PHOTOS: Talking about Race, Assumptions, & Vin Diesel

We hosted a screening of Vin Diesel's short film Multi-Facial in the Othmer Library on February 1st. If you haven't seen it, it's a short film by Vin Diesel about his experiences auditioning for roles in New York City and being told he was not Italian or Black or Latino enough... Pre- and Post- film we had a discussion about race, physical appearance, assumptions, stereotypes, multicultural identity, and Hollywood imagery.

The discussion was led by Jen Chau, founder of Swirl, a multiracial community committed to initiating and sustaining cross-racial, cross-cultural dialogue. Once again, the audience was awesome and open and totally up for jumping in to conversation with each other. Jen laid ground rules for our discussion and described how talking about race and identity can be uncomfortable but “practice makes progress.”

Almost everyone agreed that we all had at least one assumption dismantled that evening: Seeing Vin Diesel, who we think of as a muscley Hollywood star (and therefore, shallow?) talking about identity so sensitively!

We're looking forward to continuing this important dialogue at the next CBBG event!

All photos by Willie Davis for the Brooklyn Historical Society, 2012