[Example for showcasing a digital accessibility practice]
[Police car and sirens]
[Slow, sullen music starts]
Leonard: One of my favorite lines is if you’re tired of hearing about racism well imagine being tired of experiencing it
[Protest footage]
Protestors: Justice for Trayvon Martin
Kirkpatrick: Racism occurs at different levels; it’s not just always, you know, outright racism or racial slurs being hurled at you but you don’t know the blockades that are really set up, you know, but they exist.
[Protest footage]
Protestors: No justice, no peace. No justice, no peace.
Randy: What’s happening today, it’s interesting because it’s been happening probably for the last few hundred years. It’s not really new.
Leonard: And unfortunately I don’t believe that the solution will happen quickly, at least not in my lifetime or even my children’s lifetime.
[Protest footage]
Protestors: Black Lives Matter. Black Lives Matter.
[Medium shot of Randy in office chair, near a bookshelf]
Randy: My name is Randy McKinney and I’m retired from the department of social services, State of Connecticut after working there 34 years.
[Medium shot of Leonard in front of white wall]
Leonard: My name is Leonard Lockhart and I am a district service manager for Johnson Controls.
[Medium shot of Kirkpatrick in front of a window]
Kirkpatrick: My name is Kirkpatrick A. Burke. I’m an electrical engineer. I work here at Raytheon Technologies or Collins Aerospace, the former Hamilton standard years ago.
Title Card: The Talk with my Black Sons
[Randy’s family photos]
Randy: I was born in Virginia so I grew up with the the differences in the race and the way people are treated and the way people act so for me it’s something that I’ve always been aware of and I think that in the last shall I say four years, I think an atmosphere has happened, has been created where, it’s not so subtle anymore, you know, with the current, you know, political situation it’s gotten worse and I think people have felt more threatened because it’s so blatant and I think what it’s also exposed is that the people who you pay your taxes to protect your neighborhood and to make the right decisions because they’re supposed to be in charge, um it’s come out that maybe that there’s a larger percentage of those who aren’t doing that job, who aren’t protecting those people who might be minority who also pay their taxes.
[Police cars speeding down an LA street]
Kirkpatrick: One of my first encounters where it was just blatant was my buddy Gary was driving. It was probably four of us, my buddy Gary, my brother, I have an older brother, he’s about a year and a half older than me, and myself and uh I kid you not we were probably going, we were driving so slow because we didn’t want to go home right? It’s like oh we get to stay out late,
[Car on the road late at night]
Kirkpatrick: So we were just inching along 20 miles an hour you know we turned the corner and as soon as we turned the corner like these sirens started going off [close up shot of sirens] you know the guy he came around the corner like it was, you know, cops and robbers. It was just, it was just so extra; it was just so dramatic. I’m like uh okay and so then you know the guy comes out of the cop, he’s a white police officer and so then he says what are you trying to give me a chase and I’m like um and I just thought uh oh, you know, we’re we’re in trouble and I was literally praying that this guy like doesn’t beat us senseless or something and then um thank God there was an accident or something because I heard it on his own intercom and he had to leave. It was one of those incidents, it could have been worse you know and you never want you know your child to encounter something like that.
[Footage of Kirkpatrick and his younger son playing basketball on a Fall day]
Kirkpatrick: Good defense man. Can you defend this? Can you defend this? [Tickles son] Nope
Young Son: I’m not ticklish.
Kirkpatrick: I think you are; I think you are ticklish.
[Medium shot of Kirkpatrick by a window]
Kirkpatrick: I have more fear like I said for my teenager who’s becoming, gonna become 16, so when he’s going out there in a vehicle and I know that you know he’s black I’m gonna have to have that conversation a lot more often and and have to tell him this is how you behave, [footage of older son playing basketball] keep your hands on the wheel, you know, give them a whole laundry list of what to do and and pray that’s good enough.
[Footage of Leonard and his son arm wrestling]
Leonard’s son: Three, two, one, go. I know you’re not gonna pull full strength. Come on, Dad, don’t do me dirty.
[Leonard in front of white wall]
Leonard: I’ve been stopped more than I’ve cared for but there’s been times where I’ve been pulled over and had no clue of why and oh you look suspicious, that that that’s been happening, um, I’ve been cuffed. I’ve sat on the curb um no you’re not allowed to search my vehicle, vehicle searched anyway. I mean, it happens; it is what it is, it’s not right but that’s the life that I’m unfortunately, I’m conditioned to um, I’m going to experience this rest of my life but not by the good cops, there’s a lot of great cops out here that do their job and want to do their job the right way but then you do have some, unfortunately in all professions, that are rogue and I um I would believe that um there might be a few rogue ones in police departments across the country.
[Leonard and son finish arm wrestling. Son wins.]
Leonard’s Son: Don’t do that, that’s no fun.
[Video footage of a police car]
[Randy in office chair, near bookshelf]
Randy: I’ve been stopped and you know one of the you know one of the things that you can’t check if you get stopped and the policeman tells you that your brake light is out you know that’s one of the few things that you can’t check? Right so there’s no way for you to check and see if they were being honest with you because you can’t check that while you’re in the, you could if the license was missing or something like that but a break you can’t check so you get home and you see there’s nothing wrong with my brakes. I’m not going to say it happens a lot; you know in the time I’ve lived here maybe four or five times where you’re never quite sure really why they stopped you but yes officer, you know, fine, going home, that kind of stuff.
[Leonard at his kitchen table in front of white wall]
Leonard: This kitchen table you’re sitting at, what happens, this table’s like vegas. What’s said here, happens here, stays here and we’ve talked about a wide variety of things that impact their life and race has been one of them. [Footage of Leonard’s son on his laptop, photos of Leonard and his sons] I tell my kids don’t put yourself in a situation where you have to be engaged with the police, however if you are engaged with the police make sure you know your rights, make sure you know your constitutional rights. Make sure you know that if you want some type of backup if you want to record it do whatever you need to do to safely get home. If it happens to go left it is what it is; it’s unfortunate but the key is that we want you to come home safely. If they’re driving my vehicle they can let them know look, this is my dad’s vehicle, my wallet is right there. My daughter, my purse is over there; don’t make any sudden moves.
[Kirkpatrick in front of window]
Kirkpatrick: I tell him to keep his window down and keep his hands on the steering wheel.
[Leonard in front of white wall]
Leonard: I’m not a fan of rolling down the windows because then that gives the officer an opportunity if he wants to open, or she open your door, I’m personally not a fan of that but if it provides a little bit more comfort for the situation I’ll leave that to my kids to determine.
[Kirkpatrick in front of window]
Kirkpatrick: If at all possible have your lights on, you know, turn on your dome lights.
[Randy in front of his bookshelf]
Randy: It’s okay to let that other person go ahead of you even though you should be the next one to go. [Footage of a traffic light going from green to red] Don’t worry about it; you know, stop you know slow down and stop on a yellow.
[Kirkpatrick in front of window]
Kirkpatrick: Just anything that you know can be misconstrued as something being done improperly in the car, try to mitigate that as much as possible.
[Randy in front of his bookshelf]
Randy: I don’t know another Black family that I know that hasn’t had that conversation. It’s, it’s like, it’s a part of who you are. [Photo of Randy and his family]
Leonard: [Photo of Leonard, his dad, and a son] When I grew up in the 70s it wasn’t too far removed from the riots of the 60s so my parents and my uncles and stuff, that was still fresh in their memory and there was still a lot of tension going around from those riots so when I interacted with caucasians back then it was definitely told to me that I wouldn’t make, that i wouldn’t live to see 21. I would either be dead or in prison or strung out on whatever crime, drugs whatever, so when you hear this from teachers, when you hear this from officers on the beat, um when you constantly hear it it becomes a part of your psyche and you have to be mentally strong to battle through that, and it was tough.
[Video footage of Channel 3 news; Lower third reads: Developing news; Mike Savino; protestors in background in front of a building named Hartford Public Safety Complex]
News Anchor: Several hundred protesters coming to call for change as you can see behind me, they’re now making that call here at the Hartford police station so i’ll step out of my way so you can see what happened uh this is now the fourth straight day that we’ve seen protests here in Hartford and elsewhere around Connecticut.
Kirkpatrick: [Footage of Kirkpatrick and his son playing basketball in their driveway] My job as a dad is to really filter what he’s seeing because if you just let everything come through the tv screen sure you’re gonna be a scared child cowering in the corner and that’s not what I want for my children. I want them to be proud strong Black men.
Leonard: What would be great is an opportunity instead of dictating what happens at their table and what happens at my table is that we come together as a collective group, as a think tank, and really, really say hey let’s go through a level of different exercises. Give me, you know, give me a quiz on, about white perceptions, I’ll give you a quiz about Black perceptions and then let’s put it on the table of what were our true perceptions and let’s talk through it.
[Happier music]
Kirkpatrick: Try to reach out, try to extend yourself a little bit. [Photo of Kirkpatrick and sons, photo of his sons, family photo] I mean, you know, whatever that may entail; you definitely can’t stay in your house, you have to, you have to get out. Just make yourself available to learning and mingling with people who are not just like yourself.
Randy: With all the protests that’s going on one of the things that changed, that might allow change to happen is there was a mixed group protesting [footage of a protest, a protestor shouting, “Get your knee of my neck.”] Right? Because there’s not enough Black people in the country that could have voted Obama in if all of them voted for him. Right? There’s not enough so there have to be White people and Hispanic people who are doing it also. So if you want something to change then the majority group has to be willing to change also. Right? They need to be able to step up and say something and do something.
[Photo of Leonard and son, Photo of Leonard and daughter, Photo of Leonard’s whole family]
[Video footage of graffiti, “No room for racism; Dismantle White Supremacy”, Footage of old protest signs on a sidewalk]
Leonard: I believe this generation is a lot more tolerant; there’s a lot of equality talk. You definitely have a lot of different groups that are fighting for their rights to be at the table, to be heard, to be represented, so the tolerance for ignorance, it’s definitely, I believe, it’s passing us by. It’s a beautiful thing.
[Leonard in front of white wall]
Leonard: That progress is slow but it, the progress nevertheless is coming so i’m thinking we’re in a very, very good place. This country has come a long way and we got a long way to go. [Blurry footage of cars traveling]