By Geoff Pender and Bobby Harrison Mississippi Today Dec 21, 2020
(AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)
In this June 11, 2015 file photo, Former Gov. William Winter, right and Myrlie Evers, activist and wife of the slain civil rights leader Medgar Evers talk prior before a news conference in Jackson. The former governor, a Democrat who pushed to strengthen public education and improve race relations, has died. Family spokesman Dick Molpus says that Winter died Friday night at home in Jackson. Rogelio V. Solis Former Gov. William Forrest Winter, widely respected for ushering sweeping reforms of Mississippiâs public education system and for his commitment to achieving racial equality, died on Friday evening. He was 97.
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Virtual reality is offering timely narratives on race, diversity and culture by centering the perspectives of people of color
Virtual reality is offering timely narratives on race, diversity and culture by centering the perspectives of people of color
Grace Dean,Tola OnanugaFeb 21, 2021, 21:21 IST
Kilito Chan/Getty Images
Developers are using
virtual reality to recreate both historic and everyday events, and allow users to hear and experience different perspectives.
Some experiences are designed to encourage people to look at their own behavior, while others tell lesser-heard stories.
One takes users back to the civil rights movement of the 1960s, while another documents the discrimination experienced by a Black male during throughout his life.
Kilito Chan/Getty Images
Beyond borders
In the UK, immersive technology is also being used to highlight the experiences of people from all backgrounds and ensure their voices are being heard.
One timely example of this is The CreativeXR program, which is run by Digital Catapult and Arts Council England, and features a varied range of VR and AR-based stories, many of which have been created by people of color.
Blood Speaks: Maya – The Birth of a Superhero, Munkination, SONG, and A Place to Be are among these inventive offerings. Some can be accessed using VR headsets such as Oculus Quest; others via a mobile phone.
What parallels did you want to bring out between the struggles of the 1960s and society today?
When you look at the history of racial injustice and race-related violence in this country, especially within the 20th century, almost all of it was related to incidents of police brutality, or police killing somebody. I remember the night that Minneapolis started burning after George Floyd’s death. I wondered how this was different from when the cops in Northern California killed Denzil Dowell in 1967, which was one of the inciting incidents in the formation of the Panthers. Every time you see Breonna Taylor or George Floyd or Ahmaud Arbery, any Black person who’s been killed, you begin to realize the history. You still see the legal systems working to more often than not protect the aggressor, as opposed to protecting the victim.