Silences Directed by Octavio Warnock‐Graham

2006 , 22 minutes. Distributed by New Day Films , PO Box 1084, Harriman, NY 10926 , http://www.newday.com In Silences, the New York–based filmmaker Octavio Warnock-Graham returns to his family's home in Maumee, Ohio, to confront questions of childhood and identity. As a multiracial child in what was—and continues to be—an essentially white suburb of Toledo, he grew up in a loving family, embraced by his stepfather, yet clearly the child of an earlier relationship between his mother and a man from a different—presumably African American—racial background. His mother's silence about this early relationship and how her family members have maintained this silence is the heart of this narrative. In Silences, Warnock-Graham raises questions about his African American heritage and his own personal identity. Through a series of taped interviews, he unpacks the myths and constructed stories of his family and their close friends. (Who did people agree to believe was his father? What agreements were negotiated between his mother, her family, and the incoming stepfather?) With fuller knowledge and a growing understanding of what his mother faced as she built her own life, Warnock-Graham makes his way to San Francisco with only a name and a number to meet his father, and connect with his extended family. He subsequently returns to Ohio to continue discussions with his mother, and to reflect on his new obligations to reconcile these strands in his life. The film is comprised of interviews and archival and current footage of his town accompanied by voice-overs and contemporary clips of his encounters. We see the pain and distance that he grew up with. For instance, his friends discuss how they recognized his otherness, but did not know what to do; Warnock-Graham recalls how an upperclassman in middle school physically tormented him into calling himself “a nigger”; a member of his Ohio family tells him that he is “not really black”; and a policeman stops him in present-day Maumee while Warnock-Graham is filming because of reports of a suspicious man driving around the neighborhood. From friends and family, he seems to have constantly received the message that he was loved, regardless of race or personal background. However, from a viewer's perspective, the film presents a persistent question: What were his family members thinking? Did they believe that the love and regard that should help the boy grow as a person would also provide him with the resources to function in a community that would see him in racial terms and mark him as distinctly different? His family's silences—and apparent denial—about the complexity of his identity only deepened the confusion. We recognize the good intentions of Warnock-Graham's family and their desire to create a world in which race does not matter. At the same time, we see the presumptive values that weighted their reactions and that lead to more questions, even if they are unspoken: Why is he not “really black” and what does that mean for those who are? What does race mean in different contexts? What does personal background mean in relation to individual worth and value? Warnock-Graham's reunion with his father, including his first phone call, is primarily delivered in voice-overs. This meeting is depicted in a series of slides, essentially silent. But the pictures project the physical consonance between Warnock-Graham and his father and half-siblings, as well as the comfort and happiness in their meeting. He has moved from trying to understand the complexity of his own origins to exploring the world of his father's. With this larger sense of family and of himself, Warnock-Graham returns east ready to confront the challenges and responsibilities of his own future. Silences has been well received, winning various awards and jury citations from film festivals (including Best Documentary at the San Francisco Black Film Festival, the USA Film Festival, and the Annual College Television Awards of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences). The film raises questions about individual constructions of race and identity within the context of competing identity constructs and social codes, and in which family roles and parenting further shape these experiences. In other words, how do parents equip their children for the particular challenges they are likely to face? When and how much do they tell their child about their earlier lives? How do parents shape their children's life skills and commitments as well as their sense of social agency? How do they prepare them for negotiating the cultural norms between family, communities, professional life, and personal identity? The film extends our understanding of multiracial or biracial identity and its challenges to individuals and families of mixed descent, moving between personal narrative and family perspectives. It is a caring and respectful film, but it is also brief (under 30 minutes) and personal. Popular literary works like those of Lisa Jones (Bulletproof Diva: Tales of Race, Sex, and Hair, Anchor Books, 1994), Rebecca Walker (Black, White and Jewish: Autobiography of a Shifting Self, Riverhead Books, 2000), and James McBride (The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother, Riverhead Books, 1996) have also taken up questions of race and identity in an explicitly multicultural framework, albeit from an equal or dominant position in the black community. Silences, on the other hand, uses the medium of film to document a young man's personal search for identity. Set in the context of a white suburban community, the story is also primarily told from the perspective of family members. There are certainly unique gifts in this approach but there are also limitations. What the film brings in honesty and regard, characterized by its individual and deeply personal tone, may be contrasted with what it lacks in depth of analysis. Warnock-Graham has allowed the individuals in his personal history to reveal their stories in their own terms. He is persistently curious, with questions and probes, but ultimately his efforts are aimed at discovering the participants' own constructions of meaning. We understand how the various actors made their choices, but without a deeper structure for understanding, analysis, or critique. In addition, larger questions—the construction of racial identity, the obligations of parents, commitments to interpersonal regard, and social justice—are not voiced by the participants or even by Warnock-Graham, and thus remain unaddressed in the narrative. His mother offers one of the most powerful challenges in the last frames when she wonders, upon his return from meeting his father, how much of her Warnock-Graham will come to see in himself. This is a thoughtful comment, often echoed in the lives of biracial individuals as they struggle to reconcile the diversity in their own families, but here it is essentially personal. In the end, the film points toward issues and questions without providing much substance for a deeper understanding. As a kind of autoethnography—in the sense that this term is increasingly used in educational research and a range of cultural studies—Warnock-Graham has assembled documentary footage from his own life to shed some light on questions concerning a multiracial child and family dynamics in a midwestern suburb. But without an analytic engine, the film's strength seems to stop at these insights and personal resolutions. For a social scientist dealing with difficult issues of racial identity, social conflict, or family dynamics, the film may not do enough to build on concerns and interpretations, or to articulate the next level of questioning or inquiry that is needed. As a colleague who saw the film commented, it would be great to have Warnock-Graham as a guest presenter in class, to debate, and to interview, but the film by itself did not present enough topical material for her needs. Alternatively, various audiences have connected well with the film and praised its poignancy. Educators in diverse fields, from teacher preparation to family studies to nursing to urban anthropology, may find that the film serves both to introduce students to issues of race and family dynamics, and to increase their awareness of the subtleties of culture in different contexts. Additionally, as a film, Silences occupies territory between a documentary, self-discovery, and a research study. It exemplifies how close analysis in a personal narrative can serve to illuminate larger issues. It is evident that the filmmaker has treated his participants with care and regard. Through his interview and editing style, Warnock-Graham builds an authentic story. For those who work completely out of academic settings and might be considering film-based approaches to research, his fluid storytelling raises other kinds of questions such as research design, informed consent, and differing interpretive frameworks

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