"We Gon' Be Alright" is a digital series that explores the social divide over race in the 21st Century United States. Inspired by Jeff Chang's best-selling, critically acclaimed collection of essays, we discover a nation of historically unprecedented diversity becoming more separate and more unequal. Each episode examines a different aspect of a profound puzzle: Silicon Valley resegregation, Hollywood images, Harvard admissions, and more. The series asks the questions: why and how did we become so divided? What can we do now to be alright?
Jeff Chang visits East Palo Alto, a historically Black and Latino community in the heart of Silicon Valley, to hang out with rapper, dancer and performer Isaiah Phillips a.k.a. Randy McPhly, who appeared in Kendrick Lamar's "Alright" video. They talk about the domino effects of gentrification and displacement, resegregating an area where the rents have been rising dramatically and people of color feel like they're not part of the future.
Despite recent gains like the successes of Black Panther, Crazy Rich Asians, black-ish and Fresh Off the Boat, Hollywood remains overwhelmingly white. Jeff Chang goes to Hollywood where actors and directors--including Dianne Doan, Adam Rodriguez, Dante Basco, Reggie Hudlin and Justin Chon--explore how the segregation of popular culture affects how we think about each other and how far we have actually come.
Jeff Chang visits Berkeley and Harvard to uncover how Asian Americans have shaped discussions about diversity and discrimination in colleges, and are now playing a central role in the future of racial justice. Will they choose to resegregate or desegregate America?
Americans are often taught to think in binaries, this or that, black or white. We Gon' Be Alright explores those "in-betweeners" who feel the effects of blatant racism and microaggressions, stereotyping, gentrification, and of being in between two worlds, not by choice but by design. The flaws of the census box are reflected in the stories of people like Rafael Casal, actor who starred in the film Blindspotting and who defines himself as a white Latino, and organizer/activist Linda Sarsour, who exists in an interesting space as both a woman of faith and a progressive, and as a Muslim American woman who is labeled by the census as "white."
