http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/banished/talkback.html

Find out when it comes on in your area by clicking on the date after you type in your zipcode, My 1st showing is sunday 9:30 pm.

Below is a viewer comment after watching the program. TFK you need to peep this out about parts of Georgia

It is time that the true history is told of how this country has come to know its richness. It is time to uncover the whole story and not just that of the European contribution and spin of the creation of this great nation called the United States of America.
African Americans all across this country provided physical labor, and intellectual capacity through creating physical infrastructure and unacknowledged technological inventions which have brought this country the buildings, transport systems and access to the riches for which it now lays claim.


During this process, on the backs of African Americans, these very people have been shut out from the access to an equitable education, employment that has opportunities for advancement, the ability to purchase property anywhere he or she desires, etc., and then banishing them from their property when they achieved their goals... the goals of every American looking t pursue the American dream...

In this country, structural racism denies African Americans the opportunity to achieve their goals by not allowing them to begin on a level playing field. The less resources an African American child is born into, the less chance that he or she will be successful. Structural racism puts challenges at every turn. It barricades the doors to equal education, which then negatively impacts the opportunity for equal pay, entry into entry level positions and/or opportunities for meaningful advancement, which then has a negative impact on housing opportunities, purchase of property, ability to pay for higher education, etc.


Structural racism which poses challenges at the earliest of ages for children, creates the problems which we see today. If families who had achieved enough financial success to purchase houses and property... were not threatened with their lives and any other sort of physical harm ... and were left to achieve the American dream as their white counterparts, what other opportunities would they have availed themselves of ... like advanced education, additional resources...etc.


What threat would their success have posed for their white counterparts? What would the community have really lost? What could it have gained? What explanation is there for the incredible fear that white counterparts had and apparently still have that creates this venomous hatred? For centuries now there is this fabricated idea that African Americans cannot be trusted.... that there are these violent tendencies and an inability to be civilized or to even be educated.... Yet, the REAL TRUTH seems to be that history describes Europeans as war mongering victors who take down people from different cultures who are somehow less than REAL humans... and must be cornered and caged and heavily monitored... because they are not worthy of having anything of value that whites have not earned but still deserve.

Anne Robertson. question... What makes you think that the families of African Americans who had property stolen from them are currently collecting government financial aid? The families shown in "Banished" currently own homes and seem to be at least "middle class"? Is this perception possibly a result of the media's negative portrayal of African Americans as poor, welfare recipients, who have nothing and don't amount to anything...living in cauldrons of crime in urban communities? I am interested in how you came to think of that question in particular.
As Americans learn about the REAL TRUTHS of all of the people who inhabited this wonderful land and made significant contributions impacting the advancement of this country economically, in all geographic parts of the country, the more Americans can appreciate the contributions made by African Americans.

It is important for Americans to understand the contributions of African Americans and the difficult blows dealt to them because of prejudice, discrimination and hatred as it has impacted the ability of African Americans to move forward at a pace that others have enjoyed and been rewarded for. What would this country look like if African Americans were permitted to stay on land that they purchased resulting from their hard work and earnings just like their white counterparts. Why is there such fear in giving African Americans an equal opportunity to be successful? Why is it that white America uses African American male sexuality repeatedly to help anihilate and destroy them?
Posted by: Denise DeCou on January 14, 2008