AWI Voices With Impact presents: Black Belonging

Angela Davis famously said, “We live in a society of an imposed forgetfulness, a society that depends on public amnesia.” This tendency toward amnesia has two natural consequences for Black representation in media. On one hand, in order to encourage the general public to wake up and remember our collective past, Black humans must be regularly retraumatized through the rewatching of shameful episodes from our history including slavery, hate crimes, jim crow, and the prison industrial complex. On the other hand, Black stories are ignored altogether. There is rarely a “middle ground” in which Black characters are fully developed, with depictions of the full range of complexity, beauty, and contradictions that define the human experience. In this session, filmmakers Campbell X, Jameelah Nrudin, and Sideah Alladice used their short films as jumping off points to explore and discuss various ways in which Black people are told (explicitly and implicitly) that they don’t belong.

Watch the screen recording below, or download it here.

Featured National Resources:

Crisis Text Line
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline
Trans Lifeline
The Trevor Project
Black Emotional and Mental Health Collective (BEAM)
Black Mental Health Alliance

Please visit this page for International Resources.

Details

Day:Tuesday
Date:June 22, 2021
Time:1:00 pm - 2:30 pm

Workshop Evaluation

Click here to download a summary of the post-workshop evaluations.
“I thought that the discussion and reflection helped with processing the films. It was nice to have a moment to factor in breathing exercises and normalizing the ability to take that time when needed.” "
-Session Attendee

Partners

Mental Health Services Oversight and Accountability Commission The MHSOAC provides vision and leadership, in collaboration with clients, their family members, and underserved communities, to ensure Californians understand mental health is essential to overall health. MHSOAC holds public mental health systems accountable, provides oversight for eliminating disparities; promotes wellness, recovery and resiliency; and ensures positive outcomes for individuals living with serious mental illness and their families.