The Color of Your Skin Press Review

Coming to grips with racism
THE BOSTON GLOBE, June 9-15, 1991
by Bruce McCabe

It was called “Group 1.”

It was made up of six blacks, five whites and a Filipino. For 16 weeks, the group gathered in a circle in a small room behind a two-way mirror and confronted itself with its racial anger, pain and bewilderment.

The group, which met in a corner of Patrick Air Force Base in Cocoa Beach, Fla., was part of a program that since 1971 has helped more than 10,000 soldiers, sailors and air personnel to come to grips with their feelings on race.

“Frontline” tells the story of this unique program Tuesday night at 9 p.m. on Channels 2, 11 and 36. The episode is called “The Color of Your Skin.”

The program tells the story of the Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute (DEOMI) which has been conducting these sessions since the Vietnam era when the military was being torn apart by racial confrontations and violence.

The 16-week course of “Group 1″ is told by showing the group’s progress through moments of despair, anger and confusion as individuals confronted their stereotypes, biases and gut feelings.

Viewers get to know Kelly Anderson, a liberal white navy petty officer from Utah, and Evelyn Johnson, a black sergeant from South Carolina, with whom Anderson identifies with midway through the course. Then he begins feeling defensive as a white male and she begins identifying more strongly with other blacks in the group.

A white sergeant, Glenn Smith, finds his attitudes transformed by the blacks in the group.

“It seems like I’m being held responsible for everything that’s been done by someone who was white,” complains soldier Bob Huselton.

“Even if you change a racist from one thought, one stereotype, it’s better than not changing at all,” says Army Sgt. 1st Class Eugene Bickley of the group dynamic. “It’s like a disease. You change him, he might go out and change somebody else.”

Austin filmmaker examines military race-relations class
AUSTIN AMERICAN STATESMAN, June 11, 1991
by Diane Holloway

For 16 weeks starting in January, a dozen military personnel confronted each other about their feelings on racism and race relations in a small room at Patrick Air Force Base in Cocoa Beach, Fla.

Highlights and low lights of this unusual classroom activity were captured in an hour-long documentary, “The Color of Your Skin,” produced by Austin filmmaker Hector Galán and reported by Austin-based Washington Post reporter David Maraniss.

The film airs tonight on the PBS series Frontline (at 9 on KLRU-TV, Channel 18 Cable 9). It’s Galán’s ninth contribution to the award-winning documentary program.

The class was one of the hundreds that have met at the Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute since DEOMI was founded in 1971 to combat the racial tension and violence that erupted among American soldiers during the Vietnam War.

“The idea for this piece emerged out of a series of articles David wrote on integration for the Washington Post,” Galán said in the telephone interview last week.

Maraniss says in the documentary he set out “to see if blacks and whites were dealing with each other anywhere in America on an equal basis” and found DEOMI, which trains participants to handle racial problems in the military. Maraniss believes DEOMI is more successful than other race relations classes because the students are a captive audience. They are stuck with each other in one tiny room for the duration of the course.

But what emerges in 1991’s first class seems anything but positive. The feelings expressed are hardly new. Blacks talk about their past experiences and the continued problems of racism in their lives, while whites express their frustration and anger about constantly being labeled racists.

Many viewers probably will be struck by the naivete of two of the white non-commissioned officers, Sgt. Glenn Smith and Sgt. Bob Huselton, who say they don’t believe blatant racism and violence still exist. Where have these guys been? Don’t they read the newspapers? Haven’t they seen incidents at school, at work, and in public places?

In the end, viewers also will be struck by the apparent lack of progress the class made. At the graduation ceremony, the black participants sit together and the white participants sit together.

“There was really not a lot of intermingling outside of the school either,” Galán conceded. “It started to divide pretty early on and some internal feuds developed.”

In particular, a friendship that was forged early on between a white Navy officer named Kelley Anderson and a black officer named Evelyn Johnson completely disintegrated. During one stormy discussion, Anderson, a liberal whose Mormon ancestors were driven out of two states before settling in Utah, said to Johnson, “We made it. Why can’t you?”

All in all, the discussions seemed futile and depressing.

“But I think the fact they’re talking about it is important,” Galán said. “If we had done this in a bar, somebody probably would have gotten into a fight and left. At DEOMI, they were stuck in this fishbowl and had to face each other. Even though maybe it didn’t show a dramatic change, they started thinking about things.”

And so will viewers, albeit with considerable discomfort. Many of the discussions, such as Johnson and Anderson’s heated breakup, are painful to watch. And that, presumably, was the point.

“I think real thoughts and ideas emerged,” Galán said. “We carry on but a lot of the times we don’t let people know our real feelings about race. I think this is a real reflection of society. To me, it was a real peek-a-boo type of feeling, watching these people come unglued.”

The “peek-a-boo” was accomplished with one small video camera in the classroom, giving the documentary a concealed surveillance quality. The camera is unimposing and seems to be disregarded by the participants. The end result is an intriguing if depressing examination of one of society’s most difficult and enduring problems.