Three Missoula artists created a video that depicts the state of our nation and how they felt about the death of George Floyd.
Sterling and Zane Reneau are two music artists from Missoula Montana, who witnessed the death of George Floyd on social media and wanted to use their creative abilities to join the conversation about the injustices that people of color face.
“Let's get people’s attention let's get people talking," said Sterling.
The two brothers felt like they couldn’t just stand by and had to speak out, so they teamed up with their lifelong friend, videographer and photographer Michael Graef, to put the spoken word video together.
“It seemed important, it wasn’t something that you can just stand by and watch," said Zane.
The video concept was made simple because Reneau and Graef wanted to the words to speak for themselves.
“So we decided to keep it super simple, we wanted to make it easy so people can lsiten and hear what it is, instead of being awed by a bunch of cool shots, so we kept it super simple a couple shots each," said Graef.
Sterling says that growing up in Montana, he and Zane felt they were put in a position to speak out due to lack of diversity in the state.
“You are kind of put in a position like these are the people we look up to in these situations, so why not step up and do something about it," said Sterling.
Sterling says fully understanding the struggles that people of color are going through is not going to happen overnight but noticing your own biases and learning from them is important.
“Maybe understanding 100% is not going to happen, but being conscious of your own things, your own biases, opinions and stuff like that before you put it out there, that starts the process of understanding and being inclusive," said Sterling.
The video has over 9,000 views across all of Sterling, Zanes and Graef’s social media, and is being shared daily.
You can view the full video here.
