Jeffrey Robinson is a lawyer who’s the driving force behind the new documentary “Who We Are: A Chronicle of Racism in America.”
The former deputy legal director at the American Civil Liberties Union has touched a raw nerve with some.
“America is a great country and America is a racist country." Robinson said. "And if we don't solve the second problem of racism, our greatness is at risk.”
Robinson presents a compelling argument about institutional racism: from slavery to what he calls the modern myth of a post-racial America.
“I was amazed to find that the slave market in New York city where enslaved people were sold was maybe three blocks from the apartment where I lived when I worked from the ACLU,” Robinson said. “And I was amazed to find out that the cotton exchange where all of this money was being exchanged was on the route that I walked from my apartment to the ACLU. So, all of these symbols that we have forgotten, or at least where the memory of what they really are, has been erased.”
Some symbols are being removed. Just weeks ago, the City Council voted to re-locate the statue of President Thomas Jefferson that stood in City Hall for decades.
“If you want to keep the monument, then add a plaque to it,” Robinson said. “By the way, Thomas Jefferson was a slaver, a vicious slaver, a raper of Black women and young Black women. And he did this for his profit and his pleasure. Add that so that people understand who folks are.”
In the documentary, Robinson also meets with Eric Garner’s mother, Gwen Carr, and Darren Martin, the former Obama staffer who famously had the cops called on him as he moved into his new apartment in 2018.
Robinson believes the truth will quite literally set this country free.
"So, this is simply a request that everyone in America take a look at our true history and then ask themselves, so if that's what brought us to this point in 2022, what do we want to do going forward? And I think if we do that based on the truth, America will head in a very, very positive direction." Robinson added.
