By; Henry Pacheco-Cruz
// I tried to upload the screenshot of the conversation but it was not working. It begins
Marco Williams does not shy away from a solution to the racial cleansing that happened in Pierce City. In an interview with the mayor, Mark Peters, Williams asks the mayor his thoughts on the repercussions of the event that have happened years ago. Mark Peters comments that no amount of money could solve the aftermath of the racial cleansing. And that reparations to those affected is a solution that he is not too knowledgable on because he does not know who to pay or even how to put a price on a subject that serious. Williams on the other hand provides a radical solution that includes giving back the land to those affected by the racial cleansing. The mayor agrees that it is a radical solution, however, whose land would be taken away.
As Aguayo argues in her book Documentary Resistance “Cinema has a profound power to reconfigure our world, penetrate our thoughts, influence our conversations, and help us see through new eyes. A radical or activist politics can indeed exist within a commercialized and commodified media structure.” This is exactly what Marco Williams does by proving a radical solution to the mayor and documenting his response. In turn, by documenting the conversation Williams is shining light to the location of people in positions of power within the community. As we can see with the mayor, he is aware of the incident, but has not given nearly any thought to right the wrongs of historical events. One thing that I noted is that after the mayors concern for whose land would be stripped in Williams radical solution the scene ends. The abrupt end to that conversation with the mayor speaks volumes to the incident. For example, there is no concern for the black people when they are stripped of their land. However, when a radical solution that brings alongside justice is proposed all of a sudden there is a care for people whom are being stripped of their land because they are white.
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