Blog 5: The House I Live In

This blog is being written while I watch in sadness, the continued news coverage of the shooting in the church in South Carolina.  A young white man is suspected of killing nine African American people in a church.  The continued violence in our country is so disheartening.  And I can only hope and pray that as the song goes "we shall overcome".  

I, like Eugene Jarecki, the director of The House I Live In, and his "second mother", Nannie Jeter, had thought that living in post-racial, post-civil rights movement would be different than it clearly is.  When I became a mother I naively thought that I wouldn't have to explain race issues and discrimination to my children.  This is not the case, and this is very difficult for me to accept.

In the film, Nannie Jeter explained that she chose to leave her life and home in southern Virginia in hopes to move north and avoid the discriminatory and bigotry experienced in the south.  It turned out that her life and the life of her children did not end up as she imagined just by making the move north.  Racism, bigotry, and discrimination is alive and well in our country and this is very sad.

In respect to Jarecki's creation and direction of this film I feel that he had a good foundation to start the process through his firsthand knowledge of the struggles he saw in Nannie and her family experience.  Jarecki was able to relate to his second mother, Nannie, and feel compassion and empathy for Nannie and her family.  He created the film out of love for Nannie, and the viewer can feel his passion through his construction of the film.  When Jarecki began the film project and began to interview Nannie and get to know her personal struggle with poverty and drugs within her family.  This was the springboard for the journey to creating this film.  Through the additional research and search for answers to the reasoning behind our country's drug war he was able to more clearly learn for himself and ultimately show the viewer the gravity and reality of the war on drugs in America.

The way Jarecki shows historical facts and film versus current state is powerful.  The viewer is able to see the root of our country's past transgressions and beginnings of racial profiling that led to our current state.  The research and opinion of the experts that he interviewed added more to support the fact that our country has a problem with its response to drug use.  Jarecki was searching for answers as to why people he loved struggled with poverty, discrimination and drugs.  The intimate interviews with Nannie and her family members were a powerful way to begin this exploration.  The interviews throughout the film with the many involved in the drug war in our country from lawyers, judges, dealers, addicts, parents and children had such an impact on the viewer being able to see all of these

perspectives into the issue.  The personal stories mixed with the history, psychology and political information presented in this film brought light and clarity to the discussion and evidence being shown.

Jarecki was able to share that he learned that there are many roots to the drug issue in our country.  The issue is not drug use and dealing on its own.  I agree with his statement:

"For people to understand the scale and urgency of this crisis, I felt that facts, figures, and expert testimony weren’t enough, so I sought out individuals whose lives were directly and deeply shaped by the War on Drugs, hoping their stories would reveal some of the everyday tragedies left in its wake. Ultimately, with my beloved Nannie Jeter as inspiration, THE HOUSE I LIVE IN grew into a larger examination
of race, class, and capitalism in America—of a tragically misguided system that preys upon the least fortunate among us to sustain itself. "

The issue is race, class, capitalism, poverty, bigotry, intolerance, poor healthcare, and lack of education.  I cannot think of any other research or any other way to present this information and research.  The way Jarecki choose to present his message through his research was very powerful.  I only hope that our country learns from its mistakes and stops the cycles we have been on; cycles of poverty, cycles of drug use, cycles of discrimination, and cycles of violence.  In my opinion the war on drugs needs to end and we need to turn our attention to the real problems at the root of drug use in the country.