“Killing America” opens with an uppercut.
The mini-documentary shares examples of antisemitism from the California school system.
Director Eli Steele’s film has Oct. 7 on its mind, and the ensuing hate toward Jews nationwide. His film takes a circuitous route to explain how that rage took root on the West Coast (and, presumably, elsewhere).
Just wait. The depressing dots will soon be connected.
We first meet a Russian Jew whose parents fled their Communist country for a better life in America.
Today, she’s a physician and parent in California, aghast that the antisemitism she witnessed as a child has followed her to her new home. She reads a sampling of antisemitic comments shared on social media by local students and teachers.
It’s not an isolated incident.
We see activists embrace Hamas’ barbaric attack on Israel that left more than 1,200 people dead and hundreds more captured. Scenes of pro-Palestinians parading down school hallways come next.
How did this happen?
“Killing America” takes a swift detour into DEI. Area schools slash honors classes to bridge the gap between poor minority students and wealthy whites and Asians.
Equity is the order of the day.
Some children never learn about the Holocaust in Ethnic Studies class. The focus is more about potential microaggressions than overt displays of Jew hatred.
What they’re taught is far more sinister. It’s the “oppressor versus the oppressed” narrative that’s all too familiar today.
Suddenly, the documentary’s pivot makes sense. Far-Left cultural policies have emboldened antisemitism, the doc argues. So have the toxic lessons taught in the modern classroom.
Please check out the dynamic Q&A session for the "Killing America" sneak preview that took place in Menlo Park on March 2.
It was a very frank, no-holds barred conversation that ruffled many feathers among the Left in the Bay Area. https://t.co/cJ2KEcIqie
— Eli Steele (@Hebro_Steele) March 7, 2024
“Killing America” came together swiftly given the fresh nature of the material. That explains why some of the key interviews are shot in unflattering surroundings.
Other visual elements are sturdier, as is the occasional narration by author Shelby Steele (Eli Steele’s father, who previously collaborated on his son’s “What Killed Michael Brown?”). That narration could have better fused the film’s two halves.
We’ve seen some of the shocking footage in “Killing America” before. Other sequences are original and frightening. Case in point: A parent shares a classroom project where kids must guess the ethnic backgrounds of select celebrities.
The material presented in “Killing America” needs a broader examination, something a 30-plus minute featurette can’t provide. It’s still a powerful placeholder, letting viewers know what’s happening in some California schools and, likely, classrooms nationwide.
HiT or Miss: “Killing America” bears the earmarks of a quickly assembled project, but the powerful messages within are undeniable.
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