True Crime—I Learned It from You

When it comes to racism, I’ve always felt like that scared child standing between dad and mom’s abusive relationship and just wish they’d get divorced. I know a lot of people that feel the same way. What I appreciate about Kevin Douglas Wright’s documentary series, True Crime—I Learned It from You, is that he sits down (over Zoom) with survivors of racism and lets them talk without judgment and without a political agenda. His subjects simply tell their stories.

Douglas converses with seven subjects, spanning seven episodes, with only an ounce of movie glitz or glamour. Donna Francart is of Irish descent living in the very white community of Neenah, Wisconsin. Every summer, Francart and her mother traveled to Ireland, where she was exposed to people of different cultures and races. However, it wouldn’t be until a pair of assaults on her family while visiting relatives in New York that would open her eyes to the problems of race.

Robert Lewis Tyler grew up in a predominantly white community in Southern California during the early 1970s. As a child, he was exposed to the harsh realities of segregation while visiting family in the South. Tyler was scolded for drinking out of the “Colored” drinking fountains. He later talks about raising his black son and giving him specific instructions on what to do when pulled over by the police knowing they would treat his son differently than his white father.

“…sits down (over Zoom) with survivors of racism and lets them talk without judgment…”

Next, True Crime introduces us to Brenda S. Calhoun. She witnessed racism as a child early when her mother would shield her from any black person who walked by on the street. Sadly, Calhoun’s mother has never been cured of her racism. Thankfully, Brenda found a spiritual mother in her 7th-grade teacher, who was black and would leave an indelible mark on her life to this day.

Dr. Percival Rickets is a Jamaican who immigrated to the United States when he was 35. Though Jamaica has a diverse population, Dr. Rickets grew up in a predominantly black community. As a result, he gives an interesting outsider’s perspective on race relations in the United States. Though he lived in Jamaica for most of his life, he attended college in the States and soon learned what it meant to be a “minority” — a concept foreign to him at the time.

Harvest Moon is a Native American from the Quinault tribe in Washington. As a child, Harvest Moon was placed into a government program called “The Sixties Scoop” that paid her indigenous mother a large sum of money to put Harvest Moon up for adoption as a way to integrate her into white American culture.