Just a heads up, winter decided to rear it’s ugly head causing the Prep School Negro showing to be rescheduled. Gotta love the weather! Anyway this fabulous event has officially been rescheduled for April 2, 2012 6:00pm. Hope you can make it if you are local.
Several months ago one my twitter followers told me about an independent film by Andre Robert Lee called Prep School Negro. I immediately looked into this film and it definitely caught my eye, no I am not a prep school Negress but as someone who plays outside the racial and class box they were born into, this film definitely spoke to me in the clip I had a chance to view.
Of course being in Maine, I figured my chances of seeing this film in its entirety were pretty much a dream. Granted I decided to email the director and much to my amazement, he told me plans were underway to come to Maine in early 2012 and show this film. Well long story short, it seems that twitter follower and several others had been working behind the scenes to bring Lee to Maine. A few weeks ago, I received a message asking if I could help get the word out about Prep School Negro and here I am.
Friends School of Portland, in collaboration with UNE and area independent schools, is hosting André Robert Lee and showing the film The Prep School Negro, on Monday, April 2, 2012 6:00pm at UNE’s Ludcke Auditorium. Lee’s film provides an important reflection on the challenges and opportunities that arise when a poor student of color leaves his community to attend an elite private school. Lee prompts us to consider the meanings that home and school, class and race, aspirations and education play in our current lives and the lives of our children. What does it mean to belong in a school community and what can schools do to become more truly inclusive? We hope you’ll come to this unique event and engage in this important conversation! See the film trailer here: http://
FILM SYNOPSIS:
“André Robert Lee and his sister grew up in the ghettos of Philadelphia. Their mother struggled to support them by putting strings in the waistbands of track pants and swimsuits in a local factory. When Andre was 14 years old, he received what his family believed to be a golden ticket – a full scholarship to attend one of the most prestigious prep schools in the country. Elite education was Andre’s way up and out, but at what price? Yes, the exorbitant tuition was covered, but this new world cost him and his family much more than anyone could have anticipated.
In The Prep School Negro, André takes a journey back in time to revisit the events of his adolescence while also spending time with current day prep school students of color and their classmates to see how much has really changed inside the ivory tower. What he discovers along the way is the poignant and unapologetic truth about who really pays the consequences for yesterday’s accelerated desegregation and today’s racial naiveté.”
COSPONSORS:
Cheverus High School
City of Portland
McAuley High School
Merriconeag Waldorf High School
NAACP Portland Branch
North Yarmouth Academy
UNE Multicultural Affairs
Waynflete School
Anyway I hope folks will come out and support this film and director, I sure as hell hope to be there!
