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The Race Relations Center of East Tennessee brought Butler to speak and showcase her film, focusing on the struggles, guilt and unseen privileges of being white.

Butler also is executive director of World Trust Educational Services, an Oakland, Calif., nonprofit focused on equality.

“I interviewed white people who have been working on issues of race for a long time,” Butler said, introducing the film, her third. She asked participants to note their emotional reactions to things that stood out to them. After viewing it, those at the conference partnered and shared in turn.

Gina Barclay-McLaughlin, psychologist and University of Tennessee associate professor in teacher education, said a common thread in interviews was a powerful experience that made people reflect on themselves.

“(It) generated this commitment to change,” she said. “It gave me hope that a single person can do something.”

The film examined the guilt whites felt because of experiences with racism and the privileges they became aware they had over people of color. Butler talked about “white privilege,” benefits whites are born into but may not notice. She said during filmmaking she noticed “the sincerity of white people who really are committed to working through the things that are taken for granted” and helping others.

“This topic is always looking at black people,” Butler said. “I want people to leave here asking themselves some new questions.”

She said that honesty and working through shame or inferiority leads people toward each other.

“We are indelibly connected,” Butler said. “We’re all swimming in the same soup.”

She spoke of “being present” with others in conversation and encouraged strong listening during partner conversations.

“We talked about values,” Butler said. “That transformative power of love is a value.”

Mary Ann Blank, clinical assistant professor in the College of Health, Education and Human Sciences at UT, said that was Butler's main message.

“She said it best. She said it was love,” Blank said.

Participants had an opportunity to share their self-examination during caucus discussions, one for whites and one for people of color. Then they joined together to share what they learned.

Janetta Jamerson, staff psychologist at UT, said the event would help all to learn about themselves: “Regardless of what we look like, we're all just people trying to make it.”

Lewis, along with his friend Daniel Hammer, co-founded the White Privilege and Anti-Racist Organizing Discussion Group in Pittsburgh after taking a class of the same name at Oberlin College in 2006. The group states it is, “not an exercise in wallowing in white guilt or being good white people,” but an attempt to encourage discussion of the ideas of racial injustice, cultural appropriation, classism, racism, and anti-racist social justice movements among white people.

The group plans to meet every two weeks for 10 weeks starting July 8. The first five weeks will focus on gaining an understanding of white supremacy by having participants examine their personal lives to see how they may have benefited from racism. The second half of meetings will focus specifically on racism in Pittsburgh.

While they have yet to officially kick off the bi-weekly meetings, the group hosted a discussion following a film screening on May 29 that both Lewis and Hammer said they felt it was an overall success. I thought it was encouraging, said Hammer. “It showed that there was a lot of interest in it and people were really interested in discussing these issues and learning more about (racism) and coming to terms with what they've experienced.”

“There was definitely some discomfort, and we expect that. That's something we're trying to provide a space for-that discomfort to be dealt with so people can get past it and start to address what is really going on.”

Lewis said he hopes the upcoming screening of “Mirrors of Privilege-Making Whiteness Visible” will draw the interest of people of all races, because it speaks to different groups in different ways.“I think everyone can benefit from it because people of color can understand how clueless white people are and white people can see themselves on the screen and use it as a starting point to try to transform,” he said.

Hammer hopes the film makes viewers seriously question the idea of universal equality in America and urges them to look at their own lives in a different way.“When we talk about the American dream and people don't see the disparities in the way people are treated, and the disparities in wealth and education, they just think that must be because that individual isn't living up to his full potential. I think that's really problematic,” said Hammer.

“I think if people think critically about the dream, it makes them more conscious of what is real and what is more an ideology of the United States that may, actually, be more problematic.”

Although pointing out the notion of white privilege to people who vehemently deny its existence is an uphill battle, it's one that Lewis says the group is ready to take on. While he respects the position of the Black activist who said he was wasting his time, Lewis believes his unique approach to combating racism can truly make a difference.

“In her experience, the foundation of the country is build on white supremacy and racism, so we're trying to take apart the very fundamental foundation of this country and it's sort of hopeless,” said Lewis.

“My motto is more, rather than tearing down the existing system, it's trying to build up the one I want to see in place. I don't see it as quite as hopeless as she does.”

The White Privilege and Anti-Racist Organizing Discussion Group will host the screening of “Mirrors of Privilege-Making Whiteness Visible” at 6:30 p.m. in the UCP Building, Centre Avenue and North Neville Street, Oakland. The documentary discusses perspectives on racism and white supremacy according to white people. For more information, visit www.animalfreedom.info or call Noah at 412-421-4568.

The moving interview is toward the beginning of the documentary, "Mirrors of Privilege: Making Whiteness Visible." The film, by Oakland filmmaker Shakti Butler, is a rare, possibly unique look at how racial prejudice hurts and limits white people.

The subjects talk openly about the casual expressions of prejudice they heard from parents and other adult relatives. The stories are juxtaposed with pictures of smiling families that bring to mind Norman Rockwell paintings of the American family.A woman tells the story of a visit to her grandmother as a girl. When she was leaving, she gave the African-American cook a kiss. She went to give her grandmother a kiss and she shrieked at her, in a voice the girl had never heard, about kissing her after kissing the cook.

A man talks about his tirade against a young African-American girl who was acting out in a class he was teaching. He was shocked by the depth of his anger and his own cruelty, lambasting her in front of the rest of the class.

Another woman says her father routinely talked about "the Japs" and yet protected the property of a Japanese-American family interned during World War II.

These stories and others in the documentary express the conflict and confusion of realizing a beloved grandmother is prejudiced or that you yourself harbor unknown biases. Those who were interviewed work actively to improve race relations by helping white people recognize their privilege and the imbalance of power between white people and people of color.

In the film, Tim Wise, a social activist known for his discussion of white privilege, says because most white people don't recognize that their realities are defined by race, it seems to them that race isn't an issue until people of color bring it up.

Butler has produced two other films, "The Way Home" and "Light in the Shadows," designed to stimulate frank conversations about race and gender. Through those documentaries and related workshops, she realized the dialogue was stymied by the discomfort of white participants.

"There is a lot of guilt and fear," Butler said. "People want to be seen as good people. They don't want to be seen as racist. A lot of times they don't realize it's about power and a larger systemic construct that gives an unearned privilege because of their white skin. It's not personal."

In "Mirrors of Privilege," the complexity of race relations and the issue of white privilege is examined by white people.

"People have a better chance of listening and hearing if they see people who reflect who they are and their experiences," Butler said. "They have more of a potential to reach into themselves. And once your eyes are open, they're open."

She said the dialogues following screenings of this film have had an openness, what she calls an authenticity, that eluded earlier discussions about race. Butler, whose mother was a Russian-Jew and father was West Indian, said her own racial background compliments her role as a go-between.

"I'm more palatable as a messenger to white people and recognized as a sister by black people," she said. She has struggled with issues of color herself, experiencing both advantage and derision from African Americans because of her light skin.

She expresses cautious optimism about the prospect of improved race relations. "Hope exists. There is the possibility that healing can happen," she said. "As long as that's there, I'll attach my star to that."

The subjects in her film describe their growing awareness as nothing less than an effort to reclaim their humanity which they believe has been compromised by the legacy of racism and ongoing institutional racism.

It may be an uncomfortable journey, one woman said, but at the end, "there is beauty, freedom and enlightenment."

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