When I was coming up with an idea for my presentation I was trying to go for something that people can understand easily with limited amount of context. My research topic posed the question: How does the criminal justice system treat people of color unfairly? This was all I chose to deliver to my audience before presenting my digital remix. I chose to do a short video that displayed two perspectives. The one with color represented reality and the one in black and white represented a form of reality, but with a twist. The actors I chose for this project were specific individuals; my cop had two different colored eyes to symbolize the two perspectives being witnessed, and people of color were chosen so that the audience can really notice was group is being targeted and addressed when it comes to telling their story.
The video related a lot to my research topic because it shows how the criminal justice system can view situations differently depending on who is involved. I chose to go with an exaggerated approach with three scenes to really showcase to what lengths and excuses the law would go to label such people of color as criminals. In my research paper, I discuss how people of color can be stopped long before any criminal activity is committed. I presented 3 harmless and innocent acts in my video and then twisted them to how the justice system can switch up the entirety of the story. A video was also my approach because this sort of media is what this generation listens to. Currently, not a lot of people read newspapers due to the wider use of technology and social media. To get such a topic noticed and understood, I found an outlet in which people can easily interpret the truth that we live in a society that still uses racism as a foundation for the majority of its decisions.
By doing this sort of creative remix, I learned that a lot of people are interested in what a video like this has to say. The primary question I would get asked by my actors is “will you be posting this somewhere?”. I would reply no, but I am now considering to do so because they believe something like this needs to be shown. The actors I recruited found the concept behind the video so intriguing that some were able to relate to what was being shown. Overall, both the research paper and creative digital remix have shown me how knowledge on a topic can lead to further research or possible projects down the line that relate to the information I learned. I used what I learned to educate others in a subtle way and it has shown me that if I want to talk about something as a sensitive as such a topic, I would need to know the facts first.