.
- Can you be an engineer?
- Yeah.
- Can you do more than play sports?
- Yeah!
- Yeah, that's right why? 'Cause Daddy said so.
- Yeah.
- That's right you're great,
you're gonna be great, 'cause Daddy says so, right?
- Right.
(water sloshes)
(Colvin growls)
- Daddy proud, you did a really good job, okay.
- Ah! - Okay.
- Did you hear me?
Did you hear me? (splashing water)
- (laughs) Da-da.
(happy flowing piano music)
- We have to be courageous in re-imagining ourselves.
We have the power to change whatever we want.
(child yells)
- [Greg] Do you see it?
- That we're stronger than we know.
- What's up there?
- The cloud.
- It's important for us to present a message
of infinite possibility to black boys.
- What's this?
You got a boo-boo.
- We're gonna make sure that black boys recognize
their own humanity, because then that's gonna
be human nature for them to demand much, much more.
♪ Happy Birthday to you
- It's a new day and age, now.
♪ Happy Birthday to you
- These young people don't need saviors,
they need believers.
Once you believe in them and know
that they are great beyond measures
by who they are, not by what you bestowed on them,
then everything else will shift and change as a result.
♪ Happy birthday to you
- They're as great as your kids.
They're as great any young people on this earth.
You don't need to save them.
All you gotta do is believe that they are great
and the rest of the work
will follow.
- Blow it. - Okay you blow it.
All right you blow, blow.
Oh blow harder, blow harder.
♪ Oh oh oh oh
♪ Oh oh oh oh oh oh
♪ Oh oh oh oh
♪ Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh
♪ Oh oh oh
♪ I was looking for a hero
♪ To reach out to save me
♪ Oh oh oh oh oh
♪ What I needed was someone
♪ To look beyond what they see
♪ Oh oh oh
♪ That's why I choose my struggles ♪
♪ Through the lens of compassion ♪
♪ Oh oh oh oh oh
♪ You will see the phoenix in me, ♪
♪ Trying to rise from the ashes ♪
♪ Oh oh oh
♪ Oh oh oh oh
♪ I don't need a hero
♪ I need a believer
♪ Through all of my struggles
♪ Someone who can see the
♪ Potential for greatness
♪ Possibilities
♪ Don't need you to save us
♪ Just say you believe
♪ Oh oh oh oh
♪ Oh oh oh oh oh oh
- [Interviewer] What do you want to be when you grow up?
- I want to be a scientist.
- [Interviewer] Awesome, why?
- Because I can save people's lives.
And then when I'm retired from being a scientist
I'm gonna be a surgeon.
(upbeat piano, and guitar music)
(moves into full bass and organ music)
♪ We will be all right
♪ Yeah we're gonna be all right. ♪
- My mom gonna cook with us, okay.
- Uh-oh.
- You did.
- Yeah my momma is a hungry woman.
(lady laughs)
She like this.
(child grunting)
- Hungry woman. (laughs) - Hungry woman.
- [Child] Hey momma.
♪ Oh oh oh
♪ We're gonna be all right
♪ Oh oh oh
(upbeat music)
(moves to bright piano music)
♪