All graphics and animation by Erica Pinto.
FEBRUARY 2016
Companion Films: Myths 1 & 2 on Affirmative Action
White People Were So Offended By This Equality Video, It Was Banned
Jesse Ferreras, The Huffington Post Canada
February 12, 2016
All it took to set people off in Henrico County, Va. was a simple cartoon about racial inequality.
Last week, Glen Allen High School hosted a presentation about racial privilege as part of Black History Month, The Washington Post reported. Part of the event involved screening a video called "Structural Discrimination: The Unequal Opportunity Race."
The video, produced by the African American Policy Forum, shows a running track where racers of colour are being held back, while white athletes run laps around them. Its intent was to demonstrate how people of colour have been oppressed by forces such as genocide, slavery, and racist laws.
But parents complained about its content. Henrico County Public Schools initially stood by its decision to allow the video, but pulled the clip two days later.
Don Blake, whose granddaughter attended the presentation, didn't like the clip at all. He called the cartoon a "white guilt kind of video" in an interview with television station WWBT. "They are sitting there watching a video that is dividing them up from a racial standpoint," he said. "I think somebody should be held accountable for this."
Glen Allen student Kenny Manning found the video offensive, but he didn't feel it hurt people, ABC affiliate WRIC reported. "A lot of people thought it was offensive to white people and made them feel bad about being privileged," he told the network. "There is oppression going on in the world, and that needs to be looked at with a magnifying glass, I guess."
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