SEPTEMBER 17, 2014

“The Throwaways”:

New Film Spotlights

Impact of Police Killings and

Mass Incarceration in Upstate NY

Amidst national outrage over police brutality across the country, we look at a new film that documents police shootings and the consequences of mass incarceration in upstate New York. The Throwawaysfocuses on the idea that certain lives in our society are considered disposable. It follows activist and filmmaker Ira McKinley, a former felon, as he seeks to document and mobilize his community of Albany, the state capital of New York.

One of the voices featured in the film is Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness_, who has said of the film, “_The Throwaways courageously explores the most pressing racial justice issue of our time: the mass incarceration and profiling of poor people of color.” We’re joined by the film’s co-directors, Bhawin Suchak and Ira McKinley, who is also the subject of the film, along with Messiah Rhodes, associate producer of The Throwaways and a former Democracy Now! video fellow.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman. The past few months have seen protests over police shootings across the country, from Ferguson, Missouri, to Ohio, where John Crawford was shot dead while holding a BB gun in a Wal-Mart, to right here in New York, where Eric Garner died after being placed in an illegal police chokehold in Staten Island. As he shouted, “I can’t breathe! I can’t breathe!” he died.

We turn now to a film about the connections between police brutality, mass incarceration and the idea that certain lives in our society are considered disposable. This is a trailer for the new film, The Throwaways.

>via: http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2014/9/17/the_throwaways_new_film_spotlights_police