 is that take a look at each other and challenge each other about what's authentic and what's not authentic. And so we're just so so honored that we have this partnership with the LARC for a second year because we have so many variables that we share and they just are really great for us and great to us. Thanks John Eisner, Michael Robertson. Everyone here at the LARC has just been wonderful and so we're so happy that we are in love now. And so but I also just want to mention funders and a couple other things before I have the panel. Yes, special shout out to the New York State Council on the Arts and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. Yes, the four foundation, thank you so much. And on that note, one thing that you can do, everything that we do here at the LARC is completely free of admission. All the money that we raise has contributed income from individuals and institutions. So if you're in a position to make any kind of donation, whether it's five cents or five million dollars, there's a little pink birdhouse up at the table where you enter. You can put any donation in a tiered position to do that and we're going to share that. We're going to share the birdhouse. We got to join this thing. So for those of you who are actually watching, because actually we're being live streamed, so you can be active audience participants and all that, we're being live streamed. So you can follow us on Twitter at the New Black Fest and also at LARC Talks. And during the panel conversation and post conversation, you can tweet live, you can also provide questions for the panel. So do that at home, you can also do that here in the audience. Is there anything else we need to? Turn off your cell phones, please. And if you stick around afterwards, we're going to open up a couple of bottles of wine and have some snacks in the lobby so you can hang out and we go with the panelists and each other. And I'm going to leave now. Before the panel begins, for those of you who are not aware of the whole week, the week is starting tonight, it's the K-Ball panel. Tomorrow night is Lisa Strungs. Let me read this correctly because I got it wrong in the past. Lisa Strungs, she gon' learn. She gon' learn. She gon' learn. Directed by Ngozi Anyawu. On March 16th at 7 p.m., it's Married by Lynelle Moyes. Directed by Nicole A. Watson. On March 17th at 7 p.m., porn play or Bless Me the Meek by Eric Michael Holmes. Directed by Carl Colfield. And on March 18th at 7 p.m., schoolgirls are the African Mean Girls Play by Jocelyn Biel. Directed by J. King Carroll. And March 19th at 7 p.m., when we left by Sangu. Directed by Stephen Broadnacks. All right? For tonight, the White Gaze, the Truth Gaze, and a New Revolution. Moderator tonight is Nicole Salter. We say a few things about her. Arrived on the scene with her co-authorship and co-performance with Denai Gurira the Pulitzer Prize nominated in the continuum. Yes, she received independent reviewers from New England. Reviewers, New England Award nomination for Best Actress for Stick Fly co-produced by Irida Stage and Huntington Theatre and was recently seen in the West Coast premiere of McCranie's Head of Passes at Berkeley Rep Theater. Salter has written six plays, been commissioned by six institutions. She's been produced from three continents in five countries and published in 12 international publications. The National Black Theater's production of her play, Carnival, was nominated for seven Adult Award Awards. Yes. Salter's deep sense of social responsibility led her to co-found with Sangu the continuum project incorporated a nonprofit organization that creates innovative artistic programming for community empowerment. So that is Nicole Salter, our moderator. The panelist is Dorian Misick. Actor paid this wail to the scene when he starred opposite Sandra Bullock and Hugh Grant in Two Weeks Notice. Most recently seen on the big screen in the Jerry Brokheimer produced Deliver Us from Evil and Christmas's season hit, Annie. Currently, Misick stars opposite R&B superstar Brandy in the new BET series, Zoe Ever After and as the lead and executive producer of the film, Nine Rides which just premiered at South by Southwest. Yes. Right? Just head back today. Yes. Recurring roles on AMC series Better Called South and the HBO comedy series The Brink. Misick also starred off-Broadway in the post-surprise winning drama A Soldier's Play opposite Anthony Mackie and Tate Dadex at Second Stage. Next for our panel is Michael Denzel Smith. He's a nobler. Am I saying that right? A nobler fellow at the Nation Institute and a contributing writer for The Nation magazine. He is written for The New York Times, The Atlantic, on feministine.com, The Guardian, The Root, The Griot, Think Progress, Think Progress, and The Huntington, Huntington Post. He has the featured commentator on NPR, BBC Radio, CNN, MSNBC, Huffington Post Live, and another of other amazing television radio programs. His new memoir, Invisible Man Got the Whole World Watching, published by Nation Books, is out June 14th. Right? June 14th. June 14th. Yes. Kea Corcoran, finally. Playwright and novelist, and good friend. First novel, The Castle Cross, The Magnet Carter, was released by Seven Stories Press in January. Her awards for her body of work and playwright include the White Hymn Campbell Prize for Drama, the U.S. Artist Jane Adams Fellowship, the Simon Grape Plains Playwriting Award, the Lee Reynolds Award, and in May she will be honored with the Otto Award. Productions have premiered in New York by BAM, Playwrights Horizons, Unsung Will Studio Theater, New York Theater Workshop, Atlantic Theater Company, Manhattan Theater Club, London. She was at Darmar Warehouse, the Royal Court. She's been produced everywhere. Amazing playwright. So, that is all I'm going to say. Thank you for being here. Take it away, Nicole. Take it away. It's a new revolution. We're just going to jump right into that conversation. Is that cool with you guys? So, I'm also supposed to say that we're live streaming on HowlRound, and if you guys want to tweet at the New Black Fest and at LarkTalks, use hashtags TNVF16 and hashtag New Play. Okay. My one right there. Yeah. I'll be saying that periodically. I've been told to say that periodically. Say that periodically. So, the novel laureate, Tony Morrison, has said, quote, our lives have no meaning, no depth without the white gaze. And she went on to say that she had spent her entire life writing to make sure that the white gaze had not become the dominant one in any of her books. And that term, the white gaze, in my research, seems to have been coined by that conversation that she was having. So, I wanted to know what the white gaze means to you all. Go for it. Yeah. Let me call her name. Doreen. Okay. Let's mark you the topic. No. You know what? It's funny. I thought about it a bunch of times, knowing that this was going to be about the white gaze. And the only thing I could think about was it's almost like something, it's like that feeling that you have to kind of live up to a standard that is defined by somebody who doesn't really understand you. And so in a way, it's reflected on our community that we feel as if we are doing things or we should behave in a certain manner because there's that feeling that the man, the white man is always watching and always kind of monitoring our behavior. So then we self-police as a result of that. And I think it stifles us creatively. And just on an everyday living, on an everyday basis, I think it kind of stifles us. In a kind of devoid sense, but kind of double-consciousness sense. Correct. What about you again? Did I quote again? Yes. Our lives have no meaning, no depth without the white gaze. And I spent my entire life trying to make sure that the white gaze was not the dominant one in any of my books. You know, it's funny because growing up, I definitely felt that because I grew up in a small town in a valley of the Appalachians in Western Maryland, we grew up to West Virginia. And so I was always the only black kid in my class. And so, here's an example, which will totally date me. I remember Fridays, all the white kids, oh no, Mondays, all the white kids would come and talk about what happened on the Brady Bunch. And I never knew because my family watched San Bernardino. So yeah, looking back, I'm really proud of that. But at the time, it was like I had nothing to say in the conversation. Which is kind of that side. Of course, a minor kind of funny thing. I can remember other things like the time in gym class when I, a whole bunch of girls before gym class started. And one of them told this buddy Joe, and there was like 14 girls, maybe. And I was the only black one. And she whispered it to her friend. And he was like, crack that. And then other people said, what's the joke? And they said, oh we can't tell that joke. And before gym class started, they had whispered to every single girl, but not me. This is whatever this joke was. Even though that no one ever looked at me, but I was the only one who did get to hear this joke. In my writing, I, of course, a lot of time has gone by since then, but I, I'm so into my characters that I feel like I don't feel that. Because I'm so into who they are that I'm not, that I really am not thinking about the outside. I'm thinking about this month with them. Do you think Michael LeWittges has an impact on your work? Consciously or subconsciously? I don't know if I can all about work, but I think to sort of piggyback on what you're saying, white gaze is essentially another way for white supremacy to shackle our imaginations and define the existence of people who are not white. The first introduction to the world from the society that we live in is through the white gaze, I think, for the most part you are. You've been born into a definition that you either have to accept or reject at some point. And unless you are actively unlearning, looking at yourself and looking at the world through that white gaze, it's going to have an impact on things, through belief in the things that you say in the art produced. But even if you don't, we all just don't consume it because it's so down and in such a big force, it is essential to so much of American cultural output to break yourself away from that, to pull away and ask yourself different questions based on your own perception of the world, the absent of what the white gaze has taught you about yourself and your surroundings is a process. It's not something that you can achieve overnight. So we're all affected by it. It's a matter of you want to distract yourself from that. And I think that's one of the bigger problems for a lot of cultural workers is not wanting to distract themselves from that by either accepting the white gaze, accepting those definitions, or becoming so obsessed with correcting what they believe the white gaze has imposed upon them, that they become obsessive. But all the work is derivative of the same thought anyway. All the work is derivative of the gaze. What did you guys realize that there was a white gaze? What did you realize? Like if it's something that is a kind of dominant way of looking at things, the idea that you should watch the Brady Bunch or that there was a sense of normalcy that was established, when did you realize that you didn't sit permanently inside that? You sort of answered that with your anecdote about the Brady Bunch. I'll say to you, my parents sent me to private school very early age, so I was often found, you know, the only black face in a very white place. And that's when I started, because you learned from an earlier, you know, kindergarten, first grade on, you kind of learned you become socialized. And so my social circle, mostly white kids in school, but at home and in my family, I was around people who looked like me, and we had a different set of activities. And I remember going to school and my principal's husband, who just used to sit outside and kind of just dictate things. He was kind of an overseer in that way. I actually don't need to use that term, because that's what I think he thought he was. And he would constantly wait to see what I was wearing in school. Turn your hat around for it. But everybody on my block would have had backwards. And my friends in school celebrated it, but this guy was like, you cannot step foot into this area until you turn your hat around. And then I started to realize that a lot of the things that I did seemed to get on his nerves, and they were just me existing. And I realized he's trying to make me fit in more with what he's comfortable with, has nothing to do with what I'm comfortable with, has everything to do with what he's comfortable with. And I think that was the very beginnings of me kind of starting to get to a place of not really giving shit, you know, about what that, because I realized it was way more about him than it was about my, and this is like first grade, first grade when I really started to feel it, because I had so much pride in my family, my family West Indian, and we had a lot of pride. And so I grew up feeling happy with who I was. I had many problems with you, and I didn't think it never occurred to me that other people had a problem with who I was, because my white friends, some of whom, they came from different places, and they all had pride in who they were, and we had not yet all been conditioned to be racist toward each other. So it was cool. I was the coolest kid, because I could run the fastest. I don't know if it was being black, white, whatever, you know, although he probably would have told me it had something to do with me being black, because I could run the fastest. But it wasn't until this guy kept imposing upon me his concept that I realized, you know, it's not that important to be like you. I don't want to live my life according to your standards. But, you know, that's a struggle that you, once you decide to not do that, you think that you're going to have some allies in your own community, but you sometimes don't. And you definitely don't have allies in any, in any, you know, the gaze is not for you, but the people who look like you, they would support that movement. And I found out very quickly when the next black kid came to school that he wasn't about that living outside the box life. That was not for him. Yeah, he was like, listen, if you want to get along here, you're going to get, as a matter of fact, take that hat off and talk like these guys. And that's when I started to realize there's something very different about how people respond to the gaze, so to speak. Michael. Sometimes they, when they talk about, you know, the idea of acting white or acting black, the one time in my life where I told I was acting with white girls on the school bus, they didn't tell me, I didn't act that black. And it was curious, like I thought about that a lot since then because I think that the idea of black people telling one another that they don't act black sometimes gets overblown. What I realized is that it's a lot of the definitions of blackness consumed and appealed to are definitions given to us on the basis of the white gaze, on the basis of what whites are trying to see would like to see. The idea of building one's culture in the face of oppression as a means of survival and then having that culture used against you to justify your oppression. But to also never have, never be able to achieve any other definition that would alleviate that oppression, that all comes from whiteness. We cannot impose that upon ourselves. We, those definitions, cannot come from us because if it were the case we would not define ourselves into oppression as I hopefully would. So I think that's the first time in thinking through that idea. I thought about that and I thought about in the sixth grade when the white would call me a nigger. I think in those two instances are the sort of understanding of what it means to be other and then understanding that no matter what definition I could want for myself in the context of whiteness, in the context of white supremacy, the white gaze, whatever micro we want to throw on top of it, it can be and will be used to denigrate my humanity. Yeah, I think the first time that I realized, it wasn't the first time I realized that there was a white gaze. I knew that I was black and the other kids were white. The first time I realized that there was a power dynamic within that difference. It was unlike the brownies and we went on trips around the world but not around the world like to different museums. And we were going to Australia to see the kangaroos and one of the brownie sisters told me that I couldn't go because there are no black people in Australia. And at the time, it didn't impact me partially at all. I was like, oh, yeah. She's like, yeah, you can't go. I was like, that sucks. There are no black people there. She's like, no. And I was like, oh, okay, well, I'll catch y'all when we all go to South America. You know, like... But to realize that I couldn't do something now was an interesting change. So speaking of not being able to do or being able to do something, what impact does the white gaze, wouldn't you realize that there was white gaze in your work and your professional life and how has that impacted you as you develop your career? Thank you, Michael. Do you want to pass the mic? Okay, I'm sorry. I mean, that's an honest question. When did you know that the white gaze mattered or that you just became conscious that you were enraptured in a state of double consciousness? Not everyone awakens to that idea or not. I mean, that's when it's decision time. It's okay. I'm my livelihood depends on collecting and checking from white people. How much of myself am I willing to compromise here? Am I going to be silent in the face of their racism just because I collect and check from them? Now, a lot of us make the decision to survive and just go along and get along and they are bringing to that. And that's fine. It's not at all... I would never at all knock that choice for anybody because survival is real, capitalism is real. We all got to do what we got to do. But you do have to ask yourself that question. Is my sanity worth it? Is my livelihood effective? Am I going to allow that, again, the system, which is very cleverly people with genius design system to dictate my voice? You know, as a military, it's very fun. Let's give a little bit of a deeper into each of our differences for all kind of storytelling artists. As a novelist, when you're embarking on trying to get your work published, when you're coming up with ideas for your work, how has this dynamic had an impact on you? Or not? Not consciously. I mean, I grew up, my whole life, in this working class. We're kind of supporters now, because it's very working class and primarily my graduate class was like 300 people in 10 black and nothing else. Everything else was white. So it was like, yeah, yeah, maybe 3% white in this non-working class because they didn't know all the jobs, they lost all the jobs and things like that. So nobody's working. And this continued, you know, somewhat into college. But when I became, you know, as a young woman, of course, is that this happened, in fact, and the racism there, but in terms of my work, I really, I just so am into that character. I mean, in the book, there's two white brothers and two black brothers, and whatever character I'm completely into it, and I don't think about that. In the course of my life, sometimes that's for whatever reason, you know, my career is like this, you know, sometimes I'm working really well, sometimes I'm not, but for whatever reason that it is, but I don't consciously compromise, is what I'll say, or consciously not compromise. I'm just like so into the characters, I'm not thinking about it. What about the audition room? The audition room? I mean, I think there's been a lot of discussion about, you know, the opportunities for black performers and actors in the industry. But I think that where it affected, it affects me the most, is initially the whole thing about we police ourselves, you know. So you think that the answer is, well, let me work with some black folks, you know, so then we can tell some stories that showcase us in a full, in a full light, you know, living a complete life, but a lot of times the decision makers aren't going on and get along. So they've already, they've already policed themselves and decided, well, I'm going to tell the story that I know will be accepted, as opposed to telling the truth. So then in a way, you still kind of just sign up for a co-show, you know, and it's just your, the director might be like, or the writer might be like, whatever, you know, you might, they do think for you that, to make you feel more comfortable in it. And so what I did constantly in the early stages of my career was I would pressure my reps to go out to roles that weren't written by, and that's, you know, for about three years you just bang your head against a wall. And then they could figure out the trick. You can start getting roles that are written for, that are not necessarily written by, but they'll be like the least developed guy in the script that would generally go to like the fat white guy, they'll give it to the cool acting. You know, so you don't really get to do anything, but they'd say, listen, you know, this guy was supposed to be, you know, by the time he announced you, you know, the line cast did, you know, but you still don't get to feel like you're living a full life. I remember there was a huge, huge, huge, highly film that I ended up getting fired from as a result in the rehearsal process because it was the moment when I realized, these people are, this industry is not going to, if I play the game by their rules, I'm never going to be able to live a full life. That's not dictated by all white versus definition of who I'm supposed to be. So it was the moment of making, I mean, a huge hit movie and I was supposed to play this rapper and it was sitting in a room with all the dudes who were listening, looked like they'd never listened to rap music before and they were telling me how to go about playing a rapper. And I was like, you know, listen, I don't know how it is. Now the other guys in the cast, my wife has some members, they have opinions about how their roles are supposed to be played in this thing. The character is very open, right? It was very clear and open and loved all of their input. And I'm talking about guys who are playing like, you know, characters that are so far from who they are but yet he's so open to what they have to say. And I'm playing a character that's sort of close to the bone. I mean, I'm not a rapper, but, you know, listen, I'm a black dude who grew up in the 90s. I'm not a lot of rappers. You know what I'm talking about? So I was like, listen, I think that I'd like to contribute to that will make this character a little more realistic because we have some problematic moments here. So not being looked at as a collaborator if you're in the white gaze. Yeah, exactly. Listen, this is what we wrote, man. Be comfortable. Just be happy you're here. And then that's when I realized, oh, it's not because they haven't met someone who's willing to speak out. It's because they don't want to meet someone who's willing to speak out. And then that is, it was, I went out on my way to eat fire from that situation. Was it your dream for our moment? Is it really? It really was. Like, yeah, you know, walk away, you know, one of the rare times that's ever happened. And as a result, I walked away feeling way more empowered. I was a lot poorer as a result. But no one was hit. Most of my friends were like, and all I could think of was that would have been the last we ever made in my whole career. I might have jumped off the building somewhere, or you might have just, you know, like, never seen me, you know, this is the capital of the world I've never seen again. You know, the kind of guy who went along and go along. He didn't do it. They fired, I'm gonna just say, they fired a real rapper after me. They hired a real rapper. He hired a real rapper after me. Man, I wanted to do this real rapper because I'm black and young. So I ran to the room, and they hired you after they fired me. They fired me today. Authentic for the Estelle from the Truth Gaze, Donna Hossie Coates wrote a piece for The Atlantic in June of 2012 titled You Didn't Build That Criticizing Tony Morrison the woman whose quote we used to start this discussion. Criticizing her remarks about the white gaze in her work, and he points out in that article that all of her novels, Michael was saying, and all of her novels are kind of a world of themes that are derivatives of the white gaze. So when you look at The Blue Is Die or Tar Baby or Paradise, they're all responsive in that way. They're not in his opinion authentic or of original thought they're responsive. They're not offensive, they're defensive. And he said quote, I think part of the problem is that being a black writer is like being drafted and sent to war. You want to quote just right. But you have this idea of what just right is. It's not apolitical or disconnected, but it isn't connected to an ultimate thing of total communities. So when you're thinking about that authentic voice outside of the white gaze, but is it possible to surmount the influence of that gaze in your work and perhaps in your personal life? Typically I would say it is, but you have to you are definitely making a sacrifice in some way whether it be a social sacrifice except in the fact that you are not going to be socially accepted as those who decide to play by the rules or a financial sacrifice. And it's about your threshold for pain. It's a shame that in order to be yourself in this society, you have to be willing to succumb to some sort of pain just to be allowed to tell your own story or to live your life in the way that you're comfortable with. But once you make that adjustment mentally for me at least I was you find that you decide where you're comfortable with or is it doing what I'm most comfortable with because no matter what we're going to make some I mean that's what the world is about you know figuring out how to get along with everyone to a certain degree. So you're going to make some sacrifices and it's just it depends on how serious sacrifice you want to make. I guess it depends on where and how you're seeing the impact of the white gaze. So if the idea is one where you are sacrificing and it's coming to white gaze in terms of definitions of black life that white supremacy has set out and only writing to those definitions then yes you certainly are going to have space to just say I'm not going to accept those and I'm going to broaden my understanding of what my own humanity was like, what my community was like and speak to different ideas. I do think though that the idea of completely throwing off the shackles of white gaze is to then say that you're not going to one of the things that binds us in blackness because of the experience of racism and that by definition is going to engage to the white gaze on some level whiteness is the sort of operational definition of the standard and the oppressor the oppressor. So yes from that position yes you're going to I think the issue is less are you going to are you going to engage it or not it's about which of its definitions which of its lies do you still hold dear and believe that value why why do you continue to traffic in your lies and to why the obsession to the point that you can't see the rest of blackness and humanity within blackness I think that for me it's valuable thinking through this and you know it's not really a still matte color really a still matte and why is he matte it's because Alice Walker decided not to engage the white gaze as much what did she do she decided to look at the perspective of black women of black women that situation and what that did was then implicate black men and once you throw off the white once you step outside of the white gaze just a bit and you start delving into the factors that impact us within our community you start dealing with the messiness of all of that implicating people and seeing where you are complicit in your own privilege and power and oppression and where you derive your identity and that starts to piss people off because whiteness is such a common enemy for us that we can all rally behind that particularly within the confines of a hetero patriarchal understanding of what liberation looks like if we can all rally behind the idea that the white man is the evil one and we can all just have to set aside all of the other differences and do that but it does not take me to account everything else that's happening within the community and all of the power play within there and the replication and reproduction of power structures within our community on the basis of gender and sexual identity and class differences and so on and what have you so the idea is not even then that you can't throw off the white gaze and the problem is once you do you start opening up this can of worms that ask different questions of people that they don't want to have to deal with I did a writing residency at Hedrick a while ago there was one there named Holly Neer who was a writer and one of the things that struck me about our fireside conversations was how much she felt as though or seemed to in that moment to speak for her life but in that moment to feel as though the sacrifices that she made to create freedom songs actually didn't bring about it and how if she had integrated herself more into the quote-unquote mainstream which is really just a huge thing this white gaze she could have done more what's to be said about both changing systems from the inside out and what do you think about all of the initiatives particularly in the theater world because I like to say at PCG doing a lot with equity diversity and inclusion but even what's going on Hollywood all these demands for policy to make sure that everyone is able to participate differently I guess they don't agree with what you said about the white gaze because on some level I guess students say he wore black these people are the power of this country and this sort of applies to what they're saying so I wrote a novel and I did self-publish it and take it into a black community and hopefully sell it to black people so is that part of the white gaze is it because once it had the power that they could publish novels first is that that it's always an invitation I'm honestly not sure I'm not like asking that if it's not sarcasm actually I guess it depends on how you define it I mean I guess you could say anything we do in this country white people probably did it first because they had the power to because we were picking cotton so yeah is it all an invitation I don't know girl God bless the people that want to work within institutions and change them because they have patients that I just do not because institutions are built to protect themselves and to perpetuate themselves and so they are resistant to change just by nature they are inherently conservative in a sort of small sea-sense that you do not whatever institution that you're entering into just simply it's not going to revolutionize overnight just because you asked it to and it doesn't matter how many faces like brown faces that you put within positions of power what the underlying idea is is to keep this particular institution going so that cuts across the board whatever we're going to talk about writing, we're going to talk about politics and the government we're going to talk about education all of it is built to change very slowly so the idea that we just get a whole bunch of us into the system when we get to people in positions of power and it changes and it's just a job but that's a change but that's not it's not going to produce the type of results that we're looking for immediately we do have to have the sort of insight out in where it's like the people with the patience to do that can work themselves into institutions and work their way up the corporate ladder and do all that while having people agitate from the outside that's just one way of thinking about it I think and you know all of it's tough there's no easy answer build our own institution we've got the money to do it it's all tough there's no one answer I think the thing you should have to do is find out where you fit in what is it that you do well what is your temperament suited for and then you do that thing and if it's working with the system then by all means if it's shouting from outside of it to burn it all down like me that's what we've got to do if it's you have that sort of institutional knowledge to be able to build something we need that too I'm not suggesting if we all focus all of our energy on one or the other because we've tried all of that throughout our history here and what we have to keep in mind is that when the white supremacy decides that that's enough it shuts it down power will protect it so we're looking for answers throwing ideas on the wall hoping something sticks I keep doing that I'm very hopeful I know sorry I kind of forgot the question it was about looking into thinking about the truth gaze and trying to develop a sense of authenticity or a space where you can be whoever it is that you are outside of the white gaze or how to approach that within institutions there's the outside work down and there's the will I get more done if I operate within the institution the top thing about that is it was Paul Payton who said it's one of the most revolutionary things you can do not power is to be yourself and I think that the truth of existing particularly here in America is that the white gaze does exist so to try to encourage is to create you know the Disney so it doesn't exist so I think that that anything that speaks to our experience here is not in some kind of way affected affected by the white gaze I think it is a little I don't think you can do that you don't think it can be changed do you think it can be changed with all of our diversity initiatives what do you think of the progress I think some progress I think it can be changed completely I'm not very confident that it's simply because similar to what was said earlier about once you take away the the enemy of racism or any of the oppressor then you have to deal with all the different nuances of our community of black community and that then that end of self will deter in other shops but what about things like when you look at industries developing like why don't we say oh we want to get out of this white gaze let's go to Africa, let's go to Nollywood and make our films there why don't we do that what do you think that one is doing well you know there's the people who are making their money strictly I guess what you would consider independent you know friends and family and that can definitely be done but then once again it just because a black person is creating it or a non-white person is creating it doesn't mean that every non-white person is going to divorce it doesn't mean that this speaks to every non-white person's experience so at some point there's going to be a structure of power there's going to be white gaze there's going to be black gaze there's going to be black silky hair gaze there's going to be something you know and so I think the best thing is I still feel gay there too you know we know that about that we'll get a hand for this back yes lord we are live streaming on HowlRound and live streaming on Twitter TNVF I'm going to open it up to some questions in the audience and I think we also have questions on Twitter and here she goes we don't have answers to the how do we break the binary of black, white oppressor, oppressed, power and power and the after answer is we all are going to go skipping down the streets happily alright we have a supremacy and how do you end it what's it for acting Michael I think that people are looking for some practical answer to say today what can I do at home right now that will get us out of this binary thinking about what blackness and whiteness and it's like white supremacy has a 400 plus year head start on you and it has found multiple ways to to re-graciate itself within our political and social and cultural lives that you are not going to find a solution to it right now our best minds have been at work for quite some time I had someone I was at a different panel and we were talking about the concept of liberation and he came to ask the question and he was like we had liberation and at one point I was like who are you talking about and it's also black wall street and he was like you know they did black wall street it burned everybody down and it only existed because they were sedated to it do you understand what happens is white supremacy protects itself one the best thing we can do is survive and hope that we outlast it but you know clocking chains won't kill us all before we end white supremacy honestly that's don't worry about it um in the audience there's a question oh now you break them you won't break you won't break something it's all up to you it's all up to you no harm no harm yeah alright thank you I'll repeat I'll repeat it so that they'll hear it um this is in reference to we were saying I'm talking about I was wondering where all of you guys think that we need more negative portrayals of blackness and being black along the entertainment do you find them more helpful or harmful yes she was asking a question about whether or not negative portrayals of African Americans were helpful or harmful in our world of storytelling exactly that's the context that comes up a lot and I think that being honest is the best thing and when you are honest sometimes the movies will look like precious or if you're honest sometimes the movies will look like I don't know being brave enough to tell an honest story and not being concerned with how it's going to be received I think is that an audience that we as people are very into honesty so you know when you're being pandered to and you know when someone is trying to reach a broad audience and you know when something is very specific Justin Lane has a film called Better Love Tomorrow and this is his first film and it's just about the lives of Asian kids in high school when they go home the lives they live and I was in class with a lot of Asian kids but I never went home with them and so watching this movie and seeing just how specific that life was it made me turn the mirror back on myself and examine how I view people because I was like man I'm thinking these kids just go home and do their homework all the time to the store or whatever and then come back to school and these kids were getting into drugs and partying and yet still coming back and kicking asses in class you know and that let me know that well that was a very honest portrayal like it might have been an aspect of this community that I was like listen I don't want to show my children snoring cocaine I prefer if you didn't but for me a young black male who I thought were your four Asian friends and I realized that just they were more acquaintances because I had no idea that they could possibly go home and be doing this possibly going home and living a full life because my idea of what their life was was based on my experience and my opinion about who they are and so if we as artists are brave enough to show all aspects of our lives it kind of will loosen up to a certain degree but what I did is like listen anything negative that you think can come up about us we've already put out the honest portrayal of it so if you want to talk about baby daddy trauma that is you know that might be part of our community but there are a million different ways that baby daddy trauma starts it's not just I don't want to be in the house I don't want to get a job I can't get a job she don't want me in the house she's never had a man in the house this man in her house is bothering her too much to stay in the house she doesn't know how to operate deal with this person so we should tell those stories as well I just wanted to ask a question about specifically you guys touched a little bit about the possibility of using alternative media now to kind of build like a talk about Naughty Wood or a kind of pan-African media type of thing going on and it was kind of I heard it dismissed a little bit and I just want to talk about the white gaze and its effect on the potential of non-white or black institution by kind of claiming this like universality we talked about the fact that just because it is like black people in it doesn't mean other black people would be watching it but it's interesting that's never a question asked when we talk about anything why? you know what I mean because the idea of the neutral universal is white and I just wonder sometimes because we are in this kind of media landscape when you have this new black people pan-African audience emerging and this seems to be a hesitancy like well that can't exist I just wonder I feel like oftentimes our institutions for I'm speaking in terms of theater specifically but I don't think it's a dynamic exclusive to theater sometimes our participation in is like a means to an end like the real end is to be Denzel so I'm doing this play because I'm not Denzel yet but I'm on my way and when I get there I don't come back and do the play I don't have a subscription to an institution I don't go see anything there because I'm Denzel now so there's actually to me there's a sense of using our institutions as stepping stones but not really investing in wanting to build them ultimately because one of my questions or one of my points was you know we're in this incredible digital age where the threshold of entry has so lowered itself where anybody who wants to tell a story write an article publish a memoir whatever you expression that you want to have in terms of a story teller you can do there's no one to stop you at all but yet the barometer of success is whether or not you got the Pulitzer and you're not going to get the Pulitzer if you publish your book on www.BooBoo.com here just not I try which brings me to one of my final questions for you all really our definition of success how do you view success within the white gaze, within your truth gaze, within the new revolution where Elaine Locke in 1925 said in his book The Turbine Negro their book The Negro today wishes to be known for what he is this is 1925 y'all even in his faults and shortcomings and scorns and craven and precarious survival at the price of seeming to be what he is not he now becomes a conscious contributor and lays aside the status of beneficiary and ward for that of collaborator and participant in American civilization where do you see, how do you divine that success I want to hear from everybody too so don't well it's it's funny you bring up the Pulitzer because you know when I'm talking about that I'm focused on my character I don't think about that white gaze but that is the place where it's sort of like the recognition which comes from that it's been given to a few people of color makes it suddenly feel like it's for everybody and obviously it's not who are the people making those decisions and so I I may not be thinking about that white gaze when I'm writing but later I'm waiting to see like it's true yeah I mean it's not conscious thinking about that but it is certainly that where are all those accolades coming from really and again as they say that I it's almost if it were only given to white people you could sort of say well that's you know and you could just be more dismissive of it because there's enough little carrot sticks out there because of it happening then suddenly you do sort of buy into that it's you know that it's there for everyone the truth is I think that I it's not that it isn't given to people of color but then it becomes who's turn and whose turn is it you know history of seven killings they never give a booker to a Caribbean writer before and so it's you know who's which person of color's turn it is I was trying to say which community which community and so because it's the person of color's turn and then which community gets it exactly so good question as we pass it I just want to interject here this concept of like who is lauded and what for and why how all of those things kind of play into the white games as well just wanted to go back oh yeah yeah this is some shit I'm really trying to work through right now because three whole months before the book actually comes out I can get to think about all of this and think about how I wanted to be received and all of that and I'm like they're not gonna give me a national book award they gave Tana Hassi one they ain't gonna do two brothers in a row what happened how do you say the plan on Broadway now and I do it as a clips a clips is on Broadway now but a clips has been a play for quite some time for years and it got no love because they're like we can't have two African stories at the same time but because of ruin because of ruin yeah and I'm thinking through it I really want a New York Times bestseller that's the goal of mine if everyone in here goes and pre-orders it right now I have a chance you'll be well on your way but ultimately you know I'm good with it I gave it to the people that I most respect and they said all the things about it that I needed them to say and I'm good now I still want a New York Times bestseller but like why do you want a New York Times bestseller what does that kind of do for you then we get in all the types of practical considerations in terms of but the New York Times bestseller that means my speaking fee goes up sorry Keith you got him Keith yeah and then I don't have to write another book for a long time because I can't just go out and speak forever but also there's prestige to it it's like so ultimately we're suddenly back around to that do you want to be respected absolutely and yes the sort of barometer of what respect looks like is based on things that are dependent upon the white gaze because we're not, we haven't escaped that but I mean that again depends on where you're drawing those lines like in a professional context I understand those accolades that are bestowed upon institutions that are largely white have a certain meaning but you know if I get an NAACP image or I'm a celebrity the shit out of that too it's an achievement for me is an achievement but certain ones do practically just carry more weight outside of my own sort of personal joy that they will bring so I mean it's essentially what we're saying is you still have no we've not escaped the white gaze we are still beholden to it no matter the level that you reach you are beholden to the idea of acceptance on the basis of the standard that the white gaze is set so yeah we like pine after those things but ultimately you do have to find that center of yourself that says what is the actual meaning there it's not actually meaningful to me if I get a national book award or become a filing so I don't actually care what I do care about is that when this book comes out you're able to hand it to a 17 year old black boy who's you know could be a Trayvon Martin and is able to find a sense of self and value himself in this world that will try to kill him and be able to walk through with a new understanding of who he is, what history is steeped in and where we need to go like that's ultimately what's most meaningful question here I want to say what about mine real quickly success is peace and however you find that you know whatever wherever you find your peaceful place as artists you put art out into the world and people have opinions about it one way or the other whether you value that person's opinion or not they exist and that's the point that's part of how what happens when you put art out so once it is released into the world I'm okay with it what other people think about it who I don't know or anything like that it doesn't affect me as much and as far as the accolades are concerned we all know what they do for us on a very practical level you win an Oscar well for black actors you win an Oscar that's it for you go bye bye but you know certain things do do up your ante and for me it will give me more creative leverage to you know more leverage to I know for a fact that I tell my agents all the time one for you two for me so you do the one that you may have to sacrifice to get a little money for and then you do two indies where you get to live a real life and ultimately those are the ones that feed you creatively and those are the ones that help a young filmmaker coming up because who might have had to use his home boy now he's got a dude who's on television in his movie who attracts other actors like that and now you're nation building but at the same time you're taking care of home and so you have to figure out where you find that piece and to me that is successful because you're able to make an impact to a certain degree as a university professor I have the privilege of teaching your work in the literature and your text your plays and I want to have a sense of how you see your work with your two leftists and academics who are in any way making sure that we'll get to that young person by completing our syllabus and there's so many more of us now who are going to do that kind of work so I want to have a sense because it's laying a lot of blood and critic we can't leave that role to both others who get the work published and to talk about the more we put it on the syllabus brings out the UT answer the more we get a chance to play a role too so I want to have a sense of how black people lose their sleep like academics and critics critics can break you down and stop you literally I got a play going on in Chicago now I got a review of a woman who said who said it was a bad play do not go see it was it a black woman? actually I don't know I don't know her race it was a blog it was like a radio blog in Chicago and she said it was bad and because theaters are in the business of theater they see the dip in the box office directly at the same time having my work read in university settings is actually quite validating because there is value there beyond whether or not you like it what I think is that you didn't like it and that's fine but that doesn't mean it's a bad play it means that you don't like it which leads me to the question why don't you like it am I saying something that you don't like is it a worldview, is it a gaze that you're not familiar with etc my novel that just came out I when the book launched happened Robin Kelly we had a one on one because he read the book and wrote a really nice blurb on it so that was fantastic because he so understood the book and of course which is it's not about the white gaze but it's about race it's really about race and so that was fantastic because he asked great questions he came from, he teaches at USCLA and he came over to do that you know it's interesting because it's a funny thing it's going to hell around live but it had a review by somebody who a big review as somebody who is apparently a black raider we sort of found that out by looking him up and most of it and most of it was very positive interestingly there was one of the things that he had a problem with was he said some of the language was a little he didn't say incomprehensible but he talked about more it was a puzzle to figure out it was the black characters that he had trouble on and nobody else had and it was actually now to be fair it was a child a very hyper child and so it was also kind of a stream of consciousness in 1942 but it was interesting because nobody white or black seemed to have that same comment when they read it so truthfully they just don't know where people were coming from and who on his staff does he have to impress because he's part of a community of other critics which are probably not mostly white because this paper is the New York Times so I I'm not complying it was mostly a really good review but it was really interesting because I was also thinking about you know I appreciate most of it was very good but it was also kind of aware of where he may have been coming from as a black critic and a newish black critic because they didn't know his name before and my publisher in such an mainstream institution so yeah just to say no actually no it was actually really mostly positive but it was just interesting the so we were like saying this because it's going to be like it's probably you know but the questions he had seemed to be at least some of the black things very personal I wonder is interesting but I appreciate it when it comes to like black critics I I'm on a big point of just art being in the world of people having opinions about it hating, loving it's there you know but I'm really interested in black critic's opinion of my work for each other's time and one of the things I find out now being on BET show is that that audience is not the black audience that I had when I was the black guy I'm on Southland it's stuff that people at BET the critics or the people who are themselves Twitter based the stuff that they value is much different it's much different than the things that I value on this end and that's the beautiful thing that I like about criticism and opinions is that everyone speaks from their own personal experience and the beauty of black people being on two opposite ends of the spectrum it speaks to the the kind of experiences that we had and I think that we're often allowed to explore the minutia of white life in the world so we're used to well this guy's an independent critic this guy's this, this guy's that but they want a black critic it's supposed to like your black ass you know and sometimes he just does it your reference point is Ralph Ellison their reference point might be Donald Goines they have very different opinions but they're both extremely black and they're both extremely relevant but they're just different so I love that aspect and I love the fact that we're able to kind of interact in that way but what's sad though is that sometimes larger institutions do have an impact an adverse impact on something that could easily have a life with its audience that won't get that life because the New York Times said or the Wall Street Journal said I have one more question two more questions two more questions one, okay one more question I wanted to ask you in regard to you were talking about with your novel that you were so involved with the characters that you weren't thinking about or weren't aware of the white days when you mentioned it to black characters I mean all they say is that it's just aware of the characters they don't really go outside but I was just wondering how you sit because apparently it's black and white in your novel but does it come out any way even if you're not consciously aware of the white days which is dealing with black and white in your novel I mean again it's sort of like since I'm not quite sure like how we're defining white days my novel is about bitterly rabid violent racism so does that mean it's all about the white days I don't know I mean it's definitely about racism I guess it depends on how you define that I all I'll say is that when I was writing each character all I was thinking of is what was going through his head one of the characters as a matter of fact is grows up and there's you know like me and the Brody much assimilationists and I was that's part of it but I mean yeah I mean I guess we could say I guess that 24-7 we are completely under a white gaze all the time and in that case it is but I guess all I'm saying is that I was not in any way self-conscious when I wrote thinking oh wait a minute I better not write that because of what somebody will think I just wrote with the character I guess it depends on how you define white gaze I guess I mean let me say the characters were certainly under the white gaze in many ways because it was Jim Crow South a lot of it so I would certainly say that whether I was I don't we weren't self-centric actually last question go for it I just want to say in you whatever that white gaze is whatever you really think about it's in your subconscious it doesn't even need to be conscious my view of the white gaze is very different because I'm English but there isn't you and when I write it comes out even when the consciousness is thinking about when you're on stage thinking it's in her it just comes out so I think that the sort of think it's this conscious thing like you know like there's other white people going into the racism racism is very it's not just the man with the white mask it's very it's very what's the word it's very new art so I feel like if you're an artist your view of it's coming out it's just filling out even if you're not it's literally conscious I mean I know artists who are like I've got to get some white people to come see my show what can I do to get some white people to come see my show well I think we will know it we will know that you're pandering like please come see my show it's so obvious when pandering happens the audience is smart they know when people are trying to play it before cool I like to make that that movie sucks because it doesn't work because they didn't take into account the specificity they just replaced the color faces alright we're live tweeting you should tweet you should stream on HellRound and we're going to wrap up our time here I'd like to thank our panel in