In this time of political crisis, two timely documentaries, POINT OF ATTACK and PROFILED, will be screened at The Harry Van Arsdale Jr. Center for Labor Studies at SUNY/Empire State College.

Kathleen Foster, Producer and Director will attend the screenings. We are grateful to Women Make Movies and The Harry Van Arsdale, Jr. Center for Labor Studies at SUNY/Empire College for making this screening possible. Also expected in attendance for a post screening Q & A will be Carmen V. Carrillo, a top immigration lawyer and community activist from Newark, New Jersey, as well as Chauniqua Young, a Bertha Fellow at the Center for Constitutional Rights. Chauniqua Young was one of the team of attorneys who pressed the successful federal class action lawsuit against discriminatory stop-and-frisk policies by the New York Police Department. Also attending will be Dr. Debbie Almontaser, the founding and former principal of the Khalil Gibran International Academy. A 25-year veteran of the NYC Public School System, who also serves as the Board President of the Muslim Community Network.

POINT OF ATTACK chronicles the racial profiling, large scale round ups, detentions and mass deportations of Muslims and South Asians after 9/11 and explores the broader implications of basic freedoms for everyone. In light of the threats by Trump to revive this registry, this is a must see film right now!

Point of Attack is a forty-six minute documentary chronicling the post-9/11 racial profiling, large-scale round-ups, detentions and mass deportations of Arab, Muslim and South Asian men as part of the government’s "War on Terrorism." The film frames the plight of these immigrant communities within the context of the US government's "other war" against civil liberties that is being waged via the USA Patriot Act. This sweeping legislation, passed in late October 2001, gave the government new powers to increase domestic intelligence gathering and surveillance and simultaneously to decrease judicial review and public access to information. Although the "point of attack" of such legislation may be Arab, Muslim and South Asian men, the broader implications, detailing the undermining of basic freedoms for everyone, are explored. Through interviews and with archival news footage, the documentary explores the issue as it unfolds -- the initial arrests, a mandatory special registration program that began for Muslims in December 2002, and the deportations, over an 18 month period, of as many as 3,000 men.

PROFILED knits the stories of mothers of Black and Latin youth killed by the NYPD into a powerful indictment of racial profiling and police brutality, and places them within a historical context of the roots of racism in the U.S. Some of the victims—Eric Garner, Michael Brown—are now familiar the world over. Others, like Shantel Davis and Kimani Gray, are remembered mostly by family and friends in their New York neighborhoods.

Ranging from the routine harassment of minority students in an affluent Brooklyn neighborhood to the killings and protests in Staten Island and Ferguson, Missouri, PROFILED bears witness to the racist violence that remains an everyday reality for Black and Latin people in this country.