And when Bodeker asked for examples of racism, he got some very peculiar replies. Instead of mentioning things like bullying, name-calling or bad service, the blacks said: “People are overly kind to me, people give me funny looks, people say I’m a great dancer – just because I’m black…”
When Craig Bodeker, an American who is now 51, went to middle school, his teachers staged a coup against him and his classmates – they were all exposed as “racists”. Craig swore he would mend his ways.
But after many years as an “anti-racist”, he realized that the word racism is one of the most abused words of our time, and decided to make the documentary A Conversation About Race. You can now watch the film right here on Dispatch TV.
What happened to Craig Bodeker in middle school was this: Two teachers announced that the children were going to play a game – word association. They asked the kids to say what words came to mind when the teacher said “white” – in a bright and clear voice. Pure, innocent, honest etcetera was what the kids replied. Then, they were asked what words came to mind when the teacher said “black” – in a nasty, angry voice. The kids said scary, dark, awful etcetera. After this exercise, the teachers shocked their young students: “You are all racists and we are disgusted by you!”
After this indoctrination, Craig became an “anti-racist”, and vowed to mend his ways. It wasn’t until he reached middle age that he dared question the official consensus on racism. Slowly but surely he had discovered that the entire ideology behind the word “race” had become illogical and very complex. He had a feeling that a small investigation into the matter would reveal many contradictions, and decided to capture some of these on film. The idea was that such a revelation would improve the debate and make people reflect on how they use poorly defined terms like “racism” and “racist”.
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