There’s a new 38-minute movie out, “Man of Steele”, made by filmmaker Eli Steele about diversity, the attempted removal of AP classes, and antisemitism in a ritzy California school district. The movie, however, was was apparently removed from both YouTube and Vimeo—just for two seconds of video that someone claimed constituted “copyright infringement”. It appears to be fair usage, which isn’t really infringement, but fortunately you can still watch the movie. As Steele notes in the second headline below (click on each one to read):
The complainant was Menlo-Atherton High School’s newspaper, M-A Chronicle, and they objected to the inclusion of a two-second clip in the Killing America trailer. I checked the trailer’s YouTube page and, indeed, it had been removed.
Here’s are three Substack sites that explain the situation (the links to the movie are below, or you can click on the first headline).
I’ve watched the movie, and you won’t lose much more than half an hour if you do, but I have to say that it’s a bit of a dog’s breakfast, as it mixes together diverse subjects (removal of AP classes from a high school, equity, diversity, a school board’s musing over the advanced-placement classes, and the reaction of one parent whose son goes to the Bay Area school at issue). Perhaps I was tired, but I didn’t find it particularly coherent. That said, it’s still worth watching to see the parents battle over whether “tracking” students creates inequities and is unfair, or whether it allows students to reach their full potential. It’s worth it to see the school board dissimulate, and it’s worth it to see the odious, antisemitic and pro-Palestinian lies that some teachers tell to their students. But the film fails explain clearly how equity is connected with anti-Semitism, although one can intuit that the connection is via a DEI mentality, which promotes equity and denigrates Jews at the same time (Jews are seen as white, oppressive colonialists). And the occasional insertion of Russian stuff, like their national anthem, baffles me. Is Steele saying that Marxism is behind some of this? Who knows?
In the end, one doesn’t know what happens in the school district, but perhaps because the school board hasn’t decided what to do.
Here, from one of the posts, is the creator’s explanation of why he wanted to get the movie out (I know him only by the name “Man of Steele”):
That is why I’m releasing the film now — to force the following issues to the forefront:
- Free Speech — what are we teaching students at high school newspapers when we tell them to embrace censorship, not free speech, as their weapon of choice?
- Artistic Expression — are we going to let documentaries and other art forms be censored by activists, especially those in wealthy, elite neighborhoods?
- Hate/Antisemitism — Why has this school and district largely ignored the rising antisemitism on campus? We know if it was blacks who were on the receiving end, the response would be different. This double-standard must end.
- Ideological Capture/Lowering of Education Standards — For too long these education activists, many from Stanford University and beyond, have been given free reign to impose their ideologies onto students. As a result, the quality of education has declined significantly.
People often ask why I made Killing America and Diana Blum, the film’s main subject, once said something that summed up my thoughts perfectly: “With this film, I wanted to give parents a voice because they’ve been silenced and ridiculed for so long by the school board, activist teachers, and the school authorities. This film is our way to get around that ideological resistance and be heard for once and for all.”
I don’t have to say it but the irony here is that it is these education ideologues that are trying to take our voice away once again.
To watch the movie, click on the headline below, go here (same place), or watch it on Steele’s tweet below.
Again, I emphasize that you should watch this movie, but realize that it’s not a fully-formed documentary. The fact that the school is trying to censor it on trivial grounds tells you all you need to know.
After enduring a week of unwarranted takedowns of the Killing America trailer on @Youtube and @Vimeo as well as receiving a baseless cease and desist letter that seeks to prevent my documentary from being shown in its original form, I’ve decided to release the full (38 min)… pic.twitter.com/KL6RxeJ3KE
— Eli Steele (@Hebro_Steele) April 5, 2024
If you want to donate to Steele to support the movie, go here. I also found this on the donation page, which clarifies the film a bit.
THE STORY: In August of 2023, I was contacted by Bay Area parents who recently learned that Sequoia Union High School District had been removing honors classes for the past 8 years. Not only that, they were infusing other classes with liberated ethnic studies curricula. At first, I thought that this was an old story. We saw how Virginia and Manhattan parents fought over the schools for the past three years.
Then October 7 happened.
It quickly became apparent to us how the immediate and unapologetic rise in antisemitism in the Bay Area schools was related to the elimination of honors classes as well as the oppressor-oppressed model that ethnic studies brought into the classroom. We knew then that we had a film here and “Killing America” is the result.
h/t: Luana
The documentary’s title is “Killing America,” not “Man of Steele,” which is the production company. The director is Eli Steele. He has made other documentaries, two of which I’ve seen and are quite good: “What Killed Michael Brown” debunks the conventional wisdom about the Michael Brown shooting. (Streaming availability listed here: https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/what-killed-michael-brown.) “How Jack Became Black” chronicles his struggles against the public school system who insisted that his mixed-race son, Jack, be classified as either black or white, which Eli refused to comply with. Streaming availability listed here: https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/i-am-or-how-jack-became-black
Why on earth was it necessary to classify Jack? That is simply forcing difference on people: not good for equality.
Yes, that’s the whole point of the film.
The film was average, documentary wise, but makes excellent points.
Blast from the past: “Free Mumia”!!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mumia_Abu-Jamal
Always: Flag of the idiots. Mumia. Folk hero to the retarded cohort of the left. Cold blooded cop killer Mumia should have been put down by the state decades ago.
D.A.
NYC
Mumia: “Friend of Palestine”, note.
https://democracychronicles.org/palestine-and-the-company-you-keep/
No moral person can side with this evil cohort.
D.A.
NYC
Good article!
The Soviet anthem was there because the woman who is the main character in the story immigrated with her parents from the Soviet Union when she was young. She was one of the parents trying to save the AP classes.
His main point seems to be showing that the oppressor/oppressed view of the world started with the creation of ethnic studies departments at the end of the sixties. DEI, and the elimination of AP classes is all based on the same ideas.
There’s some pushback against all this. I read a WSJ article saying the DEI is losing popularity in big companies.
Eli Steele is Shelby Steele’s son BTW.
I think the movie was very good in making the connection between DEI and Jew-hatred.
Many of us knew when we heard about “equity”, many years ago, that it would eventually devolved into vicious Jew-hatred, which the current war has provided an excuse for. And I sense we are just at the beginning of the cycle of Jew-hatred. Worse is yet to come.
It is kind of obvious but I only thought about it when I saw things like this documentary. Jews tend to be over-represented in certain fields. If you take the “anti-racist” position that any representation that does not match demographics is due to an oppressor/oppressed dynamic then the conclusion is that the over-represented group are oppressors. Up until recently this has been mostly whites vs. blacks. But now that the country founded by and for Jews is fighting a major war they can’t be the good guys because we already know they are oppressors.
In the UK, the BBC initially refused to called the October 2023 Hamas attackers “terrorists”. Eventually, they were forced to insert a disclaimer on this when mentioning Hamas in the context of freedom-fighters, basically: “We must inform you that Hamas are designated as ‘terrorists’ by certain groups…” BBC reporter Jeremy Bowen for the past two decades has been asserting in “news reports” that: “Jerusalem is the third most important site in the history of Islam”, while never once mentioning that Jerusalem is the FIRST most important site in a couple of other religions… Of course, by stating these facts, I become perceived as a “paranoid” person by Hamas supporters. What a surprise.
Given that about 20% of Israeli citizens are Arabs and most than 80% of them are Muslims, I don’t see any problem in leaving this city, allegedly so important for Muslims, be the undisputed capital of Israel. Local Muslims in collaboration with the authorities can easily manage the Muslim holy sites, similarly to how Christian ones are managed as well as many other sites of religious and cultural importance in other countries.