American Promise-Keep on Dreaming

The engaging doc. film, The American Dream, follows 2 young black boys from Brooklyn who seem to have won the golden ticket, a free ride @ Dalton, on the UES, an elite & prestigious private school.  Seun & Idris at age 17 reflect back on their lives from K5 through H.S. while cameras captured their lives at school & home.  "I don't think much of it," says Idris who graduated from Dalton.  "Who cares?" asks Seune who left Dalton after 8th grade & entered a  Bklyn public H.S.  After watching this often humorous, and often arduous doc. (that ran too long,) I cared.  Seun & Idris are adorable, happy 5 yr. olds & best friends. Their families are elated that both will be attending Dalton.  "Doors will be opened for the rest after lives," according to Idris' parents, a bi-racial over bearing couple that micromanage "every hour of every day."  Seun's mother admits reluctance placing him @ Dalton "with a bunch of rich white kids where he might feel disconnected."  Sadly, her apprehension proves painfully true.  Early on both boys are happy, they "love their school."  Things unwind as the boys get older.  They realize they have a foot in 2 very different worlds and find it difficult fitting in either.  This prescient doc. is both charming & alarming.  The pressures placed on Seun & Idris are enormous.  I cared deeply for both these earnest, admirable young men.  Obama's election is converge with their teen years as does the Trayvon Martin murder.  NYC taxi drivers shamefully do not open their doors to them.  We must confront the doors still closed to people of color. What does it takes to allay these barriers. A girl from Seun's H.S. on a class trip to Africa asks, "Wouldn't it be better if we all said we were a product of Dyaspora." Yes - keep on dreaming.