If Black Lives Matter has proved one thing it’s that “We won’t go quietly!”
There have been marches, protests, and riots throughout history, but Black Lives Matter has encapsulated the millennial experience with racial oppression and police brutality. As a result of the times we live in, our movement has been in the streets as much as it has been online. Sabaah Folayan and Damon Davis’ Whose Streets? has captured the movement as it has been thus far.
Though we have marched for Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, Laquan McDonald, Sandra Bland and so many others, Whose Streets? follows the explosion that erupted in Ferguson, Missouri in August of 2014 following the murder of 18-year old Mike Brown. At that moment, Black millennials along with the rest of the community decided that we’d had enough. That protest sparked a global movement and Whose Streets? caught every moment of it. First we took back the movement and now we’re taking back the narrative.
Folayan and Davis said of the film,
“Every day Americans experience a mediascape that humanizes whiteness, delving into the emotional lives of privileged white protagonists while portraying people of color as two-dimensional (and mostly negative) stereotypes. Nowhere was this more apparent than in the case of Mike Brown, who, in spite of being college bound & well regarded by his community, was portrayed as a “thug” and a “criminal.” For this reason, it is essential that Black people be the ones to tell our own true stories… We are intimately aware of how we are portrayed in the media and how this portrayal encourages both conscious and unconscious racial bias. We are uniquely suited to make this film because we ourselves are organizers, activists and we are deeply connected to the events of August 9th and beyond. We are making this film, in part, as tribute to our people—our deeply complex, courageous, flawed, powerful, and ever hopeful people—who dare to dream of brighter days. This is more than a documentary…this is a story we personally lived. This is our story to tell.”
Whose Streets will be released August 11.
