Tuesday night I was given the opportunity to see the prescreening of the first two episodes of the PBS documentary series Bucks County, USA, along with a Q&A moderated by PBS NewsHour’s Judy Woodruff with the Bucks County residents featured in the first two episodes. The documentary explores the political divisions in our very purple community and the controversies surrounding COVID-19 policies in Central Bucks School District, and then other education policies inflamed by the nation’s larger culture wars, including book bans and LGBTQ Pride flags.
The docuseries uses the story of best friends Evi and Vanessa, students in Central Bucks School District whose parents have opposing political views, as a vehicle to tell the larger story of the conflicts and divisiveness happening in the community. However, I don’t want to reveal too much about the documentary itself as I want you to watch this powerful work about OUR community.
Controversy arose the day before the scheduled prescreening when, the initial host, Bucks County Community College, cancelled the event first without explanation, and then after the Bucks County Beacon published a story about it, with a public statement saying there were security concerns without providing clarity as to what those concerns were. I was distressed to read the comments on Facebook with each “side” accusing the other for the cancellation with the sadly expected name calling and nastiness, exemplifying exactly what the documentary is exploring.
The film was described as both a cautionary tale and light of hope. The lights of hope were these two best friends, Evi and Vanessa, and a retired teacher Kitty Semisch, who spoke of treating others with respect and talking, listening and learning from people with whom they disagree.
The cautionary tale, I was ashamed to see, was us, the adults. I found myself in tears at the end of the screening. What are we doing to ourselves, our community and our children? No, we do not need to agree with each other and yes, we work every day for our beliefs, but we must stop the ugly vitriol, extreme language demonizing each other and threats to each other.
Both sides are to blame.
The Q&A with PBS’s Woodruff began with questions regarding the film to the panelists including the director, and community members. As the Q&A progressed, tensions were palpable.
Oscar Hammerstein and his Bucks County home was referenced and of course the song from South Pacific, You’ve Got to be Carefully Taught. What are we teaching our children? What are we perpetuating in ourselves and fostering in others with our speech? How does our speech lead to horrifying actions? How are we each going to work for what we believe while not burning down our community in the process?
These are questions viewers ought to grapple with as they watch Bucks County, USA and think about how to become better neighbors to each other.
