I was happy to be able to see "How Jack Became Black." You handled the topic brilliantly. And your children are adorable. They're five years older now, so not "babies" anymore, but their beauty and innocence and the love you surround them with are very obvious and heartwarming.
It occurs to me that you're just the next generation of Steeles passing down the same message to your kids as your parents passed down to you, and that your dad had passed down to him by his parents. Maybe one day, when being mixed-race is as common as the sun rising in the east, the lesson will have been learned and we won't have to reinvent the wheel with every new generation.
Maybe because of what we Jews are facing these days, the images of the annihilated neighborhood in Poland where your grandfather grew up really broke my heart. I'm also of Polish extraction. Had my maternal grandparents not left Europe when they did, I would not be here writing to you. The weight of the tragic stupidity of racial politics in that scene broke my heart and felt overwhelming.
After I saw "What Killed Michael Brown?" I was so taken by something your father said that I went back and memorized it (more or less) so I could quote it to others: "We human beings never use race except as a means to power. It is never an end. It is always a means. And it has no role in human affairs except as a corruption."
"How Jack Became Black" is a perfect illustration of that idea. What a simple but profound, and apparently threatening, truth it is. I wait for the day when that corruption becomes obsolete.
Brilliant and needs to be in every educational setting and on everyone’s screen of choice as a reminder of what it’s all about.
I was happy to be able to see "How Jack Became Black." You handled the topic brilliantly. And your children are adorable. They're five years older now, so not "babies" anymore, but their beauty and innocence and the love you surround them with are very obvious and heartwarming.
It occurs to me that you're just the next generation of Steeles passing down the same message to your kids as your parents passed down to you, and that your dad had passed down to him by his parents. Maybe one day, when being mixed-race is as common as the sun rising in the east, the lesson will have been learned and we won't have to reinvent the wheel with every new generation.
Maybe because of what we Jews are facing these days, the images of the annihilated neighborhood in Poland where your grandfather grew up really broke my heart. I'm also of Polish extraction. Had my maternal grandparents not left Europe when they did, I would not be here writing to you. The weight of the tragic stupidity of racial politics in that scene broke my heart and felt overwhelming.
After I saw "What Killed Michael Brown?" I was so taken by something your father said that I went back and memorized it (more or less) so I could quote it to others: "We human beings never use race except as a means to power. It is never an end. It is always a means. And it has no role in human affairs except as a corruption."
"How Jack Became Black" is a perfect illustration of that idea. What a simple but profound, and apparently threatening, truth it is. I wait for the day when that corruption becomes obsolete.
I just started watching it...will finish later when I’m not pushed for time. But, so far it’s terrific.