Introduction
Programs in Brief
Films
Essays

The four broadcast hours of Matters of Race are divided into three 60-minute stories and a final hour including three 20-minute stories tied together by the work of a leading young performance poet.

Race Is, Race Ain't
Episode One weaves together the personal memoirs of writers John Edgar Wideman and Jane Lazarre with the story of the King - Drew County Medical Center in South Central, Los Angeles. By chronicling the daily activities of the diverse hospital staff, the first show explores how race can become a divisive factor that can incite feelings of suspicion and accusations of discrimination even in an environment where diversity is recognized as a necessary and desired reality.

The Divide
Episode Two looks at Siler City, North Carolina, traditionally a black and white town of segregated communities with a shared geography and an unsettled history. This quiet, rural southern town is a "laboratory" for the national transformation that is fundamentally altering America's sense of identity with a significant influx of immigration from Mexico and Central America.

What Does It Take to Heal?
Episode Three is a contemporary look at two communities who are often overlooked in the race dialogue: Native Americans and Native Hawaiians. This third hour of the series is framed by challenges to "race-based entitlements" which were pushed to the forefront of public debate by recent court rulings in Hawaii and through events on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

Tomorrow's Americans
Episode Four is a look into the future. Produced and directed by new young filmmakers, program four explores race and its meaning through the eyes of the next generation. Divided into three short films that are tied together using the provocative language of a popular performance poet, Tomorrow's Americans is a commentary on a new generation where the reality of race and racism is less informed by a personal relationship to a civil rights movement than to the very real experience of a rapidly changing American population. Episode Four showcases the stories of a new American generation that is more culturally, ethnically diverse and colored.

• Every Other
  Episode Four Part One examines the new racial classifications on the US census through the concerns and musing of mixed race people. The personal meets the political in this identity war story as the real life feud between Multi-culturalists and Civil Rights Activists plays itself out for the right to claim the racial identity of culturally ambiguous young Americans. At the center of the discussion are youth culture and the values that the next generation places on racial identity.
• Who I've Become
  Episode Four Part Two is the story of Ponnleau, a first generation Cambodian American, a young man and a new father on probation living in the "Tenderloin" district of San Francisco. Ponnleau escaped the Khmer Rouge with his family and fled Cambodia to settle in San Francisco in the early 1980s. Four years ago Ponnleau's father returned to Cambodia, leaving his wife and three sons. Last year his mother returned, leaving Ponnleau to find his own way into America, without his parents, as he himself becomes a parent. Currently in post-production, this program is being produced by young Southeast Asian filmmakers and explores how this community grapples with their Asian and American identities, and the circumstances of their immigration and settlement.
• From the Outside In
  Episode Four Part Three is a personal look at the idea that mere survival is no longer satisfactory for the future of Native Americans. Despite the fact that a young nuclear family is often considered an atypical family unit for minorities, Dustinn (25 years old - White Mountain Apache) and Velma (24 years old - Navajo) are working to help steer the course of their family and determine for themselves and their children the meaning of being Indian in America, in the 21st century.

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