For those unfamiliar, @ProblemAreasHBO spent its entire first season examining policing in America and what reforming it looks like.
Recently, @BarackObama spoke about the need to be specific in trying to bring about reform.
Our show tried to do that along with some dumb jokes.
Our first episode, we looked at the many ways police officers are trained and encouraged to have a "warrior mindset," which took us to Minnesota to see how that mindset played out in the death of Philando Castile.
Episode two asked the question, "do cops ever apologize for anything?"
The answer might... not surprise you.
That took me to Birmingham to meet Daroneisha Duncan-Boyd of @transunitedfund to see what "police accountability" looks like for Black trans lives.
Politicians will talk about "community policing" as a way to bridge the divide police have with communities of color, so for the third episode we went to Illinois to see if having a cop as a neighbor really changes the way cops see the people they serve.
The idea of "defunding police" and "police abolition" felt worth understanding more and @LACANetwork helped show the effects of what happens when Los Angeles politicians choose to spend people's tax dollars to police the homeless rather than empower them.
Given how frequently the police interact with people in mental distress, a question that felt worth asking was if cops are the best equipped people for that responsibility?
The fifth episode stays in LA, to try and explore mental health a bit.
On TV shows, cops shoot first then go to commercial to forget they just killed a person.
Episode six goes to Oklahoma to meet a deputy who took a life and to Seattle to meet citizens trying to change laws around "police use of force."
Episode seven looks at sexual misconduct and the abuse of power some cops have made against people they swore to protect and in some instances work alongside.
And how civilian review boards like, @CCRB_NYC, want to give people a place to find justice.
This episode focuses on how Seattle has tried to shift away from declaring a "war on drugs" to using their inside voice to suggest a "more compassionate approach to human beings dealing with drug use and addiction" and the role police play in that shift.
Spending a season focused on police reform, it made sense to also look at the broken criminal justice system that cops are placing people into.
@sujathabaliga helped me understand why "restorative justice" could provide a better model for society.
Twenty years ago, Cincinnati was outraged after a cop killed Roger Owensby Jr. in a situation similar to George Floyd's.
The final episode of @ProblemAreasHBO looks at the role the DOJ and @ACLU play to give people a say in how police departments operate.
All ten episodes of @ProblemAreasHBO.
All free (for a month).
Pass them around if you like.
The show is in no way a comprehensive solution to anything, but the hope in making it accessible on @YouTube is that it can point towards people and organizations that are doing the work.
The show's not perfect.
You can see when my eyes are reading a teleprompter because @HBO's legal team needed me to say something very specifically so they didn't get sued.
But the show wasn't about being perfect or even about being right.
It was about trying to have a dialogue.
When the smoke clears, we're still going to need to find a way forward.
And we're going to have to find a way to do it together because this country is a dingy apartment and we're all just a bunch of Craigslist roommates that have to find a way not to eat each other's cheese.
My thanks to @HBO for making the show available on @YouTube for free... even though it's only for a month and only in the US.
My thanks to everyone who helped make @ProblemAreasHBO for two seasons.
My thanks to everyone who shared their time, expertise and stories for the show.
And huge thanks to everyone who helped amplify a silly tweet to spread the idea around.
I don't really work for @HBO anymore, so they're under no obligation to listen to me, but I'm glad they listened to all of you.
And because I can't leave well enough alone... https://twitter.com/wyattcenac/status/1267591746273370118
And because @HBO made season two available as well it feels like it's worth sharing how that season focused on education.
As people are talking about and trying to point out systemic racism in this country, the way public education works is a good example.
Since the second season focused on education, it felt like looking back at the teacher strikes of 2018 was a good place to start.
It also felt worth asking what role gender plays in how teaching as a profession is viewed and treated.
The second episode looks at school safety and is kind of a call back to the first season, because it focuses on what it means to put cops in schools, how that intersects with implicit biases teachers have and what all that means for students of color.
Piggybacking off of the idea of safety in school, the third episode looks at mental health and how to provide students and faculty with the resources they need in the classroom.
The fourth episode went to California to look at the most comprehensive sex ed program in the US and what it means for LGBTQIA students to be represented in curriculum and have faculty they can turn to thanks to @LALGBTCenter's Out for Safe Schools.
That episode also produced this .gif which seemed like a great way to get more kids interested in math.
The fifth episode looks at the way school funding creates inequity and how even in a city as wealthy as Seattle (aka New Bezosville), the class divide forces those with less to have to continually fight to "save their schools."
Also, Batman shows up.
Episode six looks at the power and value of school meals and the difference having something made in a kitchen can be to a slice of microwaved frozen pizza.
As automation becomes a larger part of society, we decided to head to Iowa to look at how education evolves not just for kids, but also for working adults who have been displaced in a changing economy.
Staying with adult education, episode eight heads back to California to look at for profit colleges and the ways they've preyed on and taken advantage of many people, including military veterans.
The recent Supreme Court ruling on DACA has provided some relief to the nearly 9,000 teachers in this country who are undocumented, and in episode nine, one of those teachers shared her story and talked about how schools can best serve immigrants students.
The final episode of @ProblemAreasHBO headed to New Jersey where the conversation around school segregation and systemic racism became one of looking not simply at equality but how to provide communities with an equitable education.
That's it. That's the show. Two seasons of looking at people trying to do the hard work of transforming their communities into something that better supports their needs. There's no simple solution, but what felt important was to see people try to find a better way.
And also to make .gifs
Lots of .gifs
You can follow @wyattcenac.
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