The Hamptons: playground of the super rich. Epicenter of a luxury property boom, with developers scheming for any scrap of land on which to make millions. Meanwhile the original inhabitants of this beautiful peninsula, the Shinnecock Indians, find themselves pushed to a point of near extinction, squeezed onto a tiny 750- acre reservation. Over hundreds of years the Shinnecock have seen their ancient burial grounds plowed up unceremoniously: for the widening of roads, golf courses and new mansions. On the reservation, wounds run deep.
Exploring the roots of American inequity, greed and pollution, Conscience Point contrasts the values of those for whom beautiful places are a commodity – who regard land as raw material to be developed for profit and pleasure – and those locals for whom land means community, belonging, heritage and home. Conscience Point metaphorically and thematically goes beyond the Hamptons to tell a story of fighting the elite 1% at a time when so many are struggling to remain in gentrifying parts of cities.
43 million people in the United States now live below the poverty line, twice as many as it was fifty years ago.
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