Co-directed with Mustafa Davis, Message to Zaire explores the story of a young, professional, Afro-Latino-Muslim couple in Oakland, California whose little boy dreams of becoming a police officer. This short documentary is part of The Talk, a two-hour long PBS special about how families of color cope with police violence.
In one of the more resonant moments of the documentary, a father in Oakland named Amir Abdul-Shakur says he doesn’t want his 5-year-old son ‘to be that next hashtag.’ The comment speaks not only to his obvious fear, but also to the ways in which once-unknown young men and women have become symbols of injustice and achieved a kind of posthumous notoriety no parent would ever wish for their child.
