Pay TV pick: America to Me

AMERICA TO ME

New series ★★★★

The title comes from a 1935 poem by Langston Hughes, a leading figure of the Harlem Resistance who once described himself as "a literary sharecropper". He was simply noting that the America of the American Dream was not his America. This lively, affectionate, non-judgmental 10-part documentary explores that idea through the lives of a bunch of black and biracial kids at Chicago's Oak Park and River Forest High School – an ostentatiously inclusive public school in one of that city's better suburbs. Its nuanced exposure of unconscious bias and entrenched, almost instinctive segregation certainly drives the narrative, but what keeps us hooked are the rounded portraits of the kids. They're as diverse, funny, infuriating and loveable as teens anywhere. Their lives are dominated by sports, romance, homework, family, and whether they're having a good hair day. Will shy Grant sink or swim in his freshman year? Will Kendale get his weight down for that important wrestling comp? But overlaying it all is the constant awareness that even in an environment where almost half the kids are non-white, they're still marked out as Other – and in many cases, Lesser. How and why that happens makes for fascinating and challenging viewing.