By Walidah Imarisha

 

I’ve recently had folks contacting me from across the country, even all around the world, about the upcoming documentary Whitelandia: Black Oregon/White Homeland (a play on the popular show Portlandia), which purports to explore the history of racism and white supremacy in Oregon. It currently is in the production stage, having publicly put out a trailer and launching a successful kickstarter program to fund it.

People having reached out to me about this film for several reasons. One is that I present a public program called “Why Aren’t There More Black People in Oregon: A Hidden History,” which features an interactive timeline I developed looking at the history of race, identity and power in Oregon.

 

But people also reached out to me because up until just a few weeks ago, the Whitelandia trailer featured clips of me speaking on this topic. Folks assume the footage of me means I have signed off and given my support for this project. It’s a good assumption to make – unfortunately in this case it’s dead wrong.

The truth is, Whitelandia’s producers (who are both white) used the footage of me without my knowledge or permission. They took it from a program of mine that is available for viewing on youtube. I also learned recently I am not the only one who has had this unfortunate experience. At least two local organizations th have saidWhitelandia used footage from their projects without consent, credit, or notification. In addition, the Whitelandiacreators told several media sources I was involved in the project, telling one I was an advisor to their project, before I had ever met with them.

More than just really bad filmmaking practices, these incidents speak to deeper issues of white privilege, appropriation and domination.

And more than just using a clip of my program without permission, the producers stated several times, in our one face-to-face meeting as well as in various emails, that my timeline, my research and my analytical framework I put forward in my public scholarship form the spine of their film. Again, without my input or even knowledge. This situation, where my work as a Black female scholar has been used by two white filmmakers without conversation, credit, compensation or control reeks of intellectual colonialism.

When I addressed these concerns with them, their response was to say it would be impossible for a film like this to exist without my scholarship and research, and that, moreover I was the “primary historian” on this subject. This alone shows how very little research the producers have done on their own. My name may come up when you type  “Oregon Black History” into google (which feels like is the extent of their research), but I have only been presenting about this for three years. My scholarship itself rests on the backs of and beside dozens of historians, community leaders, cultural workers – the vast majority of whom are from Black communities in Oregon, who have taken on the monumental task, some of them for decades, of preserving, caring for and sharing this history. (My own scholarship was sparked and has been for many years mentored by, among others,Dr. Darrell Millner, one of the founders of Black Studies at Portland State University and one of the pre-eminent experts on this history of Black folks in the west.)

To say my work is the only work out there is indicative of the problems with this film, the lack of connection with, and knowledge of, the Black community, evident in their preparation and approach.  When we met, the producers only mentioned a couple connections they had sought to establish to the Black community. They had no concrete plans about relationship building or accountability processes, and beyond saying “Folks will get to tell their story in our film,” they had no ideas about compensation or support for the individuals and organizations who would be giving their time and energy for these filmmakers to use. I expressed my concerns to them about all of this. I talked to them about what steps they had put into place to build relationships with the Black community. I asked them how they would support work being led by the Black community now, about accountability to the community, about control, credit and compensation for individual community members featured in the film, and the people like me they were asking to be advisers and conduits to the community. Their answers were vague and didn’t feel thought-out to me. Their actions since have confirmed this, and have led me to request they remove me from the trailer, as well as not use my framework for their film.

To me, this means the making of Whitelandia replicates the same oppressive dynamics they are seeking to explore in their film. This is the historic relationship the Black community has had with the larger white power structure – one where  individuals, organizations and institutions come into the community and take what they want – without conversation, without dialogue, without recompense.

The framing of the original Whitelandia trailer (which has since been taken down) felt to me like it portrayed Black communities as passive victims. My entire program and scholarship aims to show that while Oregon was created as a white homeland, enacting many laws,  including Black exclusion laws,  to further that aim, there have always been Black communities in this state. That is due entirely to the resilience, creativity, determination and community building of Black people. The fact that Black communities exist at all in Oregon – where Black peoples’ very presence was a criminal act written into the Constitution – is an incredible thing. I believe anyone who had done the real research into this history would see this work through that lens.

My other concern is that this film raised a significant amount of money on a kickstarter using the faces, voices and stories of people who were not asked, and did not agree to it. I did not agree to be part of this project, and certainly not a part of a kickstarter campaign. It seems the majority of their money came from small donations, funded by everyday people who believe this is a vital topic that needs to be explored and shown on a larger level. People who thought they were funding a film rooted in and deeply connected to communities of color in Oregon, which unfortunately is not the case.

Do I think the two Whitelandia filmmakers are “bad” people? No. I believe they are white people who had good intentions. Unfortunately, intentions alone, without work, education and accountability, will not stop exploitative dynamics from happening. In fact, they often ensure systems of oppression will be perpetuated, especially in a place like Portland, which prides itself on espousing a liberal politic that actually serves to perpetuate institutional racism. The very existence of Portland as this white playground – as it is portrayed in Portlandia – is predicated on the exclusion, containment, and exploitation of all communities of color. The excess resources that allow Portland to be such a “liberal livable city” – as long as you are middle class and white – are available because Oregon never intended to serve the needs of anyone but its white population. Without a deep commitment to antiracism, not just vague platitudes about diversity, I believe all this state, this nation, and this film will do is further entrench the inequalities that communities of color have resisted for hundreds of years.

Shifting paradigms of power requires more than just good intentions from those who are privileged – it requires constant reflection, humility, accountability and, especially, recognition of and responsiveness to, the leadership of those directly affected. I believe that as it stands now, Whitelandia’s production practices (and ultimately the film itself) will do nothing but replicate the systems of oppression they are purporting to critique in the film.

 

>via: http://walidah.com/node/369