I can’t think of the last time I saw a nearly 20-minute video gain so much traction on Facebook. This one, a historical review from actor Romany Malco, has gotten more than 1.1 million views in just two days.
Apparently people want to know more about how the United States got to its current position at the top of the global Most Likely To Imprison charts. Recurring headlines about state violence mean that, between Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow and projects like Malco’s, more people want to know what’s behind the highly profitable prison system and how to dismantle it for something more just and effective.
Had he not reeled from the death of Trayvon Martin a few years ago, Malco probably wouldn’t now be in front of the camera, teaching ordinary people about US history. A historian scholar recently said, “If professional historians don’t take a role in shaping the public’s knowledge of our history, others will fill that vacuum.”
Professional historians are shaping public perceptions of history, however. And perhaps the process doesn’t have to exclude non-professional historians. Maybe we can all recount what we know, regardless of our disciplines. We can all grow past studied ignorance in the retelling.
Watch the video (captioned), and share using the tag #PrisonLogic: