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Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz

Race Matters Series

The United States and the Culture of Conquest

MCC Lounge

As 'Columbus Day' suggests, U.S. history dates back to the onset of European colonization of the Western Hemisphere. However, the entire continental mass of the U.S. today was conquered through a century of genocidal warfare against Indigenous peoples. The culture of conquest is embedded in our governing structures, foreign relations, internal social relations, and institutional structures. This mind-set, expressed in policing/incarceration and in the U.S. military aggression against non-European peoples, has produced a virulent and enduring racism both domestically and internationally. Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz – a historian, writer, feminist, and Professor Emerita of Ethnic Studies at CSU Hayward – argues that, without the colonial lens, we can neither understand nor eradicate racism.

The #1 Bus Chronicles

Cup of Culture

The #1 Bus Chronicles

Director: Joel Katz

In-person: MCC Theater

The #1 Bus Chronicles uses a small sociological microcosm – a bus stop on an industrial highway in New Jersey – to intimately portray some of the most marginalized lives in America today - the ‘working poor’, the recently incarcerated, and immigration asylum seekers. In startlingly intimate encounters, strangers share hopes and dreams as well as stories of resiliency, suffering and loss. Many are in states of transition, struggle, or waiting for change. 2021. 58 min. 

Post-film Q&A with director Joel Katz. 

the 13

Cup of Culture

The 13th

Online

Filmmaker Ava DuVernay explores the history of racial inequality in the United States, focusing on the fact that the nation's prisons are disproportionately filled with African-Americans. 1h 40m

To uphold our weekly film screenings and discussions, we will be transforming our cup of culture series into a virtual setting. Every Wednesday, we will watch a Netflix documentary or movie as a collective and we will have a post-film discussion afterwards. Zoom Link for watching and discussions:

Zoom Link

Cup of Culture

The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution

MCC Theater

The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution is the first feature length documentary to explore the Black Panther Party. Master documentarian Stanley Nelson goes straight to the source, weaving a treasure trove of rare archival footage with the voices of the people who were there: police, FBI informants, journalists, white supporters and detractors, and Black Panthers who remained loyal to the party and those who left it. Dr. Diane Fujino, Director of the Center for Black Studies Research at UCSB, will lead a post-film discussion. (115 min, English, 2016)

Watch the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F56O3kZ9qr0

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