Dear Reel and Meal Audience – please plan to join us on Monday!

In Recognition of Black History Month

Reel and Meal presents

“CodeSwitching”

(A film on Busing)

Monday, February 15, 2021

Registration is required: https://tinyurl.com/ReelandMealFeb.  

Vegan meal option: Phone in your pre-order to the deli at 301.474.0522 by 1:00pm on Monday 2/15//21 for pick-up between 4:00pm and 7:00pm at the deli.

On February 15 Reel and Meal will screen “CodeSwitching” (2019) about a voluntary school desegregation program that bused Boston youth to better-resourced suburban schools starting in the 1970s. Greenbelt’s Recreation Department sponsors the film as one of its Black History Month educational offerings. The film begins at 7 p.m. via Zoom; entry starts at 6:45 p.m. Registration is required – please use this link

: https://tinyurl.com/ReelandMealFeb.   

Five Black alumni of a Boston school integration effort talk about the upsides and drawbacks of being bused for a better education. Most achieve enviable academic success. It wasn’t easy, however, for them to navigate between their urban neighborhood and their predominately affluent white schools. “Code switching” normally means flipping between dialects, when in conversation. One girl in the film says, for instance, that she needed to not talk “too black,” when in a white community. 

In this film code switching means more than language use. As students shuttle back and forth between highly-segregated worlds, some feel ill at ease having to present themselves differently in the suburbs than in their urban environment. Some feel estranged from their friends at home and isolated at school. They might even be marked in the suburbs for an arrest or harassment based on the color of their skin. The film raises questions about how schools can better support middle school and high school teens in such situations.

Jonathan Hutto, coordinator of the Prince Georges People’s Coalition in Maryland, will lead the discussion following the film. Hutto co-authored an influential paper on the history of police accountability in Prince Georges County in the “Journal of Urban Health” in February, 2016: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4824689/

Greenbelt’s Co-op Grocery will once again offer a vegan meal for $7.99. On February 15 it features Indian cuisine –Macro Vegetarian Chickpea Masala and samosa dumplings with rice and a steamed vegetable. Phone in your pre-order to 301-474-0522 by 1 p.m. on Feb. 15, for pick-up between 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. at the deli. Depending on demand, there may be dinners available on a walk-in basis, if not pre-ordered.

Reel and Meal is organized by Beaverdam Creek Watershed Watch Group, Green Vegan Networking, the Utopia Film Festival and the Prince George’s County Peace & Justice Coalition. 

For further information on this month’s program, check out Reel and Meal’s Facebook page(www.facebook.com/reelandmealNDC), the website of the New Deal Cafe or contact Donna Hoffmeister of the Peace and Justice Coalition at 301 441 9377.