The countdown for the screening and discussion of the award-winning 2013 documentary American Promise was quickly approaching 0:00. Students, alumni, teachers, and friends streamed through the Macaulay building’s open doors, past a greeting sign that read, “Macaulay Honors College at CUNY: Supporting Excellence” and up the series of steps to the Screening Room on the evening of Friday, February 7.
“I saw the event on Facebook,” said Akeem Powell, 24, of Jamaica, NY and a guest of Macaulay. “The trailer made me think of my girlfriend’s little brother, and it made me think of myself in a literal sense. That was me. So I had to see it.”
By 6:15 p.m., the steady flow of guests was greeted by smiles, handshakes, and hugs courtesy of the Macaulay Diversity Initiative. Sign-in sheets—65 names long—awaited visitors at a registration table manned by Cynthia Perez-Beltethon, Macaulay Hunter 2014, and Demelio Urbano, Macaulay Hunter 2015.
“Everyone came here and came together, ready to talk,” said David Arteaga, 20, of Maspeth, NY and Macaulay Hunter 2015. “I mean, just look at the number of people who showed up and look at the diversity of the crowd; age, ethnicity, careers, educational experiences. This is a conversation that needs to be had.”
By 6:40 p.m., finding an empty seat in the 72-seat Screening Room required great amounts of effort, sharp-shooting eye sight and impeccable strategic planning. The room— illuminated by a red, white, and blue projection of the words “AMERICAN PROMISE” against a slightly wrinkled sheet of loose-leaf paper—was host to a number of mini family reunions sprinkled with loud laughter, “Over here!,” and rushed small talk between friends playing catch up.
6:45 p.m.: SHOWTIME
American Promise was chosen in observance of Black Male Achievement Week—heavily promoted by PBS this past month—and in preparation for the third annual Supporting Excellence Conference on Friday, March 14. The film tells the story of two middle-class African American families whose sons attend a prestigious—and historically white—private school on the Upper East Side, The Dalton School.
As the credits scrolled after an abridged 80 minutes of the full 142-minute film, everyone gathered their bags and winter coats, and shuffled back down the stairs to the Lecture Hall. Guests were ready to discuss the Pandora’s box of education, race, parenting, support system, gender, and social justice issues that filmmakers—husband-and-wife-team Michèle Stephenson and Joe Brewster, M.D.—busted open in their documentary.
Stephenson and Brewster turned their video cameras on their five-year-old son, Idris Brewster, and his five-year-old best friend, Oluwaseun (Seun) Summers, in 1999, documenting both children’s 13-year journeys through Dalton as recruits of the school’s newly introduced student diversity initiative.
“The story really hits home with me and my 16-year old brother who is a black boy,” said Samantha Riddell, 21, of Cambria Heights, NY and Macaulay Hunter 2014. “My parents did not do that whole private school Dalton experience and we’re seeing the effects of it now on his education. This makes me want to drive harder.”
Forty-nine people sat with plates of sandwiches and fruit in the audience of the Lecture Hall after watching the film. Five of the 49 audience members were black males. The remaining 44 attendees, allies.
“In some ways, I’d like to see more people who look like me at these conversations,” said John Kunicki, 22, of Forest Hills, NY and Macaulay Hunter 2013. “I think it’s on them to come to these events because speaking from experience, when I’m around other white men, a lot of them tend to have very limited perspectives on things like this because in part, they’re insulated from a lot of these issues. They’re insulated from feeling it themselves, and if they haven’t been given some sort of framework for thinking about the world that allows them to empathize, empathizing is not going to happen.”
The 90-minute conversation that followed the screening was the first of its kind to directly address black male achievement in educational institutions at Macaulay, and will be one of many conversations to come through Macaulay Diversity Initiative’s efforts to support diversity. Next up, Macaulay’s third annual Supporting Excellence conference on the institutionalized “primary school to prison” pipeline in which so many boys and young men of color seem to be trapped.
Countdown to Friday, March 14, 2014: BEGIN.
