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[waves crashing]
[birds chirping]

[Eli] All my life,
I've been asked two questions.

The first question always is
what country are you from?

And that's because
I was born profoundly deaf...

and I speak with a deaf accent.

The second question:
what race are you?

And it's always
this second question

that proves to be
the most troubling.

Some ask me which race
I really belong to...

or others break my races
down into fractions.

Then when some people
see my skin color...

why do they doubt that
I'm telling the truth?

Or call me
an invisible minority?

But what I really
don't understand

is why some people
ask me if I'm a different race

than my own two kids,
Jack and June.

Why does race
seem to matter so much?

[gentle music]

[narrator] Jack and June are
from the same mother and father.

June is an individual who
descends from multiple races.

Jack is black.

I was, you know,
I was surprised.

I expected to see
a check-all-that-apply

or a multiracial box.

[Eli] What is primary race?
What is that?

What do you go under?

White, Hispanic, Asian?

African American, black?

Primary and then a secondary.

[Eli] I think that's
what my problem was.

How do you pick
which is Primary--

Well... I have the same problem
with my son.

I usually say,
black and Jewish...

but I am black, Jewish,
white, and Native American.

[Eli] My kids are all of that,

plus their mother's side:
Mexican.

One needs to be chosen.

What about like, my personal,
like I would never choose.

[Eli] That would not be
a true reflection

of, uh, my child.

[woman] Well, I... I really
don't know how to address that.

[Eli] So, what is the answer?
What is the truth?

Yes, it will be...
Here we go. There.

[Eli] So he would be
African-American?

Absolutely.

Oh, okay, let's say white.

-[Eli] They'll be white?
-Yes.

[Eli] They're not
going to be black?

No.

[Eli] Somehow, Jack went from
being black to white.

Some people think
I would be happy

if there was
a multiracial box...

but what do I have in common,
racially, with a German-Asian?

[Eli] You cannot leave it blank?

Then we're
gonna call you and say,

-"What do you want us to put?"
-Cancel it.

We have to put something.

My kid will not
be able to enroll

-unless I check a race.
-Yeah.

[Eli reading]

[Eli continues reading]

I was not willing to deny
Jack his education...

so I checked black.

And that's how
Jack became black.

June has another year
before it's her turn

to enter the system.

[emotive music]

[reflective music]

[narrator]
We are all born into a history.

The United States government,
from its inception to today,

has always used race

to determine an individual's
possibilities in life.

During slavery and segregation,

the government
declared whites superior

and made laws that maximized
their possibilities.

The same government
declared blacks inferior

and made laws that denied,
or severely limited,

their possibilities.

The evil absurdity of these laws

is that they reduced
Americans to racial masks.

Outwardly,
these masks projected a color

with a corresponding meaning.

White and supremacy,
black and inferiority.

But the importance of the mask
is in not what it shows,

but what it hides.

And these racial masks repressed
the humanity of these Americans.

[George Wallace]
And segregation forever...

[narrator]
There is a picture of a man

in Eli's father's office.

When he asks
people who the man is,

most fail to recognize him,
his unmasked face.

The wonderful
Louie Satchmo Armstrong.

[audience applauding]
[bright music]

[singing] ♪ I'll be glad
When you're dead ♪

♪ You rascal you... ♪

[narrator] Louis Armstrong
knew that he was a black man

in white man's America.

If he wanted to take
his music worldwide,

he could not do it
as Louis the man,

Louis the artist.

He would have been warned,
"Know your place."

Armstrong had to repress
his full individuality

behind the racial mask
of black inferiority

to appear non-threatening
to white supremacy.

That is why most of us
recognize the racial mask

of Louis Armstrong...

and not the man himself.

[reflective music]

The Civil Rights Movement
shattered the racial masks

of black inferiority
and white supremacy.

Many Americans believed
that Civil Rights bills,

and anti-discrimination laws
alone,

were not enough to redress

wrongs done to blacks and
others.

As a corrective,

the government pursued policies
that rewarded people

for the past victimization
of their group.

Suddenly, racial group identity
was a government incentive

and racial masking was reborn.

This new racial order
replaced white supremacy

and became known loosely
as "identity politics".

[music continues]

That is why when Eli was forced
to identify Jack by race

on the school application,
he chose black.

He wanted to highlight
the absurdity

of a child
from nearly all races,

having his possibilities
maximized by his blackness

at every major life decision.

Starting next year
with magnet schools,

then colleges, and jobs.

Today, one of seven marriages
is interracial and rising.

And Americans self-identifying
as two or more races

is projected to hit
at least 20 percent

by the year 2050.

Yet, instead of embracing

this racially
transformative population,

the government's hold
on racial masks

has grown stronger,

raising the question:

Is race a truth... or a power?

[music fades]

[birds chirping]
[dog barking]

This is where I grew up,
San Jose.

The first time
I really understood

what coming
from multiple races meant

was when I was about ten.

My class held
a mock presidential election.

Half the class voted for Reagan.

The other half
voted for Mondale.

I was the only kid who raised
my hand for Jesse Jackson.

I must seek the nomination
of the Democratic Party

for the presidency
of the United States.

[crowd applauding]

[Eli] I saw Jesse Jackson
as Martin Luther King's heir

in fighting all
forms of discrimination.

See that fence? Over here?

First, second grade,
they used to dogpile me.

Rip off, rip off my shoes.

And then they would
throw it over the fence.

Just because I was deaf.

[gentle music]

[Eli] My father brought me
up here to the mountains.

He wanted to tell me
that I could handle it...

because I came
from a long line of people

who had overcome
great obstacles.

Slavery, segregation,
Holocaust, interracial marriage.

He also told me that those
who discriminated against me,

it said everything
about them, nothing about me.

If I allowed them
to define me, I lose.

[Eli] Worse,
was when I was in seventh grade.

They TP'd,

toilet papered our house
for a couple months.

I had a paper route
so five o'clock in the morning

I'm cleaning it up
before the neighbors can see it.

But the worse thing was,

in toilet paper,
they wrote on the lawn:

"nigger deaf mute".

I was already going
through similar things

back in grade school

and that's why I raised
my hand for Jesse Jackson.

[narrator] Jesse Jackson
called Jews hymies,

New York, Hymietown.

[singing]
♪ Well, now I'm sad and lonely ♪

♪ Since I put down the Jews... ♪

[Eli] My grandfather
lived in New York

and here was Jesse Jackson
calling Jews like him "Hymies."

In my ten-year-old mind...

it was the first time
I felt torn

between my racial identities.

When I put down
the racial lens...

I was able
to look to his character.

Being born to a black father,
Jewish mother, deaf...

it was impossible
for me to be...

anything other than Eli.

[soft uplifting music]

[narrator] Eli has been
trying to get interviews

with LAUSD officials
for this documentary.

He wants to ask
them why he had to lie

about his son's racial identity
on the school application.

[music continues]

[Eli] My race does
not fit into a box.

College,
scholarship applications,

job interviews,
race always came up.

[Eli] One example of this
happened several years ago.

I was doing a TV pilot

and it was about
two Hurricane Katrina survivors

who end up in San Francisco

with this yuppie family
headed by two mothers.

-[screaming]
-[man] Stay together.

My partners and I
spent two years on this.

Would we get the green-light?

Would I finally get
a career going?

I had a baby on the way.

We hear
from the network executives,

"We want to turn
the pilot screening

into a diversity showcase."

So you take this
rich, complex story

and you bring it
down to the level of...

skin color.

Maybe my father was wrong...

the way our society, government,
institutions, universities,

corporations, people,

the way we value skin color,

maybe that
really does define me.

But what I really
worry about are my two kids,

Jack and June.

-What is a "mist?"
-A "mist"?

Where is the "mist"
in the picture?

The mist is like that stuff.
That stuff...

[Eli] I'm 41, divorced,

struggling filmmaker, day job.

I've already picked
my path in life.

But my kids...

they have their whole future
in front of them.

[Eli] As a parent,
which way do I teach them to go?

The way of identity politics?
Game the system?

Use whatever race

that gives you the advantage
in whatever situation?

Live one way at home
and one way out in public?

Wear the mask
like Louis Armstrong?

Or do I teach them to go
the way I've been going?

To embrace all of who they are?

To carve out
their own identities?

To stay true to themselves...

in defiance
of any racial absurdities

that may come their way?

[gentle music]

[narrator] The only way
for Eli to find out

was to journey
out into America.

[woman]
Every fiber in my body hurts.

[explosions]

Whoa!
[sirens blaring]

[narrator]
An America, that today,

seems more racially divided

than at any other point
during his lifetime.

[yelling]

Racism is over!

-Black, your skin color.
-Everybody's trying to

make this about race.
It's not about race.

-[woman] It is race!
-Yes it is! I'm an American.

Are you
an African American woman?

I identify as black.

Racism has no part in that flag.

Slavery exists
in a new Jim Crow.

[chanting] Zimmerman should
do the time. Murder is a crime!

-[crowd] Hands up!
-[crowd] Don't shoot!

-[crowd] Hands up!
-[crowd] Don't shoot!

[narrator]
Where do the multiracials

fit into this America?

[Marcia Dawkins]
Today's multiracials

are really in a very interesting

and exciting place,

but also a place that,
for the moment, is problematic.

[narrator]
Do they try to move beyond

America's historical obsession
with race boxes

in hopes of moving toward
a better future... or not?

[soft uplifting music]

[Eric C. Jaskolski] I'm looked
at by, not only just society,

but the government, um,
pretty much politicians,

as a dangerous individual

because of the fact
that I refuse

to go by what
society's standards are.

[Angie McKee]
By choosing to be mixed-race

and choosing to not identify
as black or white,

makes America
a little bit uneasy.

[Clay Cane] Some people
do find it a bit laughable

when you meet somebody,

especially black Americans,
again,

and they say,
"I'm not black, I'm mixed."

And you're looking
at them and you're like,

"Baby, really?"

We're programmed
to identify with something.

I'm not one or the other.
I'm this space in between.

Race is not
an individual choice in America,

it is a social choice.

A lot of people I know,

they'll say that
I'm denying my race.

They use the term
multiracial or biracial

to distance
themselves from blackness.

So what are you, you know?
[chuckles]

Like, that's the question,
it's always the question.

What are you?

I'm a human being.
I'm Angie McKee.

I am a mixed-race individual.

That means I have
two awesome cultures...

that made me who I am.

It's very tempting to just
say, "Let's just forget it.

I'm a human being!"

I don't think we,
as a nation, are there yet.

They wanna stay stuck
into the norm

of what we're used to.

[music continues]

[Angie McKee] My mother
actually wouldn't date my dad

for two years
because he was white.

My dad's family in South Dakota,
German and Irish...

farmers and teachers.

My mother's side of the family,
they were slaves in Texas.

She was raised
in a time period where...

segregation was a very real
thing in her life in Houston.

And so going to D.C.

and working with my dad
at the Justice Department,

my mom was one of the first
black people my dad ever met.

But, in that two years,

she got to know him
and become friends with him

and realized that
there was no reason

why she shouldn't date him
'cause he was white.

Finally started dating him.
It was love

and created a little mixed baby.
[laughing] Yeah.

And now, um, I always tell
the story of my grandmother

taking my brother and I
to the dollar store.

And how she taught us,
from a very young age,

you don't touch
anything in the store.

You walk in, you can look at it,

but you don't touch anything
unless you're buying it.

One day, my grandmother
got totally frustrated

with the guy following us.

We had proven ourselves
to be honest people,

but, that day, she was just
like, "I'm done with this.

Touch everything. Pick it up,
carry it around, you know,

do whatever you wanna do."

I, I totally attribute this
to my being raised

by a black mother
and a white father

that if I were to become angry
at all white people

for the way one
ignorant shopkeeper treated me,

then I would also
be angry at my father.

And that man has done
nothing, ever, in his life...

against a person of color.

[reverent music]

[Eric C. Jaskolski]
Dear President Obama,

you were the epitome
of what positive things

can happen from change.

However, Mr. President,

I have been disappointed
about the message

given to millions
of multiracial people.

If you are multiracial,

you have to choose
to be of one race.

I wrote the letter
simply based on the fact that

that President Obama said that
when he used to ride around

the South Side streets
of Chicago,

people in the community
would see him as black.

So, he decided
to identify himself as black.

[DJ] But you're saying,
"I'm not black or white.

I'm bi-racial." That's a...

That's a tough
concept for most of us to,

because we've been
kind of trained

to put someone in a category.

We're too busy living
our life through others.

[Eric C. Jaskolski] My teacher,
Miss Nelson, in third grade,

asked all the black kids
to stand up. I stood up.

She asked Asian
kids to stand up.

So, I sat down.

Then she asked
the white kids to stand up.

I stood back up again,
got a couple cracks.

President Obama,
we cannot go back

to the one drop
of black blood rule.

Our ancestors
have fought so hard.

My grandmother,

she even identifies me
as being multiracial.

She's fought for that.

She went through the times of,

you know,
out there picking cotton,

or couldn't use
a certain bathroom.

And it kills her sometimes
to even see that we still...

are a society built on race.

President Obama,
now is your chance,

for that is
a true genius of America

that America can change.

Respectfully, Eric C. Jaskolski,
United States Army.

[gentle music]

[narrator] The idea
of people from multiple races

choosing their own identity,
like Eric and Angie,

is a fairly new one.

Eli's grandfather
couldn't do that.

Eli's own father,

born to a white mother
and a black father,

did not have that freedom.

Until very recently...

any person with one drop
of black blood was black.

[reflective music]

[narrator]
In America's beginning,

there was race mixing,

especially among
indentured servants and slaves.

In 1676,
during Bacon's Rebellion,

these blacks and whites
fought the white ruling class

holding them in bondage,
and lost.

To prevent future rebellions,

the ruling class introduced
one of the earliest variations

of the one drop
of black blood rule,

transforming
a class-based society

into a race-based society.

The purpose of the rule
was to make clear distinctions

between black people
and white people.

While I may not ever be on
the bottom down there with you

'cause I'll
never be a black person,

but I can certainly have
some sort of prestige

or social status psychologically
for being white.

[narrator] Interracial unions
were outlawed.

Those with a drop of black blood

were pushed into the black.

This one drop rule
defined slavery

and entrenched
the laws of segregation...

until the civil rights movement
destroyed those laws.

But not the one drop rule,

which reinvented itself
into the five primary race boxes

used by identity politics
in its quest for racial justice.

This is why
Eric and Angie are dangerous,

make America uneasy.

They threaten the very
structural underpinnings

of today's race-based society

by refusing to fit
into the rigid race boxes.

Even the recent additions
of multiracial boxes

seemed to hold
a little truth for them.

[Angie McKee] I-I've always had
issues with these boxes

because when I
check all that apply,

I feel like all of a sudden
I become just African American

in terms of their statistics.

It's almost
like The Wizard of Oz

and we wanna know
after we've checked,

you know, maybe five or six
boxes like I would,

what happens when I mail
that back behind the curtain.

And they pretty
much boil it down to one.

Some folks will say, "Well,
what does it mean, though,

that, that when you
reaggregate the data

for civil rights monitoring

and anti-discrimination
enforcement,

that you essentially
negate the fact that

they checked more than one."

And, my, my reading of it is
they did it for this purpose.

It's you're right.

They did negate
your answer on this part,

but they did it
so they could do this.

And, and the short answer is:
because it's messy.

Because it's incomplete,
because it's imperfect.

If someone wants
to identify me as naive

because I choose
to identify as human

or rather than
as a particular race,

I find that very offensive.

My generation is just the start.

This country,
we need to stand up...

and follow exactly what
we're supposed to be all about.

Um, that's the reason why we
have people from other countries

who want to come here.

[music fades]

[Eli] A photo of papa.

-Who do you think that is?
-Daddy!

Daddy? Does this look
like Daddy to you?

[Jack] Kind of.

[narrator] Many multiracials

are content to remain
within the framework

of identity politics.

Eric and Angie are
holding onto a vision

that they learned
in their American childhoods,

that race holds
very little truth.

What it does hold is power.

[Eli] Now, this is your
great-grandpa Shelby, right?

And this is your
great-grandmother, Ruth.

It reminds me of one of my
favorite stories growing up.

My father's birth.
Chicago, 1946.

My grandmother
showed up at the hospital.

She was in full labor,

and the nurses put her
into the maternity ward.

My grandfather, you know,
after parking the car,

then shows up
looking for his wife.

And the nurses realize,

okay, this baby
is not going to be white.

What do you think they
said when they saw his color?

-[Jack] I don't know.
-[June] Get out.

-[Eli] Hmm?
-Get out.

[Eli] They pushed her
into the elevator.

They went down
to the basement...

and into
the colored maternity ward.

-What's that?
-That's for black people.

They wanted to keep...

black people,
white people separate.

So your great-grandfather,

I'm sorry,
your grandpa Shelby...

-[Eli] was...
-Born in the basement.

[Eli] Born in the basement.

How high, June, how high?

My grandparents were
the most human of human beings,

but that morning
when my father was born,

White supremacy stopped them
from being fully human.

-One, two, three...
-One, two, three...

[balloon squeaks]
[Eli] Oh my goodness...

[Eli] Using race
to identify people is poison.

And it is always
done in the name of good.

How can identity politics
cure centuries of poison...

with more poison?

No, give me five.

[reflective music]

[President Johnson]
Freedom is not enough.

You do not take a person,

who for years
has been hobbled by chains...

and liberate him.

Bringing up
to the starting line of a race,

and then say, "You're free
to compete with all the others."

[Eli] I applied to UCLA
in the early 90s.

I had about a 3.7 GPA,

eleven hundred SATs.

At best, I was a long shot.

[President Johnson] All our
citizens must have the ability

to walk through those gates.

[narrator] When Eli filled out
his college applications,

he felt the same old conflict
many multiracials feel.

Should he check the black box

and inflate his GPA
from 3.7 to 4.0, or higher?

But he'd actually
earned that 3.7.

Should he ignore the urgings
from teachers and counselors

to exploit this perfectly legal
racial preference,

and instead
check all that apply?

But he was informed
that if he did that,

showing he was of mixed race,

he would just be placed
into the black box anyway.

He considered opting out
and leaving the boxes blank,

but, again,

he was informed that he would
likely land in the white box.

The decision of how
to identify

himself racially was
at this moment,

tied to his
future possibilities.

[Eli] I felt like I was
part of a sham.

I left the boxes blank.

I did not get in.

[news reporter]
Late last night,

the University of California
regents voted

that two years from now

an individual's race and gender
will no longer be considered

when you apply to work
or study at the University.

[narrator] When Proposition 209

banned racial preferences
in California,

Eli felt hopeful
that his future children

would not face
the absurdity of race

in the way he had.

Like the time he asked
a University official

why it was so important
to check the black box.

She had simply
said, "Diversity."

Maybe Jack and June

would not be asked to mask their
multiple races into one race

in the name of diversity.

In 2006,

ten years
after Proposition 209 passed,

UCLA hit a crisis.

Only 96 black freshmen enrolled.

However, in 2007,
that number somehow doubled

to over 200 freshmen.

[Tim] From 2005 to 2008,

I was a member of the
faculty oversight committee

for admissions and in 2006,

uh, or, excuse me,
2007 I think it was,

I, I saw some irregularities.

About 33 percent of the
African Americans admitted,

would not have been admitted

if it weren't for
the racial preferences...

[narrator] The new chancellor,
Norm Abrams,

came to my committee.

I want you
to use the same system

that Berkeley is now using.
They seem to have done better

in getting African American
students to be admitted there.

[Tim]What a lot of
people don't know, though,

is that when UCLA
implemented the holistic system,

they also altered their
system in another way.

And this was to give a series
of second chance reviews

to something like ten percent
of all applicants

get one of these
second chance rounds,

and to something like 20 percent
of all African Americans.

So there's
a discrepancy right there.

The admissions readers or raters

don't know the race
of the student, okay?

But, here's what happens
is that any student who wants to

can mention his or her race
on the essay.

[Tim] The number of
African-American

students skyrockets.

The percent that we admitted
went up by, like 70 percent.

And then the percent that
actually agreed to come

went up, like 100 percent,
so it doubled.

All of my statistical analysis

and all of the
analysis by Rick Sander,

all the analysis

by UCLA special investigator,
Robert Mare.

All of our analysis agree that

about a third
of the black students at UCLA

would not have gotten in

if it weren't
for Affirmative Action.

[soft ambient music]

[narrator] Racial preferences
were back at UCLA, underground.

[student] The Affirmative Action
singles out someone's race,

and I don't think
that's necessarily,

'cause they consider
economic factors, um, as well.

Or somebody's like we're
both from Our Foster Youth

and then they
would consider that.

I don't they think that
would so much benefit

saying I'm part black.

[narrator] Why, after being
one of the first universities

in America to forgo
race in admissions...

had UCLA fallen back
onto racial preferences?

Whoever is most qualified
based on grades

and extracurricular
should get in. Like, period.

It doesn't really matter.

If the school
ends up being Indian, if...

if all those Indians
were straight up bomb, then...

-Go for it.
-...okay.

That's just what happened.
Like... [chuckles]

[narrator] And in an America
that was even more multiracial

than when Eli
applied to college.

UCLA never publicly admitted

to underground
racial preferences.

Eli requested interviews
with UCLA's current chancellor,

Gene Block and others.

They refused.

Professor Tim Groseclose
and his partner,

Professor Richard Sander,

both fathers
of multiracial children

and researchers who uncovered

UCLA's use of underground
racial preferences,

agreed to speak on record.

The growth of the multiracial
population in America

is, uh...
effectively, a time bomb.

A lot of the times
with college applications,

I tried to be as me as possible,

but it is frustrating

when they make it all the way
down to, we need a black person

and we're just gonna take you

because that's all
you're making it about.

Because I might have felt

that my SAT scores
weren't high enough

to be considered Asian,

because all Asians score perfect
[stammers] on the math section,

so I marked myself
as full white.

Population is,
is essentially changing

from a series of categories
to a continuum.

The multiracials
represent that continuum.

I think it's completely wrong

to place so much value on race

in determining fate in general,

even if you're
multiracial or not,

but especially
for multiracial children

because then, in that instance,
that makes us,

that puts the pressure
on us to choose.

And that's where we're not able
to say, "Oh, I'm mixed,

because you're
forcing me to pick a race."

There's so many kids

who are being born
of this next generation

that are not a single race.

That, that, I think that
messes with a lot of our heads

because we...

how do, how do we...
value someone now?

Classifying people by race
becomes less and less tenable.

And classifying people based on
their individual characteristics

becomes more and more obvious.

[narrator] Affirmative Action's
original purpose

was not racial preferences,
but institutional reform.

Better schools,
teachers, funding.

But in a nation desperate
for racial redemption,

these reforms were not
populating college campuses

fast enough with blacks.

In 1968,

racial preferences
became the primary means

of those in higher
education across America

to lift those hobbled by chains
to the starting line.

[Richard] I think admissions
officers became obsessed

with what are those first
year enrollment numbers.

[Richard] Less about how
we're reaching people

and changing
individual people's lives.

There was never
that much focus on

how many graduates
were being produced.

[narrator]
These enrollment numbers by race

became the driving force
behind today's diversity.

Race matters.
If you look at what's happened

over the last decade
in enrolling minority students,

we're just not
moving fast enough.

[narrator]
These enrollment numbers define

the careers
of University officials.

[Tim] A friend of mine is
asked to apply for a job,

a deanship at
one of the UC schools,

[Tim] where they just
sent all their candidates

a one question essay.

"What have you done to improve
diversity at your school?"

[narrator]
If the enrollment numbers

of underrepresented
minorities fell,

there were protests.

When we have more
national championships

than we do
black male freshmen...

[narrator] Even some
underrepresented minorities

saw their enrollment
based on race as a civil right.

I'm Ida B.
I will make it my civic duty

to document every noose
of a rejection letter

that the University produced

to our black,
brown, and red bodies...

[narrator] Today,

black enrollment at UCLA
remains low and stagnated.

In part,
due to the threat of a lawsuit

and to investigations
such as those by

Groseclose, Sander, and Mare.

But when UCLA
brought back racial preferences,

they did far more than
accept well-off blacks

at higher rates
over poor Southeast Asians.

They brought back
the old absurdities of race

that Eli dealt with years ago.

[Eli] The worse absurdity was
that I knew exactly how

these University officials
viewed my multiracial identity:

as a stand-in for
those hobbled by chains.

[Richard]
Campuses started feeling

that they needed to do something

to increase
the academic performance

of students they were
admitting with preferences.

There were too many
crash and burn cases.

[Richard] Campuses in the 1980s

moved towards
making Affirmative Action

more about Caribbean's
or, or African students,

middle and upper class
black and Hispanics.

If they can get some
talented multiracial students

within their black category...

they see that as, you know,
clearly a good thing.

[Eli] It was my grandfather,
born to slaves,

who lifted himself
out of poverty

that provided the foundation
for my middle class life.

The scale of this change
was so dramatic that by 1992,

the proportion of, um,
blacks at the lead institutions

who were from the bottom half...

which was 50 percent
in the early 70s...

had fallen to 8 percent.

[Eli] Rather than seek out
those less fortunate than me,

and develop them into a strong
pool of applicants,

it was far easier for those
in the ivory towers of academia

to mask me as black
and up their enrollment numbers.

[Richard] Schools are
portraying themselves

as achieving a racial diversity

that, that is many,
in many ways, is being faked.

It's a big scam.

[soft anticipatory music]

[Eli] How does masking me
as black make America better?

And in the future,

if racial preferences continue

or go underground
at universities,

corporations, institutions,

how does making
Jack and June choose between

their black, Hispanic
and other identities,

make America better?

[music fades]

[narrator]
Eli sent an online query

to a civil rights lawyer.

Was it legal for LAUSD
to deny Jack an education

because Eli would not
check a primary race box?

Eli's request
for documentary interviews

with LAUSD officials
went nowhere for several months.

Board member Steve Zimmer said
he'd be happy to participate

and referred Eli to the
Department

of Human Relations,
Diversity and Equity.

However, when Eli followed
up on the interview request,

he refused to answer all emails.

Judy Chiasson,
program coordinator, at LAUSD's

Department of Human Relations,
Diversity and Equity,

set up two interview dates,
only to bail.

In her last email regarding
the primary race issue,

she wrote,
"I didn't know that we

restricted students
to one identity.

Certainly no one should
have to deny any aspect

of their identity
to come to school.

I am researching that and hope
to have an answer for you."

Eli never heard back...

and was about to give up

when he heard back from
the civil rights lawyer.

Federal law

under California
Department of Education

does not allow school
districts to refuse enrollment

to the children of parents

who do not identify racial
or ethnic information.

But how could Eli get an answer

if LAUSD officials
refused to talk to him?

[no audio]

[film reeling]

[Eli] As a boy...

I thought that
my grandfather was a racist.

He objected to my mother
marrying my father.

My mother's step-mother
slapped my father in the face.

I couldn't understand

how a Jew, targeted by Nazis
for his own race, could do this.

[Rita Steele]
My father was a survivor.

My mother was a survivor,
who then died when I was two.

They had suffered immeasurably
at the hands of non-Jews.

And that was still very
much in their consciousness.

They did not want to lose

any more people
in the Jewish community.

They believed they had...

an obligation
to carry, um, Judaism on.

[Rita] And the reason he wanted
to come to America

was one thing
and one thing only.

He believed that America

was the place
of freedom and opportunity.

I think to anyone that
believes in those ideas...

they're ideas
until you experience them...

in day to day reality.

So, growing up in Radom,
freedom and opportunity

might have meant to my father
being able to, uh, get a job,

eat three meals a day,
and be left alone.

[Rita] To me,
growing up in America,

freedom and opportunity meant
that I could join America...

meet all kinds of people

that my father would not have
even been able to imagine.

The rejection by own family
for marrying a non-Jew,

and my husband always said
for marrying a black,

that alienation was
an extreme consequence

that I actually had not
expected from my own family.

I thought their humanity
would trump everything.

[Eli] I was not the first person
in my family to go through this.

[Shelby Steele] My mother's
parents, my grandparents,

tried to talk her out
of getting married to my father.

Uh, in 1944,

it was a pretty radical...

it was a pretty radical
thing to do.

[Shelby Steele] All of her
siblings

left her, abandoned her,

and never came back, ever.

If there was something
wrong with my father,

that would be another story.

But there wasn't. They had no...

it was just that he was black.

I remember when I was
about four or five years old,

sitting on the floor playing
with a train set or something

and my mother got a phone call.

It was from my grandparents.

They had been gone
for about six years by then.

She had had no contact at all.

They said,
"We're down the street.

We would very much
like

to come and visit,
if that's okay with you?"

So I remember how,
how excited she was.

Uh... as she fluttered around

and... [chuckles]
...uh, and we were excited.

She said, "Your grandparents
are coming to see you."

They were really
just good people.

They had a moral conscience.

They were Northerners,

they knew that segregation
was an evil thing.

They had never raised my
mother to be prejudiced.

They would not allow,
uh, that kind of language.

Um, so, they, they had
a sense of consciousness.

And so, they, they had,
in a sense, betrayed themselves.

And, and they set that right.

It took my father about 15 years
to come back around.

[Rita] I think on a certain
level, he truly understood

that these categories
did not matter so much.

I think he wanted to know
his daughter again,

and I think he wanted
to know his grandchildren.

And so...

one day he made the decision
to come out and, um...

he, uh, got off the plane
and shook my husband's hand

and became the grandfather that
we always wanted and needed.

[emotive music]

[narrator] In order for Eli's
family to come together,

race had to be overcome.

Or Jack and June, or even Eli,

would not exist
in today's world.

But this battle
between race and character

was one that Eli
continued to encounter

in the world
of identity politics.

Especially in
the realm of politics.

[man voice]
Black Republican actress!

I chose him,
not by the color of his skin,

but the content
of his character.

[man voice] You so cray.

Latinos make America stronger.

I'm Hispanic
and I vote for Mr. Trump!

Professor Warren claimed
that she was a Native American,

a person of color.

And, as you can see, she's not.

Republicans win
is by driving up the white vote.

Crazy crackers on the right.

You need us.

Black voter turnout in 2012

exceeded the rate
of white voter turnout.

Thank you, Seattle,

for being one of the most
progressive cities

in the United States of America!

[everyone chanting]
Black Lives Matter!

Black Lives Matter!

I wanna tell you a little bit
about Bill de Blasio.

He's the only Democrat

with the guts to really break
from the Bloomberg years...

[narrator] At first,

the Bill de Blasio
ad seemed ordinary.

Race didn't really
enter the picture

as this young kid talked
about the ideas of a candidate

for mayor of New York.

Then came the twist.

[Dante] And I'd say that
even if he weren't my dad.

[emotional music]

[narrator] When
Eli saw that commercial,

it was Deja vu.

It's not that Dante has an
afro, it's that he's adorable.

[narrator] From when Eli
was a boy to now...

there were people
who saw him as white.

He's always gonna be that
average white male, you know?

So, I think it's a good
thing that he's trying

to, um... show that
he's more than that.

[narrator] Then they would
see Eli with his father,

or hear him say something that
identified him as black,

multiracial.

All politicians
being white males,

or even white females,

and they're very, like, clean,
like, white-white, you know?

There's really no
variety with them.

There is not very much
variety with politicians.

[narrator] It was a race that

instantly transformed Eli
in their eyes

and somehow gave
him a new complexity.

The whole Bill de Blasio thing
with the multiracial family,

is just, like, something that's
in, it's just, I don't know.

It just makes you
feel closer to him.

[narrator]
This is the fountain of power

that de Blasio tapped into
with his own interracial family.

He knew in this
world of identity politics

how this would play.

The Democratic strategist
behind the de Blasio ad

said, "If New Yorkers just
saw kind of the standard,

white picket fence family,

they probably
wouldn't take any time

to think about you as a human

because they're like, 'Okay,
yeah, another one of those.'"

New York embraced Dante.

And when they embraced Dante,

they embraced
his father's campaign.

And he went from last to first.

[uplifting music]

[narrator] There was no doubt
that the commercial helped

de Blasio win an unheard of
73 percent of the vote...

as he beat the Republican
candidate, Joe Lhota.

[crowd cheering and clapping]

[Eli] But like those who
thought that I was special

because I was black, mixed,

how can race offer one a true
glimpse into a man's character?

[music continues]

[Eli] Do you know where
I can find the Republican office

or stand around here?

-[woman 1] Republican? No...
-[woman 2] Round here?

[woman 2]
That's a hard question.

In Watts?

Why would a Republican office
be over here?

[Eli] I've been in south
Los Angeles, South Central.

I cannot find
a Republican office

or headquarters over there.

Well, then you
should keep looking.

You can't find a fucking
Republican in Compton anywhere.

So how is the Republican Party
going to become the party

of all people--

It is the republic party
of all people.

-Republican Party?
-[Eli] Yeah.

[laughing] Yeah.

Here's some
candidates who are not...

they don't look like me
and I'm voting for them.

Okay? And there's tons more
all over the United States.

So, you're talking about a myth.

[calling out] Are you ladies
Republicans or Democrats?

She don't even know
what the fuck that is.

We don't even fuck with 'em
like that. I kid you not.

You're not gonna find nobody
in Compton that's a Republican.

[Eli] I've always been told,
Blacks don't vote Republican.

I know the history
behind those words.

But voting out of racial loyalty
always seemed absurd to me.

I have voted
Democrat and Republican

and what attracted me
to the Republican Party

was their general stance
against Identity Politics.

[Ronald Reagan]
Their government sees people

only as members of groups,

ours serves all the people
of America as individuals.

[crowd cheering]

[Eli] Then why were they
in a Long Beach parking lot

with no foot traffic...

and not here?

[Mark Vafiades] I'm the chairman

of the largest
county party in the country.

Martin Luther King said,

you know, "Judge a person
not by the color of their skin,

but by the content
of their character."

That's something that

Republicans
have always lived by.

Whereas the Democrat Party

tried to paint
the Republican Party

as, as a party of, say, elites,
or the rich white man,

then they have to step in
as sort of the heroes

and, and the advocates
of the oppressed.

The Republican Party...

all the people I know

and the people that
are in the party,

they couldn't care
less where you're from,

what your race is,
what your ethnicity is.

They look to exclude people,

and they don't look
to be inclusive.

They got to change
your whole concept.

The Republicans have to change

the whole concept
of who they are?

Yeah, the whole
concept for who they are,

not who they pretend to be.

If you go into a community,

you should be seen
as an individual.

So the Republican Party is going
to come in and tell people,

"Pull yourselves
up by the bootstraps",

you're telling them,
teach them how to do it.

Th-- yeah.

See, see the Bible
said "Train a child...

not tell a child."

You can tell
someone all the time.

When you train and you're
invested in the process...

They gotta come in,
they gotta come in.

You gotta come to Compton.

They gotta come here.

The proof is in the pudding.
Just show me.

We, we're not stupid.
Nobody's stupid.

[narrator]
If the Republican Party

could care less about color,

then why isn't the chairman

of the Los Angeles County
Republican Party

or his volunteers
walking these streets?

[Mark Vafiades] If people
within the Republican Party,

someone, for example,
like me...

goes into... um, goes into
an African American community

or a Latino community,
I don't speak Spanish,

then that's not necessarily
the best thing to do

because then it looks
like these Republicans

are coming into our community
and trying to tell us

that we should be
part of their community.

Rather, we should
have Latino Republicans

go into Latino communities.

We should have
African-American Republicans

go into African-American
communities and so forth.

[narrator] Just a minute ago,

the conversation was
about individuals and character.

Now, it's about race.

[Eli] Why can't you talk
about the Republican Party

to African-Americans?

You're, you're a voter,
you're a human being...

Yeah, I totally agree with you.

I totally agree with you.

And it's not, it's not me,
it, it's more of a reality.

[narrator] Eli knew exactly
what he meant by reality.

He meant we live in a reality
dominated by identity politics

where race trumps character.

I don't judge a man by color,

I judge a man by his character.

That's one thing that we've lost

here in the United States,
is character.

[Eli]
We stopped people at random and

I asked people one question, uh,

very first question
I stopped them with was...

"Where can I find
the Republican Party

office or headquarters"?

What do you
think they said to me?

They don't know. [chuckling]

They probably
said they don't know, yeah.

[crowd cheering]

[narrator] De Blasio exploited
identity politics for power.

Many Republicans deferred

to the power
of identity politics.

The end result
for both was the same.

Race before character.

Has identity politics,
despite its good intentions,

created another form of racism?

Though identity politics claims
fairness through diversity,

does it not also share
the same dehumanizing results

of white supremacy,

where race counts
more than character?

Where race masks over
an individual's character?

Why else would
the Republican think of himself

as a white man
who could not approach

a person of another color?

Why else would so many voters

move into de Blasio's column
after the commercial?

Is identity politics just
another racial order,

like white supremacy?

But aren't all racial orders,

no matter what
beliefs they serve,

built on power and not truth?

From the 1940s and on,

Eli's grandparents
fought the racial order

of white supremacy
for their right to live,

work, and love,
as free Americans.

Yet, in 2016,
their great-grandchildren...

Jack and June,

along with so many others
of mixed heritage

like Angie and Eric...

face an America where
our consciousness of race

has not lessened,
but grown stronger.

How did this happen?

[crowd chanting]
Justice for Trayvon.

Justice for Trayvon.

He could have been your son.

Justice for Trayvon.

He could have been your son.

Justice for Trayvon.

He could have been your son.

[man shouting]
What if it was your child?

-Justice for George Zimmerman.
-[crowd chants] Power.

-[chanting] Justice. Power.
-[woman] What do we want?

-[crowd] Justice!
-[woman] When do we want it?

[crowd] Now!

If Trayvon had
shot George Zimmerman,

I'd be supporting Trayvon.

To me, it's not
race, it's about law.

[woman] It took 48 days for
Zimmerman to even be arrested.

Why did it take 48 days?

[man] what was
really on trial today is...

whether or not
a black or brown life

is of value in this country.

[crowd chanting]
The system has failed us!

The system has failed us!

The system has failed us!

The system has failed us...

[Eli] When I first heard
about George Zimmerman

killing Trayvon Martin,

the media kept
repeating white-on-black.

[somber music]

[Eli] I remembered three

racially motivated killings in
New York.

Willie Turks, Brooklyn, 1982.

Michael Griffith,
Howard Beach, 1986.

Yusef Hawkins,
Bensonhurst, 1989.

Was this yet another one?

Then I heard that
George Zimmerman

had a white father
and a Peruvian mother.

Not quite
the historical paradigm

of white-on-black violence.

[narrator]
After Trayvon Martin's death,

Jesse Jackson called for turning
a moment into a movement.

Eli did not
expect what followed.

The full power of identity
politics to evolve

as a racial order
and push George Zimmerman,

Trayvon Martin,
and the rest of us Americans,

deeper into its old race boxes.

What brought Eli to Florida
was not the killing itself,

not the innocence or guilt...

but a phrase that he
had never heard before

that was used to describe
George Zimmerman...

"white Hispanic".

Was this where today's
increasingly multiracial,

multiethnic America was going?

More new racial boxes?

Racial constructs?

On his way to the trial,

Eli decided to stop first
in the little town called Ocoee.

[gentle music]

[William] I graduated
from a little high school

in Selma,
Alabama, Dallas County.

Truthfully, I did not know
of the history of Ocoee.

[William]
And, perhaps, had I known...

I might have
had some misgivings.

[narrator] Eli wanted to visit
the Maxwell family

to see if progress was possible

on a land
with a bloodied racial history

that he first read
about as a teenager.

Election day.

November 2nd, 1920.

A mob of whites
led by Sam Salisbury,

former police chief of Orlando,

had the house
of July Perry surrounded.

Black people didn't
come to Ocoee to live.

I found a young lady

that I was interested
in sharing my life with.

I met her family,
who had an outreach to me

that made me feel good.

[narrator] July Perry
and his friend, Mose Norman,

were wealthy black landowners

who had been
registering blacks to vote.

After a confrontation
at the polls

involving a shotgun...

Mose Norman fled
and was believed to be hiding

at July Perry's home.

[gunshots]

[narrator] Gunfire erupted
from inside July Perry's home,

killing two whites.

Whites from all over
were called to Ocoee.

[yelling]

[narrator] By morning,
July Perry was lynched.

[gunshots]

[narrator] Mose Norman
was never seen again.

[William]
I never thought of myself

as a black person
in a white city.

I thought of myself as a man.

Freedom begins within me.

[narrator] Over 500 blacks,
except for one, fled.

The town remained virtually
all white until 1981.

Over the last two decades...

we've grown from a population

of one black American
in this city...

to now more than 6,500.

[William] I would like to quote
from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

"Let the dead past
bury its dead."

[soft anticipatory music]

[narrator] But was
this past truly dead?

Was the Maxwell family
truly a sign of progress?

Or was America's
past of racial violence

still alive 40 miles up the road

where George Zimmerman
killed Trayvon Martin?

[tense music]

The allegations of racism
and miscarriage of justice

tear apart a small Florida town.

Pow!

Trayvon had a bag of Skittles.

Definitely sounds
like fucking coons.

Trayvon Martin was you.

Zimmerman is going
around passing for white.

Mister Zimmerman
was a white Hispanic.

[Marcus Higgins] Spike Lee
retweeted a Sanford address

of George Michael Zimmerman.

Shoot the guy,
for no reason at all.

[narrator] On the first
morning of the trial,

after a year
of nonstop media coverage,

after warnings about protests,

enormous crowds...

nobody showed up.

Except for the media.

Would all this
media be here today

if Zimmerman
had a Hispanic name?

What captured
America's attention

was the fact that Zimmerman

had not been initially charged
with killing Martin

due to the
Stand Your Ground law.

[faint chanting]

[crowd chanting]
The whole system's guilty!

Trayvon Martin, Emmett Till,
no more youth getting killed!

The whole system's guilty!

[narrator] On March 8th, 2012,

over a week after the killing,

the Associated Press
identified Zimmerman as white.

The growing narrative
of an armed white man

going uncharged after killing
an unarmed black teenager

deeply disturbed
Eli and other Americans.

[Noche Diaz] George Zimmerman
was a wannabe cop.

If we don't get
justice in this case,

that sends a message

to every racist vigilante
around this country

that it's free, and the justice
system will have your back.

[narrator] A week later,
on March 15th,

Zimmerman's father
identified his son as Hispanic

to counter
the white-on-black narrative.

In response, the New York Times,
on March 22nd,

invented a new racial
construct

for Zimmerman,
"white Hispanic".

Without the
"white" in white Hispanic,

the death of Trayvon Martin

would just be a tragic encounter
between two men.

There would be no
echo to Ocoee in 1920.

[Noche Diaz] America was founded
on slavery and genocide.

That's something that people
need to understand

about, about America.

[soft anticipatory music]

[Andrew Thomas]
And all of a sudden,

you have an incident that really
just takes the lid off of it.

And everything comes pouring
out all over again.

You're responding
and reacting to history,

years of what you've
perceived as injustices.

[man] George Zimmerman don't
do this because he want to.

He do this because he say,
"Hey, if I kill a black man,

doesn't matter what,
I could get away."

Black people in America
feel oppressed.

[girl] And as a black person,

I think they need
to get over it.

[Andrew Thomas]
If there's race involved,

you're, you're probably
gonna get some interest.

Race is a hot button.

[man] Something happens,
it's not racial at all.

But when tempers flare

and you start to think
about us versus them,

you pick up the first thing
that you can identify

as a differentiator
and race is really easy.

[Andrew Thomas]
The city of Sanford

did request
from the Department of Justice's

um, Civil Rights Division

to look at, um,
the Sanford Police Department's

patterns and practice
and whether or not there was any

civil rights violations
that was occurring.

Claimed they didn't see anything
at that particular time

that would warrant
further investigations.

One man kill another man

and that should be
the basis of the judgment.

It shouldn't be white Hispanic
or black Hispanic.

[girl] If you make it
a conversation about race,

you are passing that
stigma from this generation

to the next generation,
to the next generation,

to the next generation.

I'm not sure why
the New York Times

came up with that term.

[Eli] So, why, why do we need
to put him in that box?

I'm not sure why we need
to put him in that box.

[Eli] And put Trayvon Martin
into a box?

As you say, they've made
this in terms of a race issue.

Okay? And in order
to make it a race issue,

you have to put
people in the race box.

Otherwise,
how do you classify it?

What would you have called it?

How would you have
gotten the kind of...

national and international
attention?

[narrator]
When the New York Times

called Zimmerman
a white Hispanic,

it played a role
in transforming the tragedy

from a quest
for individual justice,

to a quest for racial justice.

Trayvon could have
been any one of our sons!

If I had a son,
he'd look like Trayvon.

[narrator] Martin and Zimmerman
were racially masked

as Americans fought over
the identity politics narrative.

[George] This guy looks
like he's

up to no good.
He looks black.

Zimmerman didn't
mention Martin's race

until the 911 operator asked him

"Is he white,
black, or Hispanic?"

In the 911 call, he said,
"I think he's black."

And then later confirmed,
"Yes, he's black."

They made it seem
like George Zimmerman

came out like,
"I think he's black."

George Zimmerman racially
profiled Trayvon Martin.

Actually, he was
answering the question.

Is he black, white, or Hispanic?

And his response was,
"I think he's black."

Look, man, NBC News,

you ought to be
ashamed of yourself.

[narrator] Martin and Zimmerman
were made to carry

the full history
of their respective races.

Sanford is a beautiful city.

You are risking going down
as a Birmingham, a Selma...

-[audience cheering]
-...of the 21st century!

[narrator] What happened
between Martin and Zimmerman

is a truth we
will never fully know.

Eli kept expecting this

white-on-black narrative
to collapse.

How absurd would it be
to call him white-black,

or white-African?

But in an increasingly
multiracial America,

this narrative
kept growing stronger.

He realized that he kept
hearing a phrase over and over,

"white privilege".

Eli heard that in this

racially charged world
of identity politics,

that it did not matter

that Zimmerman was
Peruvian and white.

His light skin
equaled white privilege.

Eli also heard
that in this same world,

white supremacy was
still alive and well.

Zimmerman walked free,

not because
of the extreme malleability

of the Stand Your Ground law,

but because his light skin
equaled white privilege

in a white supremacist
justice system racist to blacks.

[water lapping]

Were we really nothing more
than the color of our skins?

Were we always going to be
competing racial groups?

[woman] White supremacy
has been embedded

in the United States of America
from its founding.

[narrator]
While at the Zimmerman trial,

Eli decided to visit
a conference on White Privilege

the following winter.

The legal system
protected a, a white male

who killed a black male.

White privilege.

[conference attendee]
White privilege doesn't

even have to do with...

if you are fully white
or if you are fully black

or if you're fully anything.

I think a lot of it has
to do with skin color.

[woman] First Congress
of the United States,

determined 1790,

that in order to become
a naturalized citizen

of this new republic called
the United States of America,

one had to be white.

America was started

by white people,
for white people.

White people have
been taught implicitly

that we are superior.

There is this myth

that the United States
is a meritocracy.

It's very hard for people

who were taught that the unit
of society is the individual,

and whatever you end up with

must be what you individually

wanted and worked for
and earned and deserved.

The reality is that
we are not a meritocracy.

They've been
taught to take the credit

for actually white supremacy.

That they have
mistaken white supremacy

for personal excellence.

[Eli] After three days of
interviews, speeches, seminars,

it was clear that
the believers in white privilege

feel that race, not free will,
determines everything.

For them,
the Martin-Zimmerman tragedy

was only about skin color.

White privilege,
define white privilege.

[laughing]

Privilege is whiteness
at the top of the scale,

and blackness
at the bottom of the scale.

I benefit every day
from the little things,

from not being profiled
in the grocery store.

Being able to buy
flesh colored band aids.

All these little things in life
that get you further

just because
of the color of your skin.

[Eli] I felt depressed
listening to the indoctrination

that reduced everyone
to skin color.

[Susie] My dad came from a very,
very poor background

right, and was a very,
very American dream.

My mother, my white mother,

who took us out
of an abusive relationship

that she had
with my biological father,

basically took us
and moved us to Wisconsin.

And the only thing
that we had on our back

were the clothes on our back.

I know you worked hard.

I watch you now still work hard.

Um, but...
because you're white...

Dealing with racism
in Wisconsin,

on top of that we're watching
cross burning and stuff

out of our neighborhood,

she would argue that
she had no privileges.

Think about if
you were a black man.

How much harder
would it have been?

And she would say,
"What privilege do I have?

I was struggling
to bring these boys up."

You worked really hard,
and I know that,

and I wanna make sure that
I validate that in you.

But, also,
because you're white...

It's very hard to tell
her that she's at fault,

that her whiteness gave
her some sort of privilege.

[Eli] Do you think
I have white privilege?

Somebody like me?

I think so.

I'd say you may well
have light-skin privilege.

Absolutely, I do think
you have white privilege.

Um, uh, you come from a system
that has benefited you,

um, because of the color
of your skin.

[Eli] In today's America
of jerry-built race identities.

I am now white.

[narrator]
With nearly 3,000 people here

from diversity consultants
and University professors

to government bureaucrats,

this is
identity politics central.

What gives these
people their power,

their justification,

is their willingness
to exploit America's

irredeemably racist history.

They believe they
have created a path

to America's redemption.

But what they have done instead,

is create yet
another racial construct

that traps us in skin color.

[crowd chanting]
Zimmerman should do the time.

Murder is a crime!

Zimmerman should do the time.

Murder is a crime!

[judge] Members of the jury,
have you reached a verdict?

[narrator] Zimmerman may have
only seen Martin's race,

but what did we
gain as a society

by reducing both Martin
and Zimmerman to skin colors?

And by extension,
the rest of us?

Does it lead to justice?

Or does it, in the end,

only strengthen
identity politics further?

[crowd chanting]
Nationwide protest.

We demand justice!

Nationwide protest.
We demand justice!

Nationwide protest.
We demand justice!

Nationwide protest!

[narrator]
America gave us white supremacy.

But, America also
put into motion

one of the greatest ideas
known to man: the individual.

And the power of the individual
to build and define a life.

But what power
does an individual have

against an ever-evolving
racial order?

[Eli] On my way
to the Orlando airport

I decided to stop again in Ocoee

to visit William Maxwell
at his stable.

As my elder,
I wanted to ask him,

were we to be forever imprisoned
by America's racist history,

or was there
truly a path forward?

[woman] Keep your hands up.

[William] We, as a society,
will never escape racism.

Character is not, does not...

and will never have
a color associated with it.

The day that I stopped
a bullet, January 1967,

in the Rach Kien Province
of South East Asia...

the boys that put
their lives on the line

to drag me into safety,

didn't stop to see
what color I was.

[emotional music]

Those young boys
from Florida, Georgia,

Mississippi, Alabama, Kentucky,

Illinois, South Carolina,

Southeastern United States,
in the middle of the 60s

when racial tension
was at its highest.

They could have just as easily
fired another round off,

and left me there for
the scavengers to come along...

and nobody would
have ever questioned

or known the difference.

But you know what?

They chose to risk
their lives...

and their actions...

paved the way
40 plus years later...

for us to have
this conversation.

[William]
I want to convey to my son...

a value system that will
prepare him to live...

in 2050.

You will think of yourself
as less than everyone else

when you have to think
about your skin tone.

I've always been
able to avert that...

because I believe
in my ability...

to comprehend...

to perform at the highest level

of anything that
I have attempted to do.

I love to win.

[music fades]

[narrator]
The lawyer who informed Eli

that the LAUSD was wrong
to force him to check a race

or Jack would not be enrolled

sent letters
to two LAUSD authorities

asking them to
explain their policy.

When Eli found about the letters

and that the LAUSD,
once again, failed to respond,

he went directly
to their headquarters.

[bureaucrat] Are they forcing
you to answer this question?

Are they telling you
your child--

I just asked you if your child
was enrolled and you said yes.

[Eli] Yes, but he is
now enrolled as one race.

You cannot pick all
the races that you want.

You cannot identify--

That's your choice to pick
as many races as you want.

[Eli] That's not my choice.
My choice is to opt out.

Let me ask you something:
if you were in my situation,

if you were black,
Jewish, Mexican,

what would you put down?

[bureaucrat]
I'm a mixed Hispanic.

[narrator]
After several phone calls,

not one bureaucrat inside
the 29 floor building

felt a responsibility

to explain their racial
identification policy

to a parent of a student
in their care.

[Eli] I've been going around
for the last three months

trying to get an answer.

Okay, can I see the...

[Eli] That, um,
the LAUSD main office

-told me to come here.
-Right.

[Eli] I went over there and I
pretty much got "stone-walled,"

I mean seriously,
for lack of a better word.

-Give me one second.
-Sure.

[Eli] When I checked
the black box for Jack,

I thought I was highlighting

the absurdity of forcing
a multiracial child

into a "Primary Race" box.

But, in reality,

I felt pressured
by today's racial order.

Why in the world

would a school
not enroll a child

because of
an unchecked race box?

Was racial identity
that much more important

than the individual identity?

By bowing to this pressure,

didn't I betray my grandparents'
fight against all racial orders?

[narrator]
To complicate things further,

the lawyers letter revealed

that if a parent
refuses to pick a race

on the school's application,

both California and the
US Departments of Education

said third-party identification,

or observer identification,
should be used.

If the LAUSD
allowed Eli to opt out,

a stranger in administration
would look at Jack's features

and pick his race.

[Eli] What is my racial makeup?

Italian?

-Spanish?
-Lebanese.

Pacific Island?

-Human race. [laughing]
-Babe!

You're human.

Um, Russian?

South American.

I'm really bad at this game.
[chuckles]

American?

-I am American. [chuckles]
-Yeah!

[narrator] After more than
20 minutes behind closed doors

and without explanation,

Jack all of a sudden
was no longer black.

-[Eli] Yeah, should be empty.
-So it's wrong.

[Eli] What will he show up as...

like, on the official records
how would he show up--

It'll be, it'll be blank.

[Eli] ...black, white, Asian,
undefined, or something?

That's the official record
right there,

so it's just gonna be
a blank, a blank space.

Hmm-mmm.

[Eli] Jack went from "black"
to "blank" or did he?

Did they pretend
to give me what I wanted

just to get me out the door?

The first thing
that came to my mind

was that famous line
from Ralph Ellison's novel,

Invisible Man...
"Keep this boy running."

-[man] What do we want?
-[crowd] Ethnic studies!

-[man] When do we want it?
-[crowd] Now!

-[man] What do we want?
-[crowd] Ethnic studies!

-[man] When do we want it?
-[crowd] Now!

[narrator] At the same time
Eli was pressuring the LAUSD,

the LAUSD board was voting
on an ethnic studies requirement

for its 150,000 plus
high school students

that would study
racial identities.

We need to know the reasoning
behind all these things

that oppress
the minority community.

And that's why ethnic studies
are important to us.

George Washington
established the United States,

And, you know, it's all relevant
and you have to learn it,

but on top of that,
like, how does it affect me?

You know? I'm not white, myself.

[narrator]
The LAUSD stonewalled Eli

because his challenge
to checking a racial box

exposed that identity politics
had evolved to such a degree

that young school children

beginning their first
year of elementary school

were no longer beyond its reach.

The district won't invest
in hiring counselors.

These schools
have zero counselors.

Your classes are packed
with 56 students to 60 students.

I mean, classes,
that's all they do--

[Eli] You have 60 students
in your class?

Yeah. 60 to 60,

even sometimes
up to 70 students.

-[man] Whose school?
-[crowd] My school!

-[man] Whose school?
-[crowd] My school!

[narrator]
The same school district

that recently
lowered graduation standards

to increase the graduation rate,

was now voting
on an ethnic studies program

that the Los Angeles Times
would later report

as costing 73 million

and require 250 new teachers.

Resources that would not be used

to rigorously
develop students for UCLA

or a career in Silicon Valley,

but instead to further
institutionalize

identity politics
into America's fabric.

-[man shouting] We won!
-[crowd cheering]

[Eli] White supremacy
preserved its racial order

by keeping Ralph Ellison's
Invisible Man on the run.

It did not allow him to stop

and develop himself
as an individual.

Doesn't identity politics have
many of us on the run today?

[reflective music]

[Eli] My grandfather
and his family

had to check a race box

when the Nazis invaded Poland.

[narrator] Jack and June
now live in an America

that grows more
determined to track people

by race and ethnicity.

This, of course, is done
with the best of intentions

to correct past injustices,
and current inequalities.

Eli knows that one day
he will have to explain to them

why he thinks this is wrong.

Growing up in Radom, Poland,

Eli's grandfather
lived in a world

that never knew
him as an individual,

but only as a member
of a despised group.

[Eli] My grandfather after,
um, he left Radom,

never ever wanted
to come back here.

He had no desires,

so I'm the first person
in the family to come back.

This is not, um...

this is not what I imagined
um, Radom would look like,

would look like. Um...

I always thought it would
be a small little village.

You know,
like Fiddler on the Roof

or something like that.

But this street, um,

was not where my grandfather
came from in Radom.

[narrator] Eli's grandfather's
six older sisters raised him.

When the Nazis came,

his sisters, believing that
the women would be spared,

told him to flee.

He was caught.

He then escaped from a Nazi
transport train with other men

and was the only one
to survive the gunfire

with two bullets in his back.

The Russians
arrested Eli's grandfather

on the charge
of being a German spy,

and he was sent to Siberia.

There, for the first time,
he met Eli's grandmother.

[Eli] I think this is it.

His home was
across the train tracks.

My grandfather lived
in a segregated world.

First, by religion.
Then when the Nazis came...

by race.

[somber music]

[narrator] Eli's grandfather's
six sisters...

were murdered in Majdanek.

[narrator] It is likely
other family members

perished in Treblinka.

Most of Eli's grandmother's
family survived Auschwitz...

including his
grandmother's mother.

[Eli] I never understood,
until coming here...

that the Holocaust that
my grandfather survived in...

was, in fact, a racial order.

People in my family survived

two of the world's
most brutal racial orders.

[narrator] Eli believes
this is why he carries

an innate mistrust
of identity politics.

It's emphasis is always on

racial group
identity and rights.

But doesn't this emphasis
on racial group identity

use the same reasoning that
all racial orders are built on?

The rights and interests
of the racial group

over the individual?

And doesn't this always lead

to some racial groups being
valued over other racial groups?

And to the marginalization
of the individual?

[film reeling]

[narrator] When Eli's
grandfather came to America,

it took him many years
to shed the tribalism

that had oppressed
him back in Poland.

But he did come to trust
that America was truly a country

of individual
rights and freedoms.

His assimilation was complete

when he fully
understood one thing...

the smallest minority
in America is,

and always has been,

the individual.

[Eli] My grandparents,

daughter
of the American Revolution

and son of slaves...

married at the height
of segregation.

My parents married
on January 1, 1967...

when race riots were raging.

Even Jack and June's
maternal grandparents...

a descendent
of the original Mormon settlers,

and an immigrant

from the Sonora Mountains
of Mexico...

all of these people
in Jack and June's family

understood on some level

that the courage
to be an individual

was, ultimately, the only answer
to a racial order of any kind.

Though America's
Founding Fathers

failed to grant its rights

to all Americans
for centuries...

Jack and June
come from a line of Americans

who refused
to be racially masked.

Today, as identity politics
tightens its grip

in the midst
of a multiracial baby boom,

America stands at yet
another racial crossroads.

It is my hope that America
will begin the move

from asking "What are you?",
to "Who are you?"

After all,

I have a strong feeling that
the more Jack and June learn

about their complex history,
they will find it impossible

to be anything
other than Jack and June.

[wistful music]