Shana: Dealing With Racism

Shana Kent, an 11-year-old Haitian-American girl, is the subject of this low-budget effort which shows Shana and her friends (one African-American, one Chinese-American) talking together and playing for roughly the first two-thirds of the program. Shana discusses her family's Haitian background, compares notes on language skills with her friends (Shana knows Creole), and says that when she grows up, she doesn't want either a husband or kids (which may not prove to be the case, but is certainly a very realistic comment for an 11-year-old). Only during the final four minutes of the program does Shana and her mother tell the unseen interviewer that racism is learned, that it's pervasive, and that--in Shana's case--it has interfered with friendships. The opening two-thirds--which focuses on a happy friendship between girls from three distinctly different ethnic backgrounds--seems to argue just the opposite to me, but ultimately, that's beside the point. In such a brief section of an already short video, Shana: Dealing With Racism can't really deal with racism--it can only offer sound bites. Not a necessary purchase. Aud: I. (R. Pitman)