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Love is not colorblind. Unity is not colorblind.

By this point, pretty much everyone has heard of Dylann Roof and knows what he did in Charleston. I don’t need to say any more about the tragedy. I do however want to share the video below, and the message from the creator David Stanfield .

On the night of Wednesday, June 17, 2015, a white man walked into a church and murdered nine black people in the middle of a Bible study. This took place one mile from my home, and less than a mile from my office space.

The following Sunday, a good friend gave a talk that caused me to begin to think differently about the way I’ve viewed race and ethnicity my whole life. I wrote this short script two nights later at about 2am, wide awake and unable to turn it all off or retreat from it any longer. That talk by my friend made me remember how my whole life I’d heard phrases like “Love is colorblind” being put forth by well-meaning individuals. But the truth is, that idea completely and detrimentally misses the mark.

This video is, in part, a beginning of an attempt to wrestle with, work through, and process some of these thoughts.

Words:
Love is not colorblind. Unity is not colorblind.

Real love, real unity, does not whitewash variation in tone or difference in hue, shade, or shape. Real love, real unity, has no pre-requisite for sameness.

Real love, real unity, has no need for familiarity, comfort, or even agreement.

Real love, real unity sees the variations of hue, tone, shade, tradition, speech, song, dance, dialect, denomination and disposition and welcomes them all into the fabric of the family, rejoicing in an interwoven whole that is not just greater than the sum of its parts, but richer, deeper, and more beautiful as well.

Oh my God, may we not be colorblind, but may we have real love… real unity.

Special Thanks:
Willis Weber, III, for not only speaking the poignant, necessary, and hard words that brought this piece into being, but also for quite literally practicing what he preaches in the way that he lives, daily. Also, many thanks for greatly helping me shape the wording and message of the video.
Matt Stanfield, for immediately agreeing to give his time and heart to this in the form of an amazing musical score.

Bucketboard’s Do the Green Thing.

This is a great little short video that was commissioned by Do the Green Thing and World Wildlife Fund-UK for part of the “Everyday Things” collection. The collection features 15 artists from around the world that are asked to take everyday objects and repurpose them in a useful way and show how creativity can lead the way in encouraging people to live a greener lifestyle. The video is pretty self explanatory about how Bucketboard was born and did just that. Aside from the great cause, cool product, and greener world, this video is an editing treat. Lots of cuts and retimed clips that help set and keep the pace through out the the 2 and a half minute short.

Shot and directed by Mac Premo
Edited by Ann Lupo
Production team: Pete Treiber, Adrianna Dufay and Divya Gadangi
Sound design by Mac Premo and Ann Lupo
Sound mixed, mastered and greatly enhanced by Luciano Vignola
Shot in Leucadia, Encinitas and Carlsbad, California on location at Sanford Shapes

“Trail Therapy”. Steve Fugate, Peace Pilgrim.

The video below will move you. This short documentary by Cyrus Sutton about Steve Fugate is tragic and inspiring. Produced originally for Korduroy.tv it tells the story of man who has walked 34,000 miles on a pilgrimage for peace. I could talk about the aesthetics of the film itself, but that wouldn’t do justice to the story.

The Sad Sad World of Middle Class Problems on Twitter.

God we live in a screwed up world, and no I’m not talking about mass shootings, genocide, civil war, disease, education, starvation, racism, or any other host of real problems. I’m talking about Twitter’s “Middle Class Problems“. While this is pretty funny to read, it’s also really sad that people actually, seriously tweet about this shit.

Here we have people complaining about real issues like ioS 7 colors being to bright, or how soy milk in tea is really gross, or eating to much sushi, or to many parties in St. Tropez.

Middle Class Problem on Twitter is a catalog of trivial complaints that let all of us share in the misery while showing just how shallow and unnecessary most of our first world complaints really are. While most of the complaints are really pretty funny to read, because they are so vacuous, it is at the same time really pretty intriguing. Here’s a thought, maybe they could juxtapose some of these against tweets like, “Just drank polluted water, looks like dysentery for me”, or “Mosquitos just killed my baby with West Nile Virus”. Kind of puts things in perspective no?