Drew's Artist Statement

From a media standpoint, I chose to rely heavily on oral interviews with Pastor Ken Wheeler and Marilyn Miller of the Lutheran Human Relations Association (LHRA). I did this because I knew both of them would give some great insight on racial issues, and I felt the best way to get across what they were saying was to actually show people first-hand. I learned a great deal about recording (especially recording sound) as a result of the interviews. For the first interview, we used a stereo microphone, but unfortunately the cord wasn’t quite long enough and we had to resort to placing the mics on the table in front of Pastor Wheeler. It wasn’t an ideal set-up, but it worked. The interview upstairs with Mrs. Miller provided us with a different problem: the stereo mics were picking up every single noise from the stairwell nearby. To solve this, we simply decided to shoot without a microphone. The audio quality wasn’t what I would’ve liked, but at least it cut out all the excess noise nearby. Back in the lab, I got my first experience with iMovie. I was surprised at how easy the program was to use; it really made editing a breeze. We didn’t do anything too fancy (we cut the interviews into a few different sections and added fade-ins and fade-outs) because there wasn’t anything that we felt needed to be cut out. Finally, I learned how to make a photo slideshow with PhotoBucket, something I hadn’t done before. I decided to use a slideshow because I thought it would look better than having 10-15 images cluttering up the page. Overall, I’d say I got a lot of great experience with forms of technology that were unfamiliar to me.

The most important insights I gained during this project weren’t technological, but cultural and social. In my estimation, fear is the biggest cause of racism, prejudice, and intolerance in the world. Fear blinds and impairs us, and we lose out on so many gifts because of it. So much progress still needs to be made in our country, especially in a hyper-segregated city like Milwaukee, and when it comes right down to it, the only way to make that progress is to conquer fear. As Noah and I were leaving Cross after our interviews, we found ourselves alongside a school bus at a stoplight. The bus' windows were all rolled down, and as we waited a voice from the back of the bus rang out: "hey, what are you doing here?" We hadn't done anything; we weren't blasting music, yelling obscenities, or driving like idiots. We were basically called out for being white kids in a predominantly black neighborhood. Some people would have been intimidated by this, or would've been discouraged to be involved in the community as a result of it, but both of us just shrugged it off. After all, it was just some immature kid saying that, definitely not the community as a whole. If anything, it strengthened our desires to lend a hand in whatever way we could. I'm not in a position of power, so I won't pretend that I'm going to make some grand difference in the city or community; realistically, my efforts don't mean much. But I believe what is most important is my understanding and that I spread that to others who haven't been exposed to it. After all, that's all it takes to deal with any fear; exposure and understanding.