Learning to Hear, Learning to See: Eli Steele On Deafness, Documentaries, and the American Dream

Filmmaker Eli Steele has built a career on the conversations most people would rather avoid: race, identity, culture, and opportunity.

Born profoundly deaf into a family whose heritage spans Black, Jewish, white, and Native American traditions, Eli grew up outside the categories America uses to sort people. In this wide-ranging conversation with host Dr. Chris Meek, he opens a window into a world few listeners have ever considered: how a deaf child learns that objects have names, how reading happens without sound, and how someone comprehends the very concept of sound having never heard one. He also revisits his decision at twenty-five to undergo cochlear implant surgery, chronicled in the film Eli's Story: Learning to Hear, including the day his implants were activated, the first sound he remembers, and why hearing more didn't change who he was.

From there, the conversation turns to the camera. Eli discusses how growing up deaf sharpened him as an observer, the responsibilities that come with documentary filmmaking, and whether objectivity is even the goal. He talks candidly about his father, the influential writer and thinker Shelby Steele, how their relationship evolved from father-and-son into creative collaboration, and how he works to remain distinctly his own person. And he takes on the films themselves: What's Bugging Seth, How Jack Became Black, the controversy surrounding What Killed Michael Brown? and its temporary removal from Amazon, and his newest project, What Killed the Dream?

Along the way: whether the marketplace of ideas is opening or narrowing, where editorial judgment ends and censorship begins, what threatens the American Dream, and what stories, if any, can still unite us.

About Eli Steele: Eli Steele is an award-winning documentary filmmaker, writer, storyteller and president of Man of Steele Productions. He has devoted his career to exploring some of the most difficult and important conversations in America: race, identity, culture and opportunity. Born profoundly deaf and raised in a family whose heritage spans Black, Jewish, white and Native American traditions, Eli brings a perspective shaped by experiences that don’t fit neatly into society’s labels. His documentaries, including How Jack Became Black and What Killed Michael Brown?, have sparked national conversations and challenged audiences to reconsider some of the assumptions that shape modern American life.