MSNBC’s “Model America” debunks the myth that Teaneck, NJ was a racially utopian society by delving into the horrific 1990 Philip Panel shooting for Teaneck, NJ.
Growing up in Teaneck, New Jersey, co-director Dani Goffstein first learned about Philip Panell, a 16-year-old black man who was killed by a white police officer after his father drove toward a yellow house. pointed, when they went home from the synagogue. The story of injustice in what many label as America’s model community stayed with her into adulthood when the 2014 murder of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, prompted Gofstein to investigate the similarity of the cases.
“There were two different narratives of what happened there,” Gofstein told TheWrap. “There was one of the cops who was saying that this man was trying to shoot him or attack him and the witnesses were saying ‘don’t shoot’.
The first episode of the four-part documentary, which airs Saturday, September 24 at 10 p.m., lays the foundation for the disastrous story by examining how Teaneck came to be, before Episode 2 airs Sunday, September 25 at 10 p.m. . The model may be labeled as Community.
Teaneck’s legacy as a model American community began when it was selected by the federal government in Japan and East Germany to demonstrate what democracy should look like at the local level. This reputation continued when the community became the first city in the country to voluntarily dissociate its school system, and Berkeley, CA was used as an example for integration.
“I always thought growing up at Teaneck meant we were a model, you know, to be seen by the rest of the country,” Gofstein said.
For co-director Michelle Majors, who grew up in Harlem, NYC, Teaneck has an “international arms open spirit,” as seen by the wide array of shops and restaurants on its main street. While the great mix of culture is a fact of the city, Major says the myth is that “there are no problems and we no longer need to worry about race relations because everything is resolved.”
“If you look in our country, we often say, ‘Well, there was a black president,’ so there’s no racism anymore,” Major told TheWrap. “That’s the real problem that we’re seeing with this documentary series is that at times on the surface it will seem like everything is fine. But we have to be aware and continue to investigate where the problems can be, so that we can look into the future.” to avoid such incidents.”
Although the Panell family was hesitant to bring to the fore the tragedy of 30 years ago, the murder of George Floyd in 2020 was an action call for the family to draw attention to Philip’s stories.
“I met with the panel for the first time in 2018, they were quite reluctant at first, I was very skeptical about what my motivation was, why I wanted to tell the story,” Gofstein said, adding that he had received calls from family. Invited him to film a march inspired by the murder of Floyd, which was co-sponsored by the Philip Panel Foundation. “It was the perfect way to bring a 30-year-old story into the present and follow them for the entire summer they were filmed speaking in.”
Although later episodes delve deeper into Gary Spaeth, the white police officer who shot Pannell, the first episode focuses its attention on the city of Teaneck and mentions Spaeth at the end of the first installment.
“We first wanted to paint a picture of what life was like in the city, how the city developed a reputation for being a racial utopia, and set the setting so you could understand how shocking it was when it happened,” said Major. . “Gary Spaeth doesn’t really get into the story until after Philip is killed.”
Major also underscored the importance of highlighting that Philip was “a child” in an “unfortunate situation”. “We just wanted to make sure the audience realized he was there when he was being called a thug,” she said. “He was a kid in an unfortunate situation who had a gun he probably would never have used, and certainly not on the police. We just wanted to establish who he was as a person, because people It’s easy for these young black men and boys not to see people as people, especially if they’re carrying a weapon.
Despite his best efforts to interview Spath for the documentary, Spath eventually declined to speak with the directors.
Episode 2 of “Model America,” which premieres Sunday, September 25 at 10 p.m., will showcase the changing racial dynamics in Teaneck as black residents talk about their experiences with white police officers.