DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT 

By Emily Kunstler

My sister Sarah and I have been making documentaries together for almost 20 years; most of our work has taken the form of advocacy films produced in coordination with campaigns for racial
justice. Our first film, Tulia, Texas: Scenes from the Drug War, exposed a racist small-town drug sting, inspiring national media coverage and leading to state and federal investigations and changes in Texas law. Our feature documentary, William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe, premiered at Sundance, was distributed theatrically, broadcast on PBS, and was short-listed for an Academy Award. The film is an examination of our father’s life and choices, tracing his career as a civil rights lawyer and fighter for racial justice, as well his representation of society’s most despised.

When Sarah and I first heard Jeffery Robinson speak, we were floored. It wasn’t just the facts he had assembled – it was Jeffery Robinson himself. He is a dynamic storyteller who brings history to life, inviting audiences of all races to view the history of anti-Black racism in the United States, and the erasure of this history as a crime perpetrated on all of us. We were compelled to partner with Jeffery and help him take his presentation to a wider audience.

Throughout the making of this film, one of the questions we often get is why are two white women making this film? Our answer is that the history of slavery in the United States is not Black history, it is American history; a history of white supremacy and white complicity as well as a history of Black oppression and resistance. Growing up, Sarah and I were taught that it was our moral responsibility to stand up against racism and fight for justice. This responsibility includes learning and sharing our country's painful history. Just as Jewish people should not bear the burden of reminding us that the Holocaust matters, Black Americans are not responsible for making sure that the true history of our nation is acknowledged and reckoned with. While Sarah and I are the directors, we have no ownership of the film, which belongs to Jeffery. Profits, should there be any, go to The Who We Are Project, a non-profit organization Jeffery has established to continue this work.

Who We Are: A Chronicle of Racism in America is a collaborative effort between Black and white Americans to get back our nation's stolen history, to accept our obligation to learn it and represent it, and to come to terms with it as our shared inheritance. It is also the profile of a man on a quest to share what he has learned and to go beneath that history to the lived experience of Black people whose lives have been shaped by a legacy that our country has largely forgotten. It is a film that meets the historical and cultural moment in which we are living. It asks all of us to examine where we come from, who we are, and who we want to be.