- 11 years ago
Documentary (2009) 90 minutes ~ Color
In an effort to determine the definition of 'Race' and the number of races on earth, Paul Duddridge creates a mini Olympic games in Los Angeles. The teams are selected by race as opposed to nationality. Along the way he interviews the world'd leading anthropologists, biologists and sociologists.
Director: Jonathan Marc Baker
Writer: Paul Duddridge
Stars: Paul Duddridge, Jack Alvarado, Miguel Andrade
In an effort to determine the definition of 'Race' and the number of races on earth, Paul Duddridge creates a mini Olympic games in Los Angeles. The teams are selected by race as opposed to nationality. Along the way he interviews the world'd leading anthropologists, biologists and sociologists.
Director: Jonathan Marc Baker
Writer: Paul Duddridge
Stars: Paul Duddridge, Jack Alvarado, Miguel Andrade
Category
🎥
Short filmTranscript
00:00We're coming at this, I mean, I'm white, this is a very white-centric kind of project, because
00:07in a very blunt way, it's like, white people, unless they're just kind of cross-burning
00:12idiots, don't consider themselves to be a race. It's like, everybody else is a race
00:16and we're just white.
00:17We've had the privilege, in many ways, of not being racialized.
00:21And that's kind of why we're trying to do a very deliberate, preliminary sort of study
00:26of, a naive study of race. It just proves that everybody's just as, just as included.
00:32So in some ways, this is a film about whiteness, in a way.
00:36In a way.
00:37And white people's discomfort or tendency to dominate how one talks about race.
00:44So what race would you say that Barack Obama is?
00:48He's, I'd call him the, he's a black race to me.
00:53Most people consider him to be only black, because that's what they look at.
00:56That's a tough one.
00:57I'd say a little bit of both. I'd say he's African-American, and I'd say he's, well...
01:02Okay, so look, the thing that started me on this particular topic was, a few years ago
01:11in the UK, there was a TV presenter called Anne Robinson, and she was on a show, a comedy
01:16show, called Room 101, where guests are invited to list all the things they hate in the world.
01:24Most people say things like spiders, or waiting for buses, or lateness, I think.
01:30These kind of normal bugbears.
01:33Anne Robinson said the Welsh.
01:36And I actually do believe, and I thought about this at the time, that she thought,
01:40oh, I'm going on Room 101, you know, what's the most controversial thing I can get away with?
01:45You know, blacks no, gays no, Chinese no.
01:49Hmm, Irish? Hmm, hmm.
01:53It culminated with her actually being investigated, investigated to ascertain whether or not she
02:03had been guilty of the crime of inciting racial hatred.
02:07Racial hatred, this was the thing that got me.
02:10I had to believe that disparaging the Welsh was going to be a racist crime, as opposed
02:17to what I considered to be a xenophobic crime.
02:20We've seen instances here in the presidential election in the United States where people
02:25have said explicitly, I will not vote for a black person.
02:29That's racist.
02:30That's not just xenophobic.
02:31Race is conceived of as things that you have sort of no option about, but your race is
02:36absolutely not up to you.
02:38Whereas xenophobia is often associated with features of people that are somewhat cultural,
02:45and so people can, at least in principle, have a chance to get away from them.
02:50The assumption is if you move to France, you want to be French.
02:53And so when people of African descent or people from Islamic backgrounds move there and they
02:59don't adopt a beret or the local norms, there is often xenophobia that has racial overtones.
03:09Our position was I don't believe that we wanted a banner from entering the United States.
03:14That's how it was reported.
03:16A banner from entering.
03:18She could enter.
03:19Did we want NBC to hand her a contract so that she could spew that kind of filth out?
03:27Can there be discrimination against Welsh people?
03:30Absolutely.
03:31Can Welsh people be oppressed?
03:33Absolutely.
03:34Do we need protection for people when they are being singled out on the basis of their
03:40Welshness?
03:41Absolutely.
03:43But the question is whether that is racial discrimination or whether that is national discrimination.
03:48Those are two very different things.
03:50When I arrived, you said that she'd said that they should be shipped off to concentration camps.
03:54Yeah, she said that.
03:55She didn't say that.
03:56I know she used the word concentration camp.
03:57She said they should be shipped off and put out someplace else.
04:00Yeah, to Room 101.
04:01Have you ever seen the tape of the show that she did?
04:05The show she did was a show called Room 101.
04:08If your movie is as boring as this interview, you're going to have a rough time.
04:11Don't blame yourself.
04:15There's the scientific understanding of race.
04:18Race is a legitimate biological category.
04:21It's a subdivision below the species.
04:24We also have a much more of a social, sociological concept of race.
04:28Race has more to do with categorizing and pigeonholing populations of people into classification schemes that are created within society.
04:42It's bound up with language.
04:43I'm a linguist.
04:44And so when I think of race, I often think of race through a linguistic lens.
04:49Hello, I'm calling about the apartment you have advertised in the paper.
04:53I can speak with a Spanish accent as well.
04:55I can say, hello, I'm calling about the apartment you have advertised in the paper.
04:58Or if I would mind if I had my speech, I'd call and say, hello, I'm calling about the apartment you have advertised in the paper.
05:03A skin color.
05:04So your standard Ethiopian looks a little bit like an Arab and a little bit like the Africans to the south.
05:11Everyone on the planet is, in varying degrees, multiracial in terms of their ancestry.
05:18A little bit like the other Africans to the east and west because there's been a bit of gene swapping between those populations.
05:25I have been able to trace my connection to Muhammad.
05:28And some people would say, oh, how can that be?
05:30It's like, well, I can show you.
05:31If we had the time, I'll show you the genealogical connection.
05:34So we have these two almost competing notions, one a biologically based one that's based to some degree on ancestry and then a social one.
05:41They overlap and people use them interchangeably.
05:44But in essence, they're really quite different.
05:46The very notion of discussing race, the very notion of discussing racial differences seems to cause inflammation.
05:54It seems to be inflammatory.
05:56Am I offended by everybody in this country who is white being called a racist if they disagree with a political candidate who's black?
06:07Or if they say, you know what, I don't think being a community organizer qualifies you to hold any office, that that means you're a racist.
06:15You're damn right I'm offended by that.
06:17But you're not you're not finding that coming from white people against other people.
06:21You're not finding it coming from me against other people.
06:25It's interesting to me, like I said, that you're using a the mantle of Welshness as a it seems to me a kind of a backdoor way of.
06:36And it only seems to me a kind of a backdoor way of fighting for white rights or white from a white political agenda.
06:45When so many are talking to.
06:47Well, yeah, you're talking to.
06:48Yeah. So you were just bringing up white politics then.
06:51Oh, wait a minute. Before you make a suggestion about me like that, which I take great offense at.
06:57You understand who you're talking to?
06:59Yeah. I've defended more black people in this county than anybody.
07:03When more cases for more black people, more brown people, more Asian people, more women than any other lawyer in L.A. County.
07:13So don't try to pin some kind of white racist shit on me.
07:16Not accusing you of white racism.
07:17You don't talk to me like that.
07:18Not accusing you of white racism.
07:20Oh, yeah.
07:21Not accusing you. Well, we can play the tape back.
07:22You be very, very careful how you talk to me.
07:25Are you threatening me?
07:26Yeah, you got damn right I'm threatening you.
07:28And what are you threatening me with?
07:29With whatever it takes.
07:30I'm telling you, you don't talk to me in such a way.
07:33You don't put a label on me.
07:35I'm amazed how thin-skinned the Welsh seem to have become over that matter and matters like it.
07:40Yeah. I think, you know, we've got to hone in on the fact that it wasn't all the Welsh people.
07:47It was a proportion.
07:49As I say, it's a minority within a minority, if you like, who self-define themselves as much more Welsh than even I do.
07:58Well, you're English.
07:59Well, I was born in England.
08:00Yes.
08:01And so I got it.
08:02But, you know, like a lot of people, Lloyd George was born in England.
08:06I see, so he wasn't Welsh.
08:08No, it's not where you're born, is it?
08:10Well, this is the interesting thing.
08:12It isn't.
08:13You know, even in international law, Paul, you know, it's your parentage.
08:19For you to say that anybody not born in Wales cannot identify themselves as Welsh, or as I do, Welsh ancestry, Welsh heritage, I think it's a mistake.
08:31Really?
08:32Well, there's 23 million Irish Americans. 23 million.
08:35That's a hell of a lot of people for you to go out and tell them you're not really Irish because you weren't born there.
08:40I think it's pretty much Irish to tell them that as well.
08:42Some of those guys, you know, some of those guys are pretty rough guys.
08:45Some of those Scottish guys.
08:46So I shouldn't expect anything for fear of violence.
08:49I'm on a quest here. I'm finding out.
08:51No, it sounds like what you're on a quest for is to gain acceptance of your view as opposed to perhaps appreciating or becoming aware of nuances in views that might be different than yours and still have some validity.
09:12It might seem a spurious reason to make a documentary, but it really, this stuff does move me.
09:20This is the stuff that really interests me.
09:22For me, a great example of where nationalities can come together and be treated equally would be the Olympics.
09:30This leads me to think the best way to illustrate my desire to find a neutral explanation of race is to have an Olympics, a mini Olympics based on race.
09:47Even as I'm saying it, I can hear how bad this might sound.
09:51Hi, welcome back, everybody. It is the Tim Conway Jr. show live on 97.1 FM.
09:55Paul Duttridge from England is doing a film about races.
09:59Paul, why don't you talk about yourself and tell people what you're doing?
10:02We are devising mini Olympics.
10:04Right.
10:05And we're going to get teams to compete against each other.
10:07But instead of like the Olympics or the nationalities, we're doing it teams divided by race.
10:13Hispanic, Asian, Sloven.
10:16How many races?
10:17Good question.
10:18So what we're doing in between now and the day of the race, we're asking every eminent professor in the field in this country to tell us how many races there should be, how many teams there should be.
10:28This is a real challenge because you can really go in a lot of different directions.
10:32You can't use the black, white, Asian breakdown.
10:36That clearly doesn't work, especially when you're talking about something like sports.
10:39There's no doubt that in the highest level of competitive sport, you haven't got a chance unless you have some of the right genes.
10:49You look at the top 500 all-time 100-meter sprinting times, 494 of the top 500 are held by a person of West African ancestry.
11:00It's who decides how many teams is the issue.
11:04It's who has the power to decide who's allowed to play in the Olympics and who qualifies as a racial group.
11:11In the same way that more powerful nations can decide who qualifies as a nation to play in the actual Olympic Games.
11:20So to get competitors for this mini Olympics, I'm trying every method that I can think of.
11:25I've been on local radio, I've set up a website, we've put an advert on Craigslist, all the casting websites here in Los Angeles.
11:31Today we've printed up leaflets and we're going to distribute them here at Venice Beach and see if we get any takers.
11:38You look great on camera.
11:43Where are you going?
11:47You look damn cute.
11:50About racism, I can't be in a race, I have a hurt ankle.
11:55Afro-American team, for sure.
11:57Perfect.
11:59What event would you excel at, do you think?
12:02I'd probably say running.
12:03Bowling.
12:05Judo.
12:06Basketball.
12:07No, honestly, no, not basketball. I'd have to go with...
12:11What kind of sports are y'all having?
12:13They have breakdancing too?
12:15That sounds like a plan.
12:17Long distance, yeah, I jog a lot on the sand.
12:19Baseball and another one...
12:23Filipino sumo wrestling.
12:26I'd have to be in the Filipino team, you know what I'm saying? I'd have to.
12:30The black side.
12:31Chinese or US.
12:32Mexican.
12:33Well, Mexican.
12:35Mexican team.
12:36You're on the Mexican team?
12:37Yeah.
12:38And why would that be?
12:40Because there are a lot of cool people there.
12:42Well, that was a good afternoon, that was somewhere between Greece and the Green Mile.
12:48I'm left now, I've only got two leaflets left, so that went well.
12:51Well, to think, only 11 hours ago I had three leaflets, so it's been a very productive day.
12:55Looks like we've got a lot of interest in the event.
12:59I don't see anything going wrong at this point.
13:01I can't see anything at all but green fields and success.
13:08One of the great divides in the scientific community is the question of whether biology and race are profoundly connected or not.
13:16And even on that, there's no agreement.
13:18There's consensus about what a race is.
13:20I don't agree that the scientific community agrees about the concept of race.
13:24Among those people who think that race has very little to do with biology,
13:28some people are arguing that if race is not biological, we should stop using it.
13:33And that race has no meaning whatsoever.
13:36Other people argue, well, it's an unfortunate legacy of the modern world.
13:41And the implication is that until you can acknowledge the fact that the things that have been committed to the name of race
13:48have led to an incredible amount of racial inequality,
13:51you can't actually tackle racial inequality by getting rid of the thing that caused it.
13:55And then you have another group of people, which of course I'm part of,
13:59which believes that race has social meaning, which is quite profound,
14:03and therefore the study of race as a social science makes perfect sense,
14:07even if the study of race as biological science makes none.
14:12Today's objective is to finally meet the athletes who have agreed to come along and take part in these games,
14:19to start sensitively putting them into racial groups.
14:23We've actually got, rather optimistically, a megaphone.
14:27So obviously, this is...
14:30This is going to be used if we're so oversubscribed
14:34that I need this to project my voice to the back of the throng, the back of the 500 people who come.
14:40Everybody, if you're going to picture this now, now it's obviously empty,
14:44it's a car park in a school in North Hollywood.
14:47Give it about an hour, this place is going to be teeming.
14:50There's going to be... I'm guessing a thousand people.
14:53I'm very bad at guessing, I would say.
14:57I'm going to put a brave face on this.
14:59This is good, this is a good thing that nobody's turned up,
15:02because it proves how difficult a concept we have created.
15:08It proves, once and for all, that you cannot actually define race in merely athletic terms.
15:15So I think it's a victory for me in many ways.
15:18To many of the outsiders looking on now, it will look like a pathetic man in an ill-fitting stripy jacket
15:23wandering up and down the school, but no, this is a victory for the little man,
15:28who's probably put on a bit of weight.
15:30What we were going to do today was get anybody who came and start splitting them into teams,
15:35and we're going to let the actual participants determine what team they want to be on by a racial distinction.
15:41That was a bit optimistic, because obviously we were expecting anything above six would have been a bonus.
15:48So can I just start asking, first of all, can I just get your names
15:51and what your racial classification might be?
15:54And you could change your answers later, even.
15:56I am an Arab, I'm from Palestine, and I classify myself as an Arab,
16:01and the political term now is Middle Eastern, so I will go for Middle Eastern.
16:05I would classify myself as, and I believe all of us would, the human race.
16:09I'm Asian, black, mixed America.
16:12I don't know, I guess I'd describe myself as black.
16:15French, English, Scottish, Russian, Panamanian, Portuguese.
16:20So can I say crackerspik, is that okay?
16:24And my race, I would have to say, is mostly Caucasian, mainly, mixed Caucasians.
16:33And what's the mix? What's the rest of the mix in there?
16:37Irish, Italian, I do have some Italian, I do have German in me as well as Polish.
16:47And if we discover, or if it goes on that we find that all those other mixes
16:53are simply nationalities and not a separate racial mix,
16:56would you be content with just Caucasian?
16:58Hmm, probably not.
17:00If you prove to me otherwise, I mean, and bring something to fruition of why not,
17:06then, yeah, I could change my opinion.
17:08Race is whatever is kind of decided at any one point in time, you know,
17:13in terms of certain political dialogues that come out,
17:16certain scientific dialogues that come out.
17:20And so it would be interesting getting this group together
17:23and just honestly see, okay, how many teams are there going to be?
17:28Well, I'm a black Albino, both of my parents are black,
17:30so I've pretty much had to, but I look like this.
17:33So I've had to convince people for most of my life that I'm black.
17:38It's actually something I struggled with my whole life.
17:41I didn't know my father until later on in life,
17:43and my mother wouldn't tell me what my other half was,
17:46so it's always been a problem.
17:47Like in school, people are like, oh, what nationality are you?
17:49I'm like, I don't know, American, leave me alone.
17:51So I know that only six people turned up.
17:53I will hope for more next week.
17:55But we didn't get six Caucasians, we didn't just get six Hispanics,
17:58we actually got a racially diverse mix, so I think that's a good sign.
18:01But we do have to pull our finger out now and get physically more bodies,
18:06because, I mean, we're off to some kind of start,
18:08even if it's not the best possible.
18:12If you look at a textbook, some will tell you there are no races whatsoever,
18:16and others will tell you there are 20 races in Europe alone.
18:20Moses, when he hit the mountain, 12 springs of water came out,
18:27and each group gathered around one, and they became 12 tribes.
18:32Biologically speaking, we're all one race.
18:35There are, of course, differences between people.
18:37There's diversity that everyone knows about and sees.
18:40There are people who have various theories about how many races there are,
18:43but my own opinion is that the question is unanswerable
18:47because of the fluid nature of race.
18:49Who knows what kind of races there may be,
18:52even just in our informal categorization,
18:55based on the physical characteristics that we notice.
18:58Who knows how many there will be at the end of the 21st century.
19:02But you can have great fun in using different kinds of social constructs
19:06to create races, and then repair them in different ways
19:09to find out how they might compete differently in different sports.
19:11You're going to have a challenge ahead of you.
19:13I have a better idea. Why not get everybody together
19:16and have them have a really long and critical dialogue
19:19about how many teams there should be, and then see what happens.
19:23I can't give a number.
19:28We can't even get a straight answer about how many races there are.
19:32Nobody actually seems to agree, so we'd like to field opinions from you guys
19:37as to whether you feel comfortable as being a Caucasian team,
19:40whether you might feel more comfortable in other teams.
19:42To me, the really important and good discussions that are happening around race
19:47are happening at the grassroots level in political activist groups
19:51amongst both people of color and as well as white people
19:54who are attempting to combat racism.
19:56I think that that's why people have a hard time talking about it
19:59because even in our education system, we may talk about racism,
20:04we may talk about history, we may talk about different nations,
20:07but it's never clearly defined as a teacher,
20:10because I have a Master's in Education,
20:12and it's not in our standards, for example, to talk about specifically race
20:17and to define it.
20:18If we can't even do it as teachers,
20:20then it's hard for people on an individual level
20:22just sitting around the dinner table to talk about it.
20:24It's not entirely clear what classifying people about race is for in general.
20:31Why do you want to classify people by race?
20:34We're not saying that these are the only 12 events that you can actually compete in.
20:37If you've got an event that you prefer
20:40that isn't a ridiculous logistical nightmare,
20:42that isn't some kind of around-the-world race or something,
20:45then we can actually...
20:47We should have a chess match.
20:49Yeah, maybe that's a good idea.
20:51Chess would be great. Chess would be great.
20:53Because I'm looking at all these matches,
20:55and I think people would probably expect the black team to do all right
20:58in the athletic stuff,
20:59but maybe we could surprise them with some intellectual competition.
21:03You tell me why you want to do it,
21:05and I'll tell you whether there's a good way to do that.
21:07But the trouble is people assume that races are sort of out there in the world,
21:12that they're objective, that they're independent of any interest you have in them,
21:15and that's just not, I think, right.
21:17And that's not a problem just about race.
21:19It's about many forms of classification,
21:21that people think that the world is dividing things that way,
21:24but it's actually the combination of how the world is
21:26and our interest in it that's producing the classification.
21:31Well, come clean, we haven't had much of a response
21:35to the members of the Asian team.
21:39This is Kelly, and Kelly actually has been working on this for months,
21:43and this is Denise, who's the director's wife.
21:46The only two people that aren't directly related to the production
21:49is Kevin, isn't it?
21:51Kevin and Hai, and Hai we met the other day.
21:53And Hai is your team captain, whether you want it or not.
21:56What team is it you're actually representing?
21:59The Hispanic team.
22:01The Hispanic team.
22:03Now, have you found anybody else who wants to join you in this team yet?
22:09No.
22:10It's another mother.
22:11Oh, hi, good.
22:12Hi, how are you?
22:13I'm Aurora, nice to meet you.
22:14Deja, nice to meet you.
22:15Deja, hello, I'm Paul, nice to meet you.
22:17Paul, nice to meet you.
22:18This is, as it happens, documentary verite.
22:24The eating event has definitely taken place because your team have decided
22:27you're nominating yourself, is that correct?
22:29Yeah.
22:30To eat in record speed.
22:33Can you sprint 100 meters?
22:35Mm-hmm.
22:36Can you compete?
22:37You've done that before?
22:38Yeah.
22:39Do we have to decide now?
22:40We have to go check.
22:41You want to put in the 5,000?
22:42Sure, why not?
22:43It's like a three-mile race.
22:45That's okay.
22:46All right, that's fine.
22:47I decided I was other.
22:49I didn't want to be, only because I'm bound by these terms.
22:53Yeah, society tells you.
22:55I'm just surprised how nonchalantly you just went,
22:58ah, I'll do the 5,000-meter race.
22:59Because we've had people nearly coming to blows over whether they do
23:02an egg and spoon or a three-legged race.
23:04And team name, actually, so are we happy with others?
23:07The human race.
23:08You want to go with the human race?
23:09No, I don't want to go with the human race.
23:11You want to go with other?
23:12That's lame.
23:13I mean, are we allowed to go with some other name?
23:14The mutts.
23:15I don't know.
23:16Yeah, you know, President Obama called himself a mutt,
23:18so let's do the same thing.
23:20Okay, so we have met the teams today.
23:23And I use that term advisedly.
23:25We have a Caucasian team that has six members.
23:29It looks like a team.
23:30We've got the Al-Halal, which is the Middle Eastern team.
23:35There are three members.
23:37We've got one member for the Hispanic team,
23:39three members for the Middle Eastern team,
23:41two members for the black team, but only one of them showed up today.
23:44The other one's in Vegas doing a gig.
23:46And we have four members of the Asian team,
23:49but two of them are actually associated with the production.
23:52So we've ended up on the actual mini Olympics.
23:55The events now will be a 100-meter sprint, a three-legged race,
23:59a 60-meter skipping race, a sack race, a food-eating race, and a riddle.
24:04I hope someone picks the skipping so I can participate in that
24:08because I'm a really good skipper.
24:10How good?
24:11Really, really good.
24:12Like world champion, if they had a world champion.
24:14Skipping, really good.
24:16This girl right here.
24:18Muscles, we're going to win everything.
24:21Maybe not.
24:22I don't know.
24:23Questions?
24:24I only came here to visit the office,
24:27and I wasn't expecting anything like it.
24:29And then they were like, oh, you want to join a documentary?
24:33I'm like, hey, sure.
24:34It was really weird.
24:35It was very unexpected.
24:39In South Africa, during apartheid,
24:43they weren't satisfied with merely identifying the racial group of a person
24:49based on their visual appearance alone.
24:52And so very often people of mixed-race heritage,
24:55when they were trying to determine how to classify them
24:58as either black, colored, or white,
25:00there was a pencil test where they would stick a pencil in the person's hair.
25:04And if the pencil fell out without much difficulty,
25:08they were often classified as white or colored.
25:11And if their hair was nappy like mine and you could stick a pencil in
25:14without it falling out, they were classified as black.
25:17We used to think that we could identify a race by DNA analysis,
25:21but as we've gotten into it, a picture has emerged
25:26that's much cloudier than had originally been thought.
25:29Essentially, when we look at DNA for genealogy,
25:33we can go back 5 or 10, perhaps as much as 20 generations,
25:38so 500, 600 years.
25:40We can take the same DNA that we receive
25:44and look at for genealogical purposes,
25:46and we can assign someone to a branch of the tree of mankind.
25:51When we do that, we're taking a person back 10 or tens of thousands of years.
26:06We've set ourselves the monumental task of organizing an event here
26:12when we can't compete with the spectacle of a Thursday night football game.
26:18If I'm looking terrified, it's because I'm suddenly terrified, I'll be honest with you.
26:22It's not that we've bitten off more than we can chew,
26:24it's the fact that we've bitten off something we didn't even order.
26:31Are we up to this? I'm not sure, I'll be honest with you.
26:36And we are going to piss off a lot of enthusiastic locals
26:40if we make their hallowed sporting field look stupid.
26:47I was asked to contact my team as captain
26:52to let them know that we'd be having a meeting today at 3.
26:55It's just me right now.
26:57Do you think your fingers are going to turn up on the day?
27:02We're the Terminators, we have to. I think they will.
27:05My name is Selena De La Paz and I'm on the Hispanic team.
27:09My name is Deon Lack and I wanted to play with the Asian team
27:13but unfortunately due to my skating pegmentation
27:18I had to play with the African American team.
27:20And why did you choose the Hispanic team?
27:22Because I'm Hispanic.
27:24I can go Asian, I can go Caucasian, sometimes Latino but I'm not Latino.
27:29I don't have to be on the African team, African American team, I can be on another team.
27:34You will, you're self-determining.
27:36The Caucasian team is full at the moment, I can tell you that.
27:39Okay, what do you think I should do?
27:43I'm asking you.
27:45I think the African team would love to have you
27:48because they're all quite ugly.
27:52I've never known what to check off on the box when it asks what race I am
27:55but I'm half East Indian and then a quarter German and a quarter Polish.
27:59I'm Russian, I have many Russian friends.
28:02I was born in South Russia.
28:04I think I'm still young, I have good shape.
28:07I feel I can do it, I can make it.
28:10I hope everybody's pretty even.
28:13It's just about race.
28:17Proud to be a Mutt?
28:18Very proud to be a Mutt.
28:19I'm being very stereotypical
28:22and my African American friends would yell at me
28:25but I think that they have more strength in the more sporty events.
28:32I'm assuming I'm on the black team or African American team.
28:36I don't think there's any type of advantage or disadvantage according to race.
28:40I think it's fairly irrelevant.
28:41I think you have your best and worst from every ethnicity
28:44so we'll see tomorrow.
28:48In the past, we were taught in school
28:52that there were three races of human beings.
28:56A black man, a white man and a yellow man in Asia.
29:01What we found is that that's not true.
29:04All members of our species can go back to a single common ancestor
29:09and we're beginning to learn pretty clearly who that ancestor was.
29:14We can go back 150 to 200,000 years
29:19and there's going to be a single African woman.
29:23I had a student in one of my classes when I mentioned that
29:26literally almost had a coronary
29:29because the whole thought for her, the whole thought of
29:32I am a descendant of Africans, how can this possibly be?
29:36When I look in the mirror, I don't see that.
29:38It doesn't matter whether you see it.
29:40That's not even the point.
29:41The point is that we all share that common ancestry
29:43but for her, it was shattering to her identity as a white woman.
29:47You actually grew up on the West?
29:49No, my cousins, my grandpa was an Indian.
29:51He was a sheriff on the Indian West.
29:53So my cousins lived there, so I'd go visit.
29:55I'm 100% blackfoot and my dad is French.
29:57So I got light eyes and light hair
30:00and I was a little blonde kid on the West.
30:04We were raised in the Mexican-American culture
30:06because my dad said the worst thing to be in this country was an Indian.
30:09We didn't even have all of our rights.
30:11Even once the African Americans started getting their rights,
30:16we still...
30:18It's crazy to think about because a lot of people don't know that.
30:24Up until World War II,
30:26there was really a fairly unified view of what race meant.
30:29Race was easy to determine.
30:30It was based on skin color.
30:32It was based on facial structure.
30:34You had whites, blacks, even Jews fell into that category.
30:38And people didn't see it necessarily as an offensive way
30:42of dividing the human race.
30:45But the more we attribute really negative characteristics
30:48to one grouping over another,
30:50and the more you start ranking people by race,
30:52that's when it becomes nefarious.
30:54And with World War II and also the prejudices against blacks,
30:58you really saw two different kinds of genocide against Jews and blacks
31:01and a recognition that the concept of race had spun out of control.
31:05It was used as a way to define the other,
31:09of ranking people from most successful, the smartest,
31:13to the least capable.
31:16Up and through the 60s and perhaps even in the 70s,
31:20each state had its definition of race,
31:23and these definitions were very important
31:26because legal decisions depended upon them.
31:29So, for example, in Florida,
31:32if you were one-sixteenth black,
31:34that is, if you had one great-great-grandparent who was black,
31:37then you were, by legal definition, black.
31:40On the other hand, if you lived in Georgia,
31:42if you were one-thirty-second black, then you were black.
31:45Therefore, someone who lived in Georgia and was black
31:48could become white merely by moving to Florida.
31:51It was so weird because I was listening to the radio today
31:54and they were talking about African-American albino,
31:57and I was like, that's fucking awesome.
32:00And then here he shows up.
32:02Are you on the white team?
32:04No, I'm on the black team.
32:06Oh!
32:07What team are you on?
32:08I'm on the other.
32:09Other?
32:10We have her and one other person.
32:11On the other?
32:12Yeah.
32:13What other?
32:14We're kind of mixes.
32:16Right, everybody's a mix now.
32:18Yeah.
32:19He seems to play soccer.
32:21He's with, I think, the Latin group?
32:24No, Caucasian.
32:27You look like a terrorist.
32:29That's the first thing we get, yeah.
32:31You know what? It is me. I am Middle Eastern.
32:34So if I get typecast as Middle Eastern, then it is OK
32:38because I am Middle Eastern.
32:40So I play Jewish, I play Latino, Italian,
32:43so I have all these other options.
32:46An interesting legal decision that had to be made
32:51when an individual, a man who was married to a white woman
32:57and claimed himself to be white,
33:00was accused, in fact, of being black and passing.
33:03And so he now was arrested pending trial,
33:07and he was put in jail.
33:09However, the jail itself was segregated,
33:11blacks and white prisoners,
33:13and this difficult legal problem then was,
33:16before trial, when one in the American system
33:19is considered innocent until proven guilty,
33:21which section of the jail should he be placed in?
33:35Everyone here knows their nationality.
33:38They say I'm Al Salvadorian and all these other stuff.
33:41We don't know who we are.
33:43All we can say is we're black.
33:48I don't want to steal any more stereotypes.
33:50I've already made an inappropriate use of the term yellow,
33:53so I'm not going to say anything.
33:59You guys need to pray if you're going to compete with us.
34:02You're going to pray a lot.
34:04It's on! It's on!
34:08I'm going to come over here and do square dance.
34:10I'm going to go over there and belly dance.
34:12I'm going to go over to the black tent.
34:14I'm going to go to the other team and be like, ooh, I don't know.
34:17And then I come over here, I do salsa,
34:19and then over there I'll be like, can I get some sushi?
34:22And I'll be good to go.
34:25Go, hey!
34:40I'm always other. Just like the crazy one, you know?
34:43I like to be different.
34:49Keep the cameras running.
34:51I guarantee you there will be a raping.
34:54There will be a shooting.
34:56And there will be a winner.
34:58Very interestingly, in the initial research for this,
35:01and obviously I say research,
35:03it's just a simple matter of sitting around
35:06googling the crap out of subjects.
35:10But, for example, this is why I kind of hope
35:14there's hope for this documentary,
35:16there's hope for this entire project.
35:19But, for example, Jews and Arabs are the same race.
35:24It's very common to refer to Arabs, generally speaking,
35:28as anti-Semitic, without really knowing what that means.
35:32And by anti-Semitic,
35:34it's really anybody who has hostility towards the Jews, for example.
35:38And where that's a misnomer
35:40is that Arabs are obviously Semites the way Jews are.
35:43And so we are actually, in fact, one race.
35:46We come from all over the world,
35:49and through time and through intermarriage
35:55and people becoming part of the Jewish people,
35:59we have adopted many of the physical features of the land.
36:03In the Olympics, we would have Israel pitted against Jordan,
36:08for example, or Syria.
36:10In our version of this event, in our version,
36:14in our simple baseball park South Los Angeles version of this event,
36:20we will have Jews and Arabs on the same team.
36:23They will not be competing against each other
36:25because they are the same race.
36:27That has got to be a reason to rejoice.
36:29So, clearly, that whole area is very complicated,
36:33and anyone who would racialise it
36:35would be, I think, venturing into a quagmire
36:38that would be useless
36:41because I think it's impossible to really be that definitive.
36:44I'm Jewish by ancestry,
36:46and yet people say, oh, Judaism is a religion.
36:49But actually, Judaism is interesting
36:51because it's a tribal religion,
36:53and it's one of the few surviving tribal religions,
36:56meaning that when Judaism was first formed,
36:58it was formed by a people who lived in a certain part of the world.
37:01If I can get my face on camera,
37:04make a documentary,
37:06be in the sunshine,
37:08solve the Middle East crisis,
37:10that's got to be a day's work.
37:13I mean, that's take the rest of the afternoon off, surely.
37:15We hoped when we started this
37:17that we'd end up with Jews and Arabs on the same team.
37:20We did, I remember.
37:21We did.
37:22That was my hope,
37:23but we ended up having to pay people to do it,
37:25but that's not the point.
37:26It's still a wonderful community.
37:28So, can we just go through where everybody's from,
37:30nationally or...
37:32Palestine.
37:33Jordanian.
37:34Jordanian.
37:35Israeli.
37:36Jordan.
37:37I'm a Turk.
37:39So, we've got a complete spectrum
37:43of Middle Eastern nationalities.
37:46Welcome to the Actual Factual Pterodactyl,
37:48we in the NASDAQ, we in the NASH.
37:50Food, glorious food,
37:52corn ballers and busters.
37:54Fresh off that nourishment,
37:56trying to get y'all vitamins, minerals,
37:57you know what I'm saying,
37:58riboflavin.
37:59So, check this out, we got some...
38:00Food, glorious food,
38:01night crawlers and busters.
38:03All contestants who've been selected
38:06to take part in the Foodie Inn
38:08come to the table in front here.
38:10I'm making love with my pride,
38:13redefine the fine science of the melody,
38:15magnify your finite capabilities,
38:17me and my tribe derive from the wise,
38:19middle planet, Orion's rise,
38:20realize my pedigree.
38:22How familiar are you with the rules of this?
38:25Do you know the rules?
38:27In front of you, you each have 20 Twinkies.
38:31The first person to eat the 20 Twinkies is the winner.
38:34Food, glorious food,
38:35corn ballers and busters.
38:38Fresh off that nourishment,
38:40trying to get y'all vitamins,
38:42minerals, minerals,
38:43you know what I'm saying,
38:44riboflavin.
38:45So, check this out, we got some...
38:46Food, glorious food,
38:47night crawlers and busters.
38:48All contestants who've been selected
38:49to take part in the Foodie Inn
38:50come to the table in front here.
38:51I'm making love with my pride,
38:52redefine the fine science of the melody,
38:53magnify your finite capabilities,
38:54me and my tribe derive from the wise,
38:55middle planet, Orion's rise,
38:56realize my pedigree.
38:57How familiar are you with the rules of this?
38:58In front of you, you each have 20 Twinkies.
38:59Fresh off that nourishment,
39:00trying to get your vitamins,
39:01redefine your finite capabilities,
39:02me and my tribe derive from the wise,
39:03middle planet, Orion's rise,
39:05A even barf, uneven bars,
39:07a clean increase in bleach and starch,
39:09Starship Sarge, John Paul Sarge,
39:11in control, control...
39:12And I think we'll make you sign
39:13some sort of indemnity
39:14so you don't sue us.
39:15That's what she said.
39:20Does anyone know first aid,
39:21if someone should start choking?
39:23No, we don't.
39:24I was going to ask you.
39:25Food, glorious food,
39:26night crawlers and busters.
39:27All contestants who've been selected
39:28to take part in the Foodie Inn
39:29come to the table in front here.
39:30How familiar are you with the rules of this?
39:31In front of you, you each have 20 Twinkies.
39:32Fresh off that nourishment,
39:33it's time to eat.
39:37Four Twinkies here.
39:38No, I ate more than that.
39:40That's a fool's joke.
39:43Yeah, Rob!
39:44Twenty-two?
39:45Twenty-two.
39:46Twenty-three at that.
39:47Twenty-two, I think.
39:48Twenty Twinkies.
39:49Twenty Twinkies.
39:52It all just kicked off.
39:53I don't want to be that guy.
39:54I don't want to be the one
39:55that blames anybody else.
39:56I'm not blaming anybody else.
39:57I should have counted myself
39:59how many Twinkies were given
40:00to each competitor.
40:01There's 19 Twinkies here.
40:03Exactly.
40:04Because they're entering into
40:05the spirit of this whole event,
40:06people are going absolutely mental.
40:08Luckily, the two guys that won
40:11won by such a clear margin
40:13that there's no doubt
40:14as to who the main winners were.
40:15Actually, there is some doubt
40:16because one guy had a Twinkie
40:17in his mouth at the end
40:18of the five-minute period
40:19and the other one didn't,
40:21so they're saying that
40:22that means he hasn't ingested
40:23and he hasn't swallowed it.
40:24But that's a sidebar.
40:25But anyway, so that was the error
40:27and, as I said,
40:28it's boding well for the rest of the evening
40:30because we've had one event down
40:32and we've already had
40:33a near-international incident.
40:40Here I am eating again.
40:42Well, I'm enjoying this.
40:44It kind of cancels out
40:45the sweetness of the Twinkies.
40:47I get to have a nice, hearty hamburger
40:49and I get to eat it on my own time,
40:51which is a plus.
40:57That's a fascinating question.
40:59And the issue of race, technically,
41:01is a biological question.
41:04A few thousands of people,
41:06probably no more,
41:08left Africa 50,000 or 60,000 years ago
41:11and over the next 30,000 years
41:14spread out to inhabit the entire planet.
41:20Most of our physical attributes
41:23are the result of our relationship
41:28from being in a particular environment.
41:32Certainly the epicanthic fold,
41:34often as they refer to,
41:35the extra eyelid among Asian populations.
41:38Some people argue that it was a fold
41:40to protect the eye from sand.
41:42Other people argue that it was a way
41:44of protecting the eye in places
41:46where there was a lot of snow
41:47from excessive reflection of sunlight.
41:50I get people with short limbs,
41:54short limbs in cold areas in the Arctic,
41:58but you have long, narrow people
42:01in tropical regions,
42:02and this is a way to either conserve body heat
42:05or to get rid of it if there's too much.
42:07People argue that perhaps certain kinds of nose shapes
42:09in environments where there was a lot of desert
42:12were bent in a certain way
42:15so that the sand did not go up into the nostrils.
42:19The environment didn't produce the changes.
42:21The changes are natural variation.
42:23There's a natural variation in skin color or body size,
42:27and selection just chooses those individuals.
42:31It's also believed that part of our evolution
42:35involves not only adaptation to climate,
42:39but involves something that we refer to
42:43as sexual selection.
42:45What's fascinating is that all those traits,
42:47nonetheless, get ranked often in ways
42:50that have nothing to do with
42:51the sort of neutral survival component,
42:55but an aesthetic component.
42:56If men choose women who are,
43:01prefer women who are tall,
43:03prefer women who are big-breasted,
43:07over time, there will be more women
43:10who are tall and big-breasted
43:11because those will be the women
43:13who will have the children.
43:14He showed me his dick.
43:15I think he's black.
43:16I don't know why he did it,
43:18He showed me his dick.
43:19I think he's white.
43:20What is that?
43:46My foot!
43:47Look at my chest!
43:48My foot!
43:49My foot is on the line!
43:50My foot is there!
43:51It's a tape!
43:52Look at my foot!
43:53It's a tape!
43:54Look at my chest!
43:55Baby!
43:56I think you need to do it again.
43:57First of all, my leg...
43:58It's in front of all three of them.
43:59Look at my chest!
44:00It's my foot!
44:01My chest is on the line!
44:04You wait over there, please!
44:06We're very, very good-natured teams.
44:08What happened was we ran the 60-yard dash,
44:11and because we're shooting this
44:13to look as nice as possible,
44:14the camera at the finishing line we had
44:17was there for artistic interpretation.
44:20So we've got a beautiful shot
44:22of men powering along a racetrack
44:25and crossing a finishing line,
44:27but we haven't got it perpendicular.
44:29So you can't, from that finishing line,
44:31tell who won.
44:32So there was a great big concert on
44:34at the end of the first running of the race
44:36as to who had won,
44:38and it's a bit of a nightmare
44:40because these people are just giving up their time
44:42and they're being very, very generous with that,
44:44and I don't want to make it look as if
44:46they're being made fun of.
44:47So I've got to say, I bottled it.
44:49Jonathan, the director, had to go over
44:51because I was too shit-scared to do it.
44:53He went over and just went,
44:54look, would you by any chance agree
44:56to run these races again?
44:57And the thing is, what's brilliant, in a way,
45:00or what's touching and surprising
45:03is that they're taking these really seriously.
45:06Because I'm an idiot, I was calling jump rope
45:09skipping because I'm British.
45:13So you were...
45:17What I love, though, is that you were saying the other day,
45:19and we got you on camera going,
45:20I'm really brilliant at that.
45:21Yeah, I thought it was like...
45:22Yeah, but do the skipping that you were boasting
45:24about being really brilliant.
45:27Who isn't brilliant at that over four years old?
45:42Okay, are you ready?
45:43Ready.
46:12Go!
46:13Go!
46:14Go!
46:15Go!
46:16Go, Ian!
46:17Me?
46:18Was it me?
46:19Go, Ian!
46:20Ian!
46:21No.
46:22Go!
46:23Go!
46:24You got it!
46:26It's the first time and the second time.
46:28In the Olympics, they split the men and women up.
46:31It's a bit of cheating there.
46:32I think so.
46:33I think so.
46:34No excuses whatsoever.
46:35We put 100% and we get it.
46:43Go, Ian!
46:44Go, Ian!
46:45Go, Ian!
46:51Okay, so this is the sacros.
46:54I mean, it's pretty much self-explanatory.
47:12Go, Ian!
47:13Go, Ian!
47:14Go, Ian!
47:15Go, Ian!
47:16Go, Ian!
47:17Go, Ian!
47:18Go, Ian!
47:19Go, Ian!
47:20Go, Ian!
47:21Go, Ian!
47:22Go, Ian!
47:23Go, Ian!
47:24Go, Ian!
47:25Go, Ian!
47:26Go, Ian!
47:27Go, Ian!
47:28Go, Ian!
47:29Go, Ian!
47:30Go, Ian!
47:31Go, Ian!
47:32Go, Ian!
47:33Go, Ian!
47:34Go, Ian!
47:35Go, Ian!
47:36Go, Ian!
47:37Go, Ian!
47:38Go, Ian!
47:39Go, Ian!
47:40Go, Ian!
47:42Much appreciated.
47:50That was just the spirit!
47:52Team Onyx.
47:53It's good in the deck.
48:07Yay!
48:08I got it!
48:09I don't even drink, so mom, I don't drink, I don't smoke, I'm completely sober, but I'll
48:25give this to the homies who are on the athletic side.
48:28Yeah, man!
48:29Yes!
48:30Two bucks!
48:31It ain't over!
48:32It ain't over!
48:33It ain't over!
48:34It ain't over!
48:35Ha!
48:36If the world IQ average is about 100, the world Jewish IQ average among European-based
48:42Jews is between 107 and 115.
48:45That's an extraordinarily high difference.
48:48There have been a couple of very good-selling books in the U.S. saying that there is a relationship.
48:56Shockley's book, The Bell Curve, Jensen's work, suggesting that there's a very strong
49:03correlation between race and IQ.
49:06But in fact, there is none.
49:08It's not social conditioning scientists believe.
49:11There's a huge genetic component to IQ.
49:13They've been twin studies, twins separated at birth, raised in a poor and rich family.
49:19Their IQ doesn't vary one or two percentage points.
49:21We're not even sure what IQ is, what it measures.
49:26It's a very crude indication of intelligence.
49:29Three Christian scientists have come up with a wonderful study looking at the data connecting
49:34the fact that because Jews have a high number of neurological diseases, that may be a partial
49:40explanation.
49:41Some people have a better opportunity to demonstrate their intelligence because of social backgrounds,
49:50cultural backgrounds.
49:51It's controversial.
49:52This is not proven.
49:53It's sophisticated scientific speculation and a testable theory, but it's the kind of
49:59direction that science is going in.
50:00Not because they want to prove that Jews are smarter or they're better joke tellers than
50:04anyone else.
50:05It's because they're trying to understand the mystery of how the brain works.
50:08Do you guys think you stand a chance winning the three-legged race?
50:12Yes, absolutely.
50:13Yes, okay, I agree.
50:14We are going to fight until the end.
50:15We're not going to win.
50:16Well, we think we're going to win.
50:17We're not going to win.
50:18No, I think you stand a chance.
50:19We're the other team.
50:20We have to have it all for life.
50:21We're about to be tied at the hip to hit the three-legged race.
50:22How confident do you feel about that?
50:23I feel good about it, beyond comfort.
50:53And like, I could feel she was freaking out, and she was like, I'm an animal, I can't stop.
51:13You know, that's a very interesting question, because according to the American standards,
51:19I am not black, I am not Asian.
51:22So I am classified as Caucasian.
51:25I check white, although I'm not even sure what that means.
51:30I don't think of myself as having any particular race.
51:32I always feel uncomfortable identifying myself as white.
51:35I identify very strongly as an African American, and that is historically because this country
51:42has always said that if you have one drop of African blood, you are, in fact, African American.
51:48Everybody feels a strong affiliation to be part of a group, a cultural group,
51:52and I think there's this confluence of the idea of race and cultural affiliation or category.
51:57Well, my family came from Europe, from Eastern Poland.
52:01My wife's family came from Afghanistan, and they're Afghani Jews,
52:05and my wife's family has very Asian Afghanistan features.
52:12She doesn't consider herself white.
52:15She doesn't consider herself, you know, other than anything, other than Jewish.
52:18I think it's also noteworthy that in 2000, for the very first time ever,
52:22the United States Census offered people the option of checking more than one category.
52:28In Europe, I'm, you know, people think I'm either Spanish or Italian.
52:32In Latin America, people think I'm one of them.
52:34In North America, people think I'm Mexican or Latina.
52:38In Middle East and North Africa, people think I'm Arab.
52:42So, you know, I can very much blend in to the background and be seen as I could be from anywhere.
52:49My son, who's technically, I suppose, Southeast Asian and European,
52:53there would be no category for him,
52:55and I think that's an increasing number of people that there's no category for.
52:59Right, it's, OK, end of the night.
53:02Team Terminator.
53:04The Terminators.
53:07Or perhaps the Terminators, you should be called.
53:09But no, you won an event.
53:12We had the event last night.
53:14I hope you enjoyed it. I certainly did.
53:16I think the teams did. Team Onyx won.
53:18He called it. He knew he was going to win in the beginning, remember?
53:21He called it. You said that?
53:23It's like he wants to be on camera with them.
53:25You were betting on us, Paul?
53:26I always say, yeah.
53:27It's like boxing, isn't it?
53:28I didn't know that.
53:29I thought you were betting on the white guy.
53:30I wanted all the teams divided by race just to call it,
53:34just to see if it actually does have to be a sensitive topic.
53:39As it seems to be.
53:40So what are your thoughts after now having gone through this event?
53:44Is it a surprise how effortless it was?
53:47Well, no, I think everybody still could be part of the other,
53:51because we are part of the human race.
53:54Well, just to give you a chance of winning something, is all you're saying?
53:56We set out on this project to ask and answer really simple questions.
54:02What is a race? How many races are there?
54:06We attempted to answer those questions.
54:09Actually, I was going to say that we never got an answer,
54:14but actually we got hundreds of answers.
54:16I don't even know what the point of this whole, I really don't.
54:20I mean, it was just, let's just see what would happen if, you know?
54:23That's what I'm walking away, kind of asking myself is,
54:26what's the question that we're asking?
54:29To what end?
54:30And that's okay.
54:31No, absolutely.
54:32I'm walking away from it thinking, which is good.
54:35It's nice to know that there isn't a set answer.
54:38I'd be very wary of anybody now telling me that there is.
54:41Are you surprised that it worked out well,
54:44or are you still as sceptical if you were sceptical before?
54:47I'll be honest with you, when it's about sports, it doesn't matter if it's race.
54:51Because if you take, for example, the World Cup,
54:55it doesn't matter if it's war, no war,
54:57it's like everybody's watching it because it's sports.
55:00What are you a loser when it is fun?
55:02As humans, whatever race it is, we still have that desire to win.
55:06You probably all knew that already and wouldn't have had to set out on this,
55:10but I wasn't sure about that, and it certainly opened my eyes,
55:15and it's been a great deal of fun.
55:18That's kind of what I take away from this project,
55:20and of course the stripy jacket is the other thing I take away
55:25from this whole wonderful film.
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