A Response to Reel Works Digital Story "The Color of Love"

"The Color of Love" by Zakiyya Bowels

1.What do you like about the digital story?

I like that the young person who made this film chose a classic documentary Q & A format to explore the question, “Is interracial marriage accepted in American culture?”  She explored the history of the question, going back into the civil rights movement and examining a famous case (Virginia vs. Loving) in which a married couple was asked to leave the state of Virginia for 25 years because one partner was black and the other white.  She also talked to present-day married couples about discrimination they had faced.  Her digital story seemed informed by the structure of some recent documentary films.

2.What did you learn from the digital story?

I learned that as recently as 2009, a Justice of the Peace from Louisiana named Keith Bardwell made the news because he refused to marry two people on the grounds of skin color alone.  This news story was apparently what started Zakiyya Bowels’s journey to explore this question.

3.What surprised you about the digital story?

It surprised me that no one she interviewed (which must be post 2009) seemed aware that there is no scientific biological basis to race, and that race is only a social construct… mostly an American one.  The questions that were asked and answered presupposed that race truly exists, when in fact it does not.  Everyone in Zakiyya’s world, even her teacher, believed in the American dominant message that race is real.

4.How did the digital story provide an example of how digital storytelling can build self esteem, help young people voice an opposition to social problems,  or create an alternative to stereotypes of adolescents typically portrayed in mainstream media?

This story was a prime example of how young people can voice opposition.  The news caused the young filmmaker to ask a serious question.  She explored the history and the present-day opinion on her question.  They she expressed her opinion that there is no “color of love.”  She created a personal alternative to the stereotypes attached to “race” and marriage in the United States.  Her film really reminded me that mainstream media must still support that MYTH that race is real and that blacks are fundamentally different in some way.  The good news for Zakiyya is that science is on her side; there is no biological basis for race.  If more people can become informed about the past couple of decades of genetics, they might realize that its true there is no “color of love” and that debates about the ethics of “interracial” marriage are actually moot.