A+E Networks: Shining a Light

In the past couple of years, America has had to confront the painful reality that racism still exists. Despite the illusion of progress, prejudice manifests itself in several pernicious ways: police brutality, mass incarceration, incessant racial profiling and, perhaps more jarringly, everyday scenarios in the streets, on the subway, and in the workplace. Proof of these racial chasms has been covered extensively in Ferguson, Baltimore and Charleston, but these horrific events reoccur with shocking normalcy. They are not aberrant, but instead indicative of a deep-rooted bigotry that has plagued this country since its genesis.

A+E Networks (A&E, History, Lifetime, FYI, LMN, H2), with its new initiative Shining a Light: A Concert for Progress on Race in America, aims to raise awareness in the form of a two-hour concert event airing November 20th at 8 PM EST. Politically conscious musicians such as Pharrell Williams, Bruce Springsteen, John Legend, Ed Sheeran and Pink will perform in the name of social justice, raising money for the Fund for Progress on Race in America, powered by United Way Worldwide, while broadcasting a message of equality, reform, unity and, most of all, hope. Hope is the central conviction of the initiative, A+E Networks brings musical influencers to the stage, in partnership with iHeartMedia, to face the realities of inequality and inspire others to join the fight.

While the music industry’s biggest names use their celebrity to mobilize Americans, New York Magazine ventured across the city to discuss the issue with pedestrians, passersby and park-goers. We asked them this question: “what do you think is the most important things that needs to be done in this country to improve race relations?” Answers were varied, but our interviewees generally agreed that it is not colorblindness that will remedy these injustices, but acknowledgment of their existence, the fostering of a communicative culture willing to place racism in its national consciousness.

• Jerome Billie
  43, Brooklyn, New York

• Emily Jampel
  20, Honolulu, Hawaii

• Keith Douglas
  45, Glenhead, New York

• Jessica Mitchell
  26, Bronx, New York

• Jodi Collins
  Westchester, New York

• Bob and Joan Sheverbush
  80 and 79, Kansas City, Missouri

• Erica Espinosa
  28, Santiago de Cali, Colombia

• Seth Miller
  27, California

• Emmanuel Ojo and Lamar Robillard
  25 and 24, Brooklyn, New York

• Tony Kolaj
  54, White Plains, New York

• Alice Chai
  29, Plano, Texas

• Monique Kiera Meertens
  28, New York City, New York

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