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Anna Wacks
Courtesy of KNME
Transcript:
I think that this film has something to say for everybody. I don't think that it's partial to any group. And that's it's important for different age groups, and different colors, and different religions, and ethnicities, and everything to see it because it talks, it talks about something that we can all, to a certain extent relate to. Which is hate. And even if we don't have it in us, I mean, it's something that (touching microphone) sorry. It's something that I don't understand. And it's something that a lot of people don't understand.
I thought that what was interesting was that he was, I think what started him out to a certain extent was that, or in college, was the White Student Union. I think, I think it's interesting. I think that he had a really valid point that, I mean, why, why do we still find a need to separate different ethnicities, and separate different races in colleges.
And, I mean, how is that still accepted that we have a Black Union. That we have a Hispanic Union, a White Union. I mean, and, when, when he substituted the word 'white' in the Black Union's address or constitution or whatever it was that he, it was taken as a racist entity. And it was and it should have been.
But what I think is the only way that we can change and that the world will be a better place is that we cut all that out. And that it, I mean, that we don't separate for things like that. Even for positive things like a student union. That shouldn't be separated. It should be the whole college student union. Why do find the need to separate ourselves like that?
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Chaim Garcia
Courtesy of KNME
Transcript:
I think the film was trying to say, trying to get across the message that there is redemption. People go, they hit rock bottom. This Greg Winthrow, I mean, he was the lowest of the low. And it's a story of just coming out of the depths of the darkest parts of humanity and just, you know, realizing, "Oh my god, there's something bigger and I'm doing something that I shouldn't be." And that touched me. That touched me because I've heard the stories of, you know, neo-Nazis or anti-Semites or racist people that, you know, they come out and they realize that what they're doing is wrong.
And I hear the stories but this is the first time that I actually got to look into the eyes of one of these people. And one of the things that I found absolutely fascinating was the fact that he tells the beginning of it all. When he was a child, the beginning of this downward spiral. When his father made him, you know, hit the African-American boy, I thought that was just. You don't ever hear that. You always just hear that they were in the gangs. They beat up a whole bunch of people.
But, this story had a beginning and it was so much easier to relate to the character. To the person, it was a real person. It wasn't just a character. It was a very, very strong film in that respect.
I, actually I admire Greg Winthrow. I, he had a hard life and in the end he faced, he faced his demons and he's still facing his demons. And it's never gonna get, I mean it's not going to get a hundred percent, he's not going to be OK with it.
He's probably going to have to deal with it for the rest of his life. But he's strong. I know there are a lot of kids out there that believe the same things that Greg did. They have the same fears, they have the same ignorance, the same misunderstandings, prejudices.
And those kids, I think they need to see this film. They need to see it all. Because the film wasn't dumbed down. It wasn't made for children. It was true. It was really true and it speaks the truth. So, I think teenagers can get something really important out of this film.
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Felix Cordova
Courtesy of KNME
Transcript:
I think kids can relate to the anger that he felt because I have like a lot of family and some of them are racist and they're always just, I don't know, fighting with other people for no reason just 'cause they have different skin color or are different from them.
I mean, there's lots of like categories of racism. And some people are more racist than others but in some way they're all the same. I mean, 'cause my family and I used to be racist.
One of my uncles is black and my cousin, well he's my cousin's step dad, and he brought his family over once to a family reunion. And they're just all 'cause I don't know.
It reminded me of the movie at that part of the little Black kid giving him the red car. Because there's the little kid and he's just playing around with us and my cousin's just all, "Get the fucking nigger away from me." And, I don't know, it made me feel sad. It made me feel sad that's also why I didn't like my family that much or just part of my family.
I don't think he changed completely but he's almost there. He still has anger inside of him for some reason. Maybe 'cause after you've do something for so long you can't just forget about it right away. But I think he's close to changing. He just has to change his attitude about most things.
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Cassie Larcade
Courtesy of KNME
Transcript:
I think it was trying to say that people are able to be forgiven for mistakes they made earlier in life. Everyone makes mistakes. It's a common thing. Some mistakes are larger than others and have much, much more effect on society as a whole than other mistakes do. That you can learn from them. That you can grow from them and mature. Even if you're fifty you can still mature. And that, as a whole, you're just able to overcome things.
I think this is much more informative than the history, what the history books tell you. It gives you the complete story. It really shows you what went on. It gives, even though it's focused on just Greg, it gives you a little more about every one else.
And, I think also it shows that the problems with children, it goes back to their parents and that's still problems today. That a lot of kids resort to, you know, crime and drug abuse because that's what their parents were doing and that's who they follow.
I think it shows that you shouldn't hate other people for, you know, that way they look. You know, for what they do. If you want to do what you want to do, you should let them do what they want to do and not argue with them and not have a problem with it.
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Jack Sanford
Courtesy of KNME
Transcript:
Getting to know Greg you can, you get to see how somebody can be like that and not even realize it. Like he was in the beginning. He didn't even. When he was going to the Ku Klux Klan he didn't realize what he was doing. He was just like, he was just acting not, nor thinking. The way a lot of people go through school. Just like kind of spoon fed. He was spoon fed the racist ideas and he didn't stop to think about them. He just went with it. It was something to do, I guess, since it let his anger out so he liked it.
In a way, I identified with him when he was starting a White Student Union. And it was scary. Like when he, when he, for the constitution for his White Student Union he took that constitution for the Black Student Union and everywhere they said Black he put in White and he was called racist. I feel that sometimes or I felt then, I identified with him because I feel that sometimes minorities get too much sympathy.
And I feel bad about saying that and later on in the video I felt, I felt ashamed of myself for thinking those thoughts but they came just as I was watching it. It was kind of freaky.
Well, I think as students we need to question ideas that we get, not just accept them. We need to question them and just think. Before we just adopt a new idea we should question it and just think about how it would affect us if we believe that all the time.
Just think about the possibilities of new ideas and just the ups and downs of them, the pros and cons, the things that might be true and the things that might not be true about new ideas. We need to question everything and take in what we feel applies to us. That would make us a better person.
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Jason Ezra Ajani-Stiggers
Courtesy of KNME
Transcript:
It's called "Blink" and see a lot of people like, if something's out of focus or say you're trying to see something or you can't believe something, you blink, people blink to try to get it, you know, back in focus with your eyes. If your eyes seem a little distorted to the light you blink and you're like to get back in focus.
I think that what the movie was saying was, it was kind of saying, he got his life back in focus. He looked at it in a different perspective. 'Cause before he was blind, he couldn't see that well. Fear just keeps you from going forward. And racial diversity and segregation and all that, those prevented this country from going forward. Because of fear of each other. Because we're all so different. So that's what happened. I think.
Fear. People hate stuff that they fear, you know. Because they don't want to deal with it. It scares them and makes them feel bad or they don't understand it . That's what fear does. That's what fear is.
I think this film is just trying to saying, you know, you need to blink, get your, get focused, you know. You know, think about it, you know, look closely at the world around you. And these people around you are not just here to take over your culture. You know, you shouldn't hate anybody, you know, just for being who they are and the way God made them.
No one had control when we were born. We didn't sign in and say, "What race do you want to be?" "Oh I choose to be White." No, that didn't happen. "I choose to be Hispanic 'cause I like to dance." You know, no one. Or, "I choose to be Black 'cause, you know, I want to have rhythm." Those are just stereotype things.
But I think God put us on this world for a reason. He made us who we are for a reason so we can come together, bond, be one. That's it.
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Joe Kastely
Courtesy of KNME
Transcript:
But I think overall what it was saying was that we're all very, very tied up in this racial issue that we're dealing with now. And we all have opinions and we all sway back and forth. And that some days we're angry and some days it's not even about race.
What you got from the film was that as he kept talking about it, it's just a blink away. And that all of our problems are as small as a blink. That we can shatter from one opinion to the next.
Any of us could become a hate monger or completely peaceful and that it's all in where we are and how things affect us on that day and in that time, I think was the idea of the film.
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Transcript:
Elizabeth Thompson, filmmaker: Racist violence, or hate violence, doesn't exist in a vacuum. It's actually an, you know, it is an articulation of tensions that already exist in our society, and that are often not spoken... I set out to make a film about how someone who is deeply involved in the hate movement decided to change, and I wanted to find out what that was that enabled him to wake up and, as he says, 'blink,' and leave the movement. What I made, and what I ended up doing was finding it was much more complex than I thought... I don't think the media covers the way - what this has to do with class. What this has to do with gender. And - and what this has to do with white identity. How, you know, in white supremacy you can see some expression of, you know, of assumptions that a lot of, you know, white folks don't like to examine in themselves or in their communities.
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