Film Review: Down a Dark Stairwell (Ursula Liang, 2020)
I just finished watching Ursula Liang’s documentary Down a Dark Stairwell as part of Blackstar Film Festival 2020. The film covers the aftermath of the murder of Akai Gurley, killed by NYPD cop Peter Liang (no relation to Ursula) in 2014. The Chinese American Liang was put on trial in a rare attempt at NYPD accountability, and thousands of Chinese and Asian Americans across the country rallied to Liang’s DEFENSE. The doc follows this shitstorm.
The film weaves together interviews with pro-Peter Liang Chinatown activists, Asian American activists who organized in support of Gurley’s family, Gurley’s loved ones, and Black organizers and community members. Ursula Liang and her team need to be commended for trust they garnered from all sectors of this story, from avuncular Chinese cops to Akai Gurley’s best friend.
Down a Dark Stairwell opens not with the spectacle of Black death — the director purposely chose not to share such imagery — but with the dull institutionality of public housing interior design, through shots of uninviting stairwells, elevators, and doorways. Metal, peeling paint, and cold tile are sonically juxtaposed with a frantic yet remarkably composed phone recording of Gurley’s neighbor and a 911 dispatcher.
Peter Liang’s indictment for manslaughter in 2015 created an uproar in New York Chinatowns. Supporters claimed that he was only being held accountable because he was Chinese. (He remains the only NYPD officer convicted of a killing in 14 years.) In this view, white cops get away with murder all the time, and plus it was an “accident” by a “rookie cop,” so this prosecution shouldn’t be happening. The scale and breadth of the organizing —we see tens of thousands gather in Brooklyn’s Cadman Plaza — shock Black activists, Asian American activists, and Chinese Americans themselves. Peter Liang ally protests and solidarity funds are organized by Chinese American communities in Chicago, Raleigh, San Francisco, LA, Philly, D.C., St. Paul, Dallas, and more, activated by Chinese-language social media platforms. Yet though some Chinese American activists on screen demanded that Peter Liang’s trial and sentencing should not be an indictment of the NYPD at large, or American racism at large, the documentary shows us that many appeared to use the situation as an opportunity to air a variety of grievances about their experiences of racism and discrimination in America.
The footage of Peter Liang’s trial reminds us that he is not the only Asian American invested in “law and order.” I noticed an Asian American female bailiff working at the trial, and the judge presiding over the case, Danny Chun, is also Asian American. As the Asian American population grows, it expands into not just into Hollywood and electoral politics, but also more quietly into the carceral state.
This film is a crucial document of Asian American history. It records the fact that the biggest recent show of Chinese American nationwide solidarity arose to affirm the non-eventness of the state-sanctioned murder of a Black person. These protestors brought American flags, images of MLK, and “all lives matter” chants. Meanwhile, NYC Asian American activists who stood with the Gurley family — particularly Cathy Dang, then Executive Director of CAAAV — received death and rape threats from Peter Liang supporters.
The gendered dimensions of Asian American anti-Blackness — from MRAsians to ethnicels to NYU’s Lambda Phi Epsilon — need to be unpacked. The activists we meet trying to get justice for Akai, whether Black or Asian, were primarily women. Meanwhile, the majority of Chinatown organizing appeared to be done by Chinese men, whether recent immigrants or born-and-bred New Yorkers, a reminder that patriarchy and ethnonationalism go hand in hand. It was excruciating to watch the number of Asian men mansplaining, arguing with, or trying to get information from Black women activists.
In the end, Peter Liang’s conviction is downgraded to “crimininally negligent homicide” and he is given five years’ probation and community service. His supporters decry this as “one tragedy, two victims,” a cruel false equivalence that fails to acknowledge that one of those victims is dead.
The film winds down as Chinatown organizers hold what is supposed to be a subdued celebratory gathering; one speaker declares that the end of Peter Liang’s case is simply the beginning of the community’s journey toward self-determination. CAAAV organizer Cathy Dang wearily affirms this sentiment, noting that this type of right-wing Asian American organizing will only become more prevalent in the future.
Meanwhile, the Gurley side of the story concludes with a mournful gathering of parents and family of people killed by police. The film closes with a montage of footage from Civil Rights and Third World Liberation organizing from the latter half of the twentieth century, over a song insisting, “I love you like you were me.”
Down a Dark Stairwell is an essential primer for younger Asian Americans who have only recently been activated by the Movement for Black Lives during the 2020 uprisings, and who are confused about the necessity of intra-ethnic organizing for coalitional racial justice. I should add that I did not watch this film as a disinterested observer. I attended Justice for Akai protests and can be briefly seen marching in one scene. Though I cannot say for sure whether the Chinese American activists feel they have been represented fairly, I believe teachers, film programmers, and political educators will find the documentary to be evenhanded enough to get a sense of the stakes involved for all parties.
Down a Dark Stairwell will air on public television next year with Cantonese and Mandarin subtitles; filmmaker Ursula Liang hopes this will serve as an entry point for Chinese American communities to start — or continue — talking.
Here are questions I’d like to start with:
1. Why does anyone think it’s ok to be a cop?
2. How do we advocate for more and better opportunities for upward mobility for the types of people who seek to become cops?
3. What are the histories of police and policing in our parents’ countries of origin such that they trust their local U.S. police departments?
4. What are the presumptions that need to be interrogated in order to undo the view that this is “one tragedy, two victims”?
