Injustice: The Film the Police Tried to Ban

My guest on the most recent edition of my Success Strategies online radio show was Ken Fero, the director of Injustice.   You have probably heard of, or seen, Injustice, Fero's film about seven UK families that are still fighting for justice after a family member died in police custody.  The police tried to ban this film - every time a cinema was scheduled to screen it, the police would phone them 15 minutes beforehand and tell them not to show it. 

Go here to listen.  

Ken Fero spoke to me about the fact that the police are, in his words, "killing Black people", and that this must stop.  

Some people believe the "Black Lives Matter" movement only pertains to the U.S.  Ken Fero talked with me about filming the experience of Black people and other migrant communities in many places, including the UK, Germany and France.  Go here to listen. 

He also spoke about his new film, Ultraviolence, and the fact that deaths in police custody are just "the tip of the iceberg".  

For more about Ken Fero and Injustice, see Ken Fero on Deaths in Police Custody.  

Go here to listen to our conversation.  

See also:  Protecting Our Communities.  

As I am sure you know, October is Black History Month/African Heritage Month here in the UK.  

And, of course, every month is Black History Month/African Heritage Month.  

Go here for my recent conversation with Brother Tony Warner of London Black History Walks:  Does Black History Really Matter?  As usual, he offered us loads of information about Black British history. 

Go here for more of my Black history blogs.  

Please leave your comments below and please share.  Thanks!  

Go here for more from the Blogging Carnival for Nonviolence 2020.  

Filmmaker Ken Fero on Deaths in Police Custody

Joy Gardner

There's a reason why everyone in my neighbourhood in South London knows who Trayvon Martin was.

A few months ago, a local public meeting was held. The posters all featured a photo of Trayvon. No caption, no explanation. But everyone in this area knows that similar things happen here.

I know Trayvon was not killed by the police, but his killing was sanctioned by the courts.

BFI London South Bank recently held a day on deaths in police custody, as part of the African Odysseys ongoing film series.

Filmmaker Ken Fero, director of numerous documentaries including the multi-award-winning Injustice, spoke in the morning and screened clips from his films. In the afternoon, two of those films were screened.

Injustice chronicles the fight for justice of seven families whose members died in police custody. None of the police officers involved in these killings have been prosecuted or disciplined. Six of the families are Black (African Caribbean), the seventh is Irish. An Irishman was gunned down as he walked through Brixton carrying a wooden table leg. The police stated they thought he was armed with a gun.

All of these families are still continuing to fight for justice.

Injustice has never been shown on UK television. When it was first released in 2001, every time it was due to be shown in cinemas, the police would phone the cinema about 15 minutes before the screening was due to start, threatening legal action. They claimed the film “might be libellous”.

Ken Fero, filmmaker

However, as Fero explained at the BFI, the audience inevitably contained someone who owned a business or ran a community centre or another venue. So the audience would decamp down the street, and the film would be screened.

Like a lot of people, I was very keen to see the film, and I saw it in a barbershop in South London. All I can say is, if you haven't seen Injustice, you need to see it.

Fero has made many other films about human rights abuses committed in Britain and other European countries, notably Germany and France. It was, frankly, disturbing to hear him say how many times he has filmed some of the same families. For example, the family of Joy Gardner, a Jamaican citizen who died in police custody in 1993.

Joy Gardner suffocated whilst in police restraints. The press labelled her an illegal immigrant and, as Fero pointed out, ignored the fact that other labels could equally be applied to her. Like “student” and “mother”.

He also said that, between 2001 and 2011, another 1,000 people died in police custody. This is an escalation, as more than 1,000 deaths in police custody had occurred in the previous 30 years.

Fero said he makes these films in order to inspire people and educate them about how to take action. He told me that he doesn't want to continue to make these films but, as I am sure he would agree, it is vital that he does.

And while we are collectively mourning Michael Brown, Eric Garner and all the others, we are aware that these things also happen here.

Please join us for the International Summit on Nonviolence today.

See also: Deaths in Police Custody.

Film Africa: Filming Sensitive Issues

Dancing on the Edge

THIS BLOG POST CONTAINS ADULT CONTENT. 

I had some serious issues with the Filming Sensitive Issues event held at the BFI as part of the recent Film Africa festival.  

I walked in to see a panel of three white women (one of them turned out to be mixed race, but she appeared white).  I immediately had a problem with this.  There are many Black people filming in Africa right now, at this moment, and I am sure some of them are filming sensitive issues.  So I question the composition of the panel.  

Two of the filmmakers had made a film about LGBT activists in Uganda.  I'm not going to say much about this right now.  

The other white woman, Karen Boswall, had made a documentary in Mozambique entitled Dancing on the Edge, about health workers educating people in local communities in order to prevent the spread of HIV.  So this was a real conflict for the woman who was the central figure in the documentary - she was an HIV+ health worker who was participating in the ritual. 

Dancing on the Edge showed girls taking part in a traditional initiation ceremony.  They had to take a vow that they would always sexually satisfy their husbands and never refuse to do so.  This goes directly against the health initiative to encourage people to use condoms.  They also vowed to submit if their husbands decided to beat them.  Thus, the initiation instructed them on how to be a good woman. 

One thing I found very offensive was that Boswall said the ancestors had required women to take these vows - this is what the locals told her.  I had a problem with this because it is the duty of the ancestors to protect their descendants (although not all ancestors are protective).  If your ancestors are telling you to submit to beatings, they are not doing their job.  However, there was no analysis of this from the filmmaker.  

It has rightly been pointed out to me that religion and spirituality are often used to manipulate and control people, as depicted, for example, in Ousmane Sembene's film Moolaade.  Therefore, it is entirely likely that the ancestors are being slandered in this instance. 

The film depicted many girls and young women taking part in the ritual.  In a lengthy sequence, they are topless.  So we see this sea of breasts - again, with no explanation or analysis.  There is no voiceover to place this in context. 

One thing I found particularly disturbing was that many of these girls were very young - far too young to have breasts - in fact, they literally looked like little boys.  I question why children so young were participating in an initiation ritual.  

Another problem I had with this event was that Boswall was surprised at how many people had asked her about female genital mutilation (FGM) in connection with her film.  It is obvious that, in an African context, any discussion of female initiation ceremonies will include reference to FGM, but Boswall did not seem to understand this.  Nor was she aware of Moolaade.  I have a problem with someone who knows so little about African film, or indeed African culture, having her work included in this festival.  

Boswall was well-meaning.  She said she was disappointed that her film was unlikely to bring about change, and she plans to make fiction films rather than documentaries in future.  

Some useful reflections came out of the event, as the filmmakers involved were very candid about the effects of their work on African communities.  I shall say more about this in future. 

Although the BFI screens the excellent African Odysseys film series on a monthly basis, I was very disappointed by this offering from Film Africa.