Another observation on the success of the Kickstarter campaign is that so many have 'bought into' the idea that Oregon's history of racial exclusion needs to be set against Portland's current position as the nation's whitest city. We find grassroots support gratifying, as we press City Council to implement their 2009 Plan to Address Racial Profiling. We fervently hope the pursuit of racial justice gets a boost as our tangled history of racial oppression gets documented.

Racial discrimination is sufficiently prevalent in Portland to have produced a pool of authentic responses. Community members are becoming subject matter experts in complex issues of 14th Amendment violations, school policy implementation and community investment decisions. Rare, however is a group of professionals who'll document, distribute and archive the historic record.

Someone recorded African American Portlanders calling for their civil rights in the '70s. No one obtained clearance rights from participants. Those voices will not enter the public record for another generation or two. If the source materials aren't preserved, they'll never be heard.

Producers know they'll have to edit down from the hours of material they are collecting, to make a commercially viable ninety minutes. What I like about the project are the plans to use the additional footage in study curricula. Both Walidah and Whitelandia are expanding a conversation that began before we got involved. Folks can decline now, but I hope they'll rejoin when materials circulate through their schools, churches and community groups.

Wouldn't it be ironic, for folks to opt out of a documentary that's designed to give a voice to the voiceless?

The blocked comments from people who were criticizing their work. That alone tells you enough.

What's different about use of Ms Imarisha's lectures vs film of demonstrations etc. is that as an academic, and as an artist, Ms Imarisha's ideas in this case are literally her intellectual property -- she has the right to give this gift to anyone she chooses, or to remove them from whichever sphere she chooses (to the degree that is possible). Also the Whitelandia people literally put her intellectual property onto a platform for the purpose of making money to do their thing. As Ms Imarisha's essay makes clear, she was not offered compensation, she did not sign off on use of her work, and most importantly, she felt uncomfortable with the Whitelandia people's alleged assertion that they were using her work as "the spine" of THEIR work. Thank you.