RACE IS THE PLACE
RACE IS THE PLACE
REVIEWS
New York Times
Anita Gates, November 20, 2005
The rule about racial humor, as everyone knows, is that only a member of any particular oppressed group is allowed to make jokes about it. RACE IS THE PLACE puts a variation of that rule to good use. Performers include a Hawaiian writer who talks about being colonized by tourism, a comedian named Ahmed who does a routine about his experiences with airport security and a white-haired man who plays the guitar and sings, "I think that I shall never
see/Any Chicanos on TV."
Dallas News
Mercedes Olivera, November 19, 2005
Hurricane Katrina forced many of us to look at the issue of race in our country. But most people still prefer to let others, like our poets and comedians, do the talking and performing on that subject. Somehow, they can grasp that thorny topic with far more verbal agility and grace than many of us. The one-hour performance documentary features perspectives on race from a broad swath of US talent; all of them from multiethnic and racial communities. The documentary explores as many perspectives as necessary, rather than looking at the issue of race in simple black-and-white terms, which can dismiss the impact that racism has had on other ethnic communities. Through performance art, comedy routines, songs, old cartoons and films, the documentary is a fast-paced collage of ideas, stereotypes and commentary on one of the most explosive issues of our times.
"It's the voices that we don't often hear," co-producer Raymond Telles said this week. "This film doesn't answer the questions about race. We simply pose a dialogue so people leave and talk to each other about it."
Mr. Telles and Rick Tejada-Flores spent five years raising the money for the project before actually producing it. That took another year and a half. In the end, it was a labor of love that was condensed from 91 minutes, with stronger language and content, to 60 minutes for broadcast purposes.
Rob Tranchin, an executive producer for KERA, which also partnered with the producers in completing the production, said the documentary goes well beyond performance art. "It's much more ambitious than a transcription of a performance for television," Mr. Tranchin said. "It's a piece of criticism, unusual and unique, that brings a sense of tradition in poetry and language from one generation to another."
It introduces the songs of Eduardo "Lalo" Guerrero, the father of Chicano music, who wonders aloud why "there's no Chicanos on TV," and Amiri Baraka, who says that everybody suffers discrimination of one type or another, but only black people were considered "real estate" in the U.S.
Tranchin said it's "very difficult to put people into boxes." But people and films have done exactly that for several decades. Maybe it's time to move past that.
Washington Post
Jabari Asim, November 21, 2005
What's so funny? Ask a hundred people that question and you'll probably get just as many answers. Ask women, according to researchers at Stanford University, and you'll likely receive responses that differ substantially from those of men. Scientists at Stanford's medical school recently told The Associated Press that women are more likely to enjoy a good gag or witty anecdote, in part because they tend to expect less from a joke.
The research team cites the different reactions as further—albeit unsurprising—evidence "that men and women often perceive the world differently." What would happen, though, if we substituted "blacks" and "Asians" for "men" and "women"? Or "Italians" and "Arabs"? Ethnic groups are also likely to see the world differently, which makes the question of what is funny even dicier and less predictable, and reduces the odds of a joke's potential success.
"Race is the Place," a worthwhile documentary features a number of performers including Culture Clash, a Latino comedy troupe, and Barry Shabaka Henley, an African-American actor and performance artist. Both acts employ a confrontational style that is designed to arouse strong reactions.
"We're out there to shock the audience ... and provoke thought," the members of Culture Clash announce in the documentary. Among their routines is a riveting piece about a group of young Asian-American car enthusiasts who use the N-word as a term of endearment. The youths' use of the slur is "so wrong and so incorrect," says Clash member Richard Montoya, "but it's so not my job to put a filter on that."
Henley's funny but chilling monologue about a Klansman makes even more frequent use of the epithet, and the performer offers no apology. "I think this word is such a powerful historical cult thing in our world," he says, "that to ignore it or pretend it doesn't exist is worse than using it every other word."
Dallas Morning News
Ed Bark
It's teeming and often seething with words and images that cut through the core of standard-issue decorum. PBS' Race Is the Place boldly lives up to its billing as a one-hour "jam" that unflinchingly "yanks off the muzzle of political correctness to speak the often-ugly truths that lie beneath the rosy talk of 'multiculturalism' and 'diversity.' "
Co-produced by Dallas-based KERA-TV (Channel 13) and Paradigm Productions for the Independent Lens series, Race is driven by artists, comics, rappers, poets and vintage clips from stereotypical cartoons, advertisements and films. Many of the performers are new to national television, which generally doesn't accommodate the likes of Hawaiian poet Haunani-Kay Trask or African-American comedian Shabaka, who performs in a Ku Klux Klan robe and mask while liberally dispensing the n-word.
Ms. Trask cuts to the chase from a different yet like-minded perspective in her poem Hawaiian at Heart. She writes of "a whole people accustomed to prostitution, selling identity for nickels and dimes in whorehouses of tourism."
Some of the harder-core language is bleeped. Still, much of what's shown and said in Race can't be printed or reproduced within the parameters of a family newspaper. Whatever Race is, it's certainly not an academic treatise. There are no professors or pontificators to tell us what all of this means. Race instead is a sampler of what's out there, with the dispensers coming in all colors, shapes and temperaments.
Mayda del Valle is outwardly the angriest during a monologue titled "Descendancy." "You must've mistaken me for Hansel and Gretel," she rages, "thinkin' I'd jump into the meltin' pot."
Elderly guitarist-singer Lalo Guerrero is lower-keyed in lamenting the lack of Latinos on TV, although that particular picture has notably improved of late. "Since we've lost Anthony Quinn, all we've got left is Cheech Marin," he sings and strums to the sounds of gentle mirth.
Filipino comedian Andy Bumatai is a bit more direct. He gets big, full-bodied laughs after asking his audience, "You ever notice like all through history white people are always discovering places people already are?"
Race likewise is an eye-opening, ear-popping voyage of discovery. It stands up and dares to be counted among the year's more bracing and provocative documentaries.
That said, you really must see and hear for yourself.
Fort Worth Star Telegram
Race Is the Place, looks at the big picture of race in America through artists' eyes -- artists such as an Egyptian-born comedian, a Puerto Rican poet and a Luiseno Indian performance artist. You won't find any of these people on the American Music Awards, but you'll probably be more enlightened by them.