You Have the Right to Remain Silent is a video and installation project incorporating sound and edited footage of the burning of what appears to be a Confederate flag. The project was significantly inspired by Dr. Martin Luther King's August 1963 speech I Have a Dream as well as by the contemporary Black Lives Matter movement. Pointing to the South as the nexus of racism in the US avoids the underlying truth that many of America's core institutions are either founded on racist principles or perpetuate structural racism and that many outside the South benefit from this structural racism. This project is an intended break or rupture of the popularly held belief in the United States that white people outside the South don't have any responsibility for or benefit from the structural racism against black people. This project (video and wall-mounted installation of the flag debris) presents a deeper look at some of the underlying causes of one of the most significant issues of American contemporary culture and the mentality shift that must take place for a real break-through in social progress and local race relations. With a duration of 18 minutes 45 seconds, the video took 10 months to complete from concept to final video editing. The video stills below show the progression of the video, but to understand the project, click on the link under any of the stills to view the full video on Vimeo.
