Category: Lifestyle

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American Expendables Interview

Tom Seymour, the director of the VHS Massacre documentary series, asked me to sit down and talk about his newest project in which I appear. This was my third documentary collaboration with Tom, having previously appeared in VHS Massacre and VHS Massacre Too. The film is called American Expendables and is a deep dive into the impact that B-movie action stars like Bolo Yeung, Bill Blanks, and Cynthia Rothrock had on the martial arts genre.

Tom interviewed me because of my martial arts background and love of Kung Fu movies from the 70s and 80s. This is a project that he worked on for several years. The documentary has won many major film festivals, including becoming a Gold winner at the 2024 Telly Awards.

American Expendables film is currently streaming on the Amazon Prime and Fandango platforms!

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Mentoring Black Males in STEM: an interview

During the height of the pandemic, I was approached by a colleague to be interviewed for an article she was writing on the trials and successes of mentoring young black males in the STEM and STE(a)M fields. The video above is a part of the discussion we had on the subject.

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Pruitt-Igoe Documentary Film panel

A few months back a former colleague invited me to speak to a group of students from the School of Architecture Planning and Landscape at Newcastle University (UK) about the documentary on the Pruitt Igoe apartment complex in St. Louis. The documentary, and the subsequent panel discussion, centered on the deep social issues of housing in American cities, and how these developments reflect underlying racial prejudice and inequality in the US and beyond.

The documentary can be found at:
https://vimeo.com/ondemand/thepruittigoemyth/276600370

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Don’t laugh at me, it was the 90s.

This is one reason why I try not to argue with old friends. They have too much dirt on me from the days before social media existed. Out of the blue, my boy Stacy texted me the following pictures, circa 1992, when we were shopping my demo tape at the Jack the Rapper Conference in Atlanta. My kids saw this and thought it was hilarious. I guess Christmas came a few days late for them. Needless to say, it was a weird time for me. Corporate IT Specialist by day, aspiring Hip Hop artist by night. Batman wasn’t the only person with a dual identity.

https://www.reverbnation.com/jrockthedemonofthemic

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Project Empathy: Overview of the Series

The current social climate of the US has created an environment where it has become difficult to empathize with others different from ourselves. During the past year a web based mini documentary series on the unique lives of a number of people impacted by this racial empathy gap was filmed. The following presentation was an overview of the project and what was discovered as a result. The recording of the session on Project Empathy video series that I completed during my sabbatical leave was given to the LaGuardia community as a part of the United Wounds of America conference held a few weeks back.

Continue reading “Project Empathy: Overview of the Series”
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Finally celebrating Juneteenth!

It’s no accident that:
You learned about Helen Keller instead of W.E.B. DuBois.
You learned about the Watts and L.A. Riots, but not the Tulsa or Wilmington massacres.
You learned that George Washington’s dentures were made from wood, rather than the teeth from slaves.
You learned about black ghettos, but not about Black Wall Street.
You learned about the New Deal, but not “red lining.”
You learned about Tommie Smith’s fist in the air at the 1968 Olympics, but not that he was sent home the next day and stripped of his medals.
You learned about “black crime,” but white criminals were never lumped together and discussed in terms of their race.
You learned about “states rights” as the cause of the Civil War, but not that slavery was mentioned 80 times in the articles of secession.
Privilege is having history rewritten so that you don’t have to acknowledge uncomfortable facts.
Racism is perpetuated by people who refuse to learn or acknowledge this reality.
You have a choice.

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Project Empathy: A Mile in their Shoes

My name is James Richardson and I am currently putting together a video series detailing the lived experiences of African-Americans and other marginalized groups at this point in American history. The larger context of the project will be to directly address the racial empathy gap that helps support structures of institutional discrimination and that overwhelming impacts African-Americans and other marginalized groups in harmful and devastating ways. It is this racial empathy gap that helps to explain inequalities in everything from healthcare outcomes to disparate sentencing in the criminal justice system.

The video interviews will be conducted over Zoom or Skype and will be recorded for release over YouTube, Facebook and Instagram. If you are interested in being interviewed for the Project Empathy video series, please fill out and submit the following contact form.

https://forms.gle/cBLkLVerE9zyFos16