 Welcome to a very special evening celebrating the exhibition. We wanted a revolution black radical women 1965 to 1985 With the one and only southern genius Alice Walker Tonight's event and the exhibition are part of the year of yes, and I forgot to introduce us. Hi I'm Catherine Morris, and I'm the Sackler family senior curator of the Elizabeth a Sackler Center for feminist art here at the Brooklyn Museum And I am Rugeko Hawkely former assistant curator here at the Brooklyn Museum and current assistant curator at the Whitney Museum And we are the co-curators of we wanted a revolution black radical women We are Tonight's event and the exhibition are part of the year of yes a year-long celebration of the 10th anniversary of the Elizabeth a Sackler Center for Feminist art here at the Brooklyn Museum We'd like to begin our thanks by giving a very special shout out to our Brooklyn Museum members who are joining us here this evening Your support Your support means so much to us It helps makes programs like this possible if you're interested in becoming a member and enjoying free tickets to special events such as this one and Invitations to members only events, please see a member at the membership desk after this meeting. This is not a meeting after this event We're a little nervous We'd also like to thank the trustee Elizabeth a Sackler our board chair of Barbara Vogelstein and Shelby White and Leon Levy Director and pastor neck and all the Brooklyn Museum trustees for making tonight possible Thanks are also due to all the supporters donors lenders who made war possible Many of you are here tonight, and we must acknowledge that this groundbreaking exhibition is what it is. Thanks to you Thanks also to the programs team. There's many of you who have pulled together tonight's wonderful event. Thank you Finally, we would like to thank the more than 40 artists and we wanted a revolution The power of this show is a direct reflection of the power of their belief Beginning more than 50 years ago that a revolutionary future was possible a future guided by individual rights free from the political cultural and social oppressions Enacted on human beings because of their race their gender their socio-economic status their sexual orientation or any other Dis and or any disability it has been an honor to work together to make with them to make this exhibition possible So thank you to the artists to have Alice Walker here in the context of this exhibition is Nothing short of an actual dream come true and an incredible honor as I'm sure you all can assume and can tell she was incredibly important to The way we conceived of this exhibition and to the way in which it has come together both in the galleries And then the accompanying Publication like many of you I'm sure she has been a touchstone and an inspiration Someone you've returned to time and time again whether her novels her short stories her poems her work as an activist Like many of you also especially those of you who are perhaps closer to my age You might have been introduced to miss Walker first by your mother as I was She brought me to a reading in Washington, DC when I was three years old to meet Alice Walker because she was part of her personal pantheon of greats And I think that that lineage that connection the fact that my mom said nothing as all her Alice Walker books disappeared out the door of her house As I grew up and left home that this is a critical inheritance that we have that I have personally But from sure many of you also have from our mothers But also from miss Walker and from the people and places and times that she connects us to so Zora Neil Hurston whose work she brought back into popular consciousness after years of obscurity to now be someone that we all read Yeah Someone that we read in you know middle school and high school curriculum all over the country and world Somebody who brought a term to us that we needed womanism Yes Term to describe the different ways the black women thought of and engaged with feminism as she says womanist is to feminist as purple is to lavender and So so so much more So I just want to say how grateful we are that you are here and then miss Walker is here And that we can have this moment of exchange inheritance Generational continuity that's so central to our lives, but also to the exhibition and to this evening. So thank you so much Thank you very much for that very warm welcome. I'm very happy to be here with you I want to talk a little bit about what revolution is How do we get to it In my own life what I discovered is that it is mostly about the revolution that occurs within us You need the mic That revolution is often projected as something that is outside of us and in many cases beyond us But in my life what I have discovered is that revolution has to be from within Unless we change ourselves. There is no change and The people who tried to change society without changing themselves fail I've just been reading Alexandra Solzhenitsyn's Gulag acapella go and I recommend it to all of us to read because it's a wonderful way to mean wonderful and That's quite a horrific way It's a great way for us to understand How revolution that sounds You know like it's magically somehow going to change the world Without the people themselves doing the work of interchange is is a failure. It will fail So we don't want to be caught in any glamorization of Revolution, you know But we do want to pay homage to people who see the need for the change and go after it both outside themselves and inside But I do insist from my own life And from what I've seen over the years of living this life that you get very Little traction and you get a very short distance if you don't change yourself as you're trying to change the world So It's wonderful for me to be here and to be a part of this The the exploration and the exposure of this exhibit because these are women who understood that they had a duty To make art out of the lives of the people around them And to show the the depth of their own compassion and some in some cases their own pain I think that as we go on in this world To the extent that we are going to go on in it We will see much more joy in our art and this is a great desire on my part and my hope That we will come to that place in our art Where we understand that joy is a revolutionary Feeling and a revolutionary desire and a revolutionary way of being We have a long way to go But it doesn't mean we won't get to to that place, you know, and I I think from my own Upbringing in the south, which is very different from many of the women and the artists in this exhibit. I grew up in Very difficult circumstances, but I was surrounded from birth by nature So to me there there is a real necessity in and the creativity of the present and the future For us to include trees and the sky and the sun And all of the elements of nature as part of what it is that makes us truly human And so, you know, I myself paint And I find myself drawn to images of you know things that I knew as a child flowers and trees and birds and You know just the undulations of the countryside The magic of the fields that stretched forever. Now it took a great deal of work to work those fields But in essence, they were extraordinarily beautiful and in their own way very calming as an art to the spirit So I want to Start out by reading a few things what I've decided is that in this phase of my life I want to do what I've started out wanting to do and what I think my parents thought I would be doing with my life I want it to be a teacher And I you know wandered off in that area a few times And it was not a good area to work in as I was also trying to write novels It just wasn't motherhood was also a challenge and those of you who have children Understand that you know, it's it's a difficult path to be deeply creative and and In the sense that you feel Called by your ancestors to do this work is these women these women in this exhibit obviously I Have felt that call that connects, you know, the the old revolutionaries the ones who you know work were legendary When we were coming along to the present that they experienced in the 60s in the 70s in the 80s so one of the ways to To help us Be revolutionary Is to be determined to at least to the extent that we can do it control our own mind Without a sense of your own mind and what it is capable of doing and what it is It is really a challenge to change a society That's because your mind is is constantly being colonized and we are we're really aware of this I mean we are aware that You know, it's going to get worse with artificial intelligence, I mean, you know How about just some Intelligence Not to move on to the artificial kind before we're ready, you know But anyway, that is an indicator of Where we have been and where we are I mean we are as human beings on this planet, you know Not really knowing how we got here, you know, we don't we don't really know that We're at the mercy of beings or whoever they are who do know how to train us In ways that are detrimental to our growth and this is really really Not good for us Because we risk actually losing what humanity that we still have and it's dribbling away as we watch, you know Our money being used to kill people that we would really like if we could, you know, see them and sit with them and You know, visit them and you know see their children and talk about one day and things like weather and you know, cooking and gardens and Clothing and you know, you just regular people So we're being done in in on many levels and awareness of this Is part of our possibility of freedom We may be able to Escape to some some degree if we are aware of how we're being stolen from ourselves. We are being stolen from ourselves So the revolution that we really most need is the one in which we lay claim To who we actually are, you know, that we are beings who are very special Even if we don't know how we got here or what we are, you know, most of us don't we have an ideology We have a religion we have what our parents told us but really When you're sitting there, I'm sure many of you in this audience meditate But when you're sitting there on that cushion, it's just you and your mind And then there's you in space Can you actually say that you know, you know who you are what you are how you got here? And it's worth, you know pondering these things so that you don't continue and we don't continue Being led down a path that is inimicable to, you know, what we would most like to do Which is a cherish this planet and all the beings on this planet that are so incredibly precious You know, I have on my iPhone, which I just got in which I'm sure is perilous but I got it and What wakes me up in the morning is the sound of birdsong which you can get on your iPhone is something that wakes you up And I love this but I lie there and I think well, you know the birds Unless we really wake up so strongly We'll be just a recording and We won't even be able to tell our children how they flew, you know children You'll be trying to say oh well They flew this way and they flew that way and all they will be able to imagine is a bird like an airplane You know or something that's mechanical So anyway, this first piece that I'm going to read to you part of what I want to do in my my role now is Teaching when I where I go Is to share with with everyone that I'm talking to What I'm doing recently, I mean I am you know, I have never stopped writing not for I don't like a second And so there is always something new and I thought I would start to share that It's on my my website my blog, but I would also read it to you and then We can go on from there and you know talk about whatever comes up out of these these these places that I've been visiting mentally and physically and spiritually recently and As all of you know and all of us know we are in a perilous situation on the planet You know, it's You can't even talk about leadership, you know, I mean unless you lead yourself you you're pretty done for you know And that's part of why the mind is so important So this is what to do with the mind I Have not been this depressed and this is you know, this is acknowledging Where many of us have been and where some of us still are but truthfully over the last six months or so We we have collectively Been depressed and it has been such a joy that so many of us have also Risen above the depression to stand with each other because that is our hope our hope For any kind of future is that we stand together and we express ourselves Even knowing that That is is possibly really dangerous for us. I have not been this depressed since president John Kennedy was assassinated I was a student at Spellman when this happened No, I have not been this depressed since Dr. Martin of the King was assassinated I was in Mississippi working in the civil rights movement when that happened No, I haven't been this depressed since Malcolm X was assassinated No, I haven't been this depressed since Bobby Kennedy was assassinated. No, I haven't been this depressed Since I realized that when they assassinated Che Guevara, they cut off his hands And he was a doctor How long is this list and reading it so many other names might be added all of you I'm sure if you don't know the names yourselves your parents do And reading it so many other names might be added so many disasters to Crimes against people and earth so heinous. They are unfathomable to the average mind so much of what is happening Really, it is unfathomable to your mind if you have an ordinary mind Like we know all of us. I mean the things that people are doing to each other the things that they are doing especially the children You just It's unbelievable. So what to do with the mind? That is overwhelmed by grief and disbelief, which is where most of us are really You know, I mean we may be Carrying on and we do beautifully really because we you know, we we are humans and we that's part of what we we have The capacity to carry on But really we're we're pretty bewildered by the what's happening While writing my early novels and raising my daughter and after a truly heartbreaking divorce, I discovered meditation You not only saved my sanity such as it was at the time it saved my life. I Meditated regularly for years Then my practice of formal sitting fell into disuse became spotty and afterthought In fact, I used to think I'd meditate it so much already. I did need to keep it up What a mistake that was Which is to say Through this present period of basic cruelty and relentless suffering basic cruelty basic cruelty and relentless relentless suffering I Have had to reach back to bring my practice of meditation forward And I have the Dalai Lama to thank for reminding me how precious it is. I Was given his little book of inner peace by someone who loves me Someone who saw I was suffering as we all might From a period of serious global disenchantment brought on by human malevolence and greed But what I got from reading the book was something I had not expected a casual revelation of how many times a day the Dalai Lama meditates Five or six times. I had thought 20 minutes twice a day was sufficient in the early years Because that was what I could squeeze for myself between raising a child and making a living Then when I had more time, I meditated for half an hour to an hour twice a day But five or six times. No, I never dreamed we could meditate so many times Though it is said of Milarepa a Buddhist yogi that he meditated for so long. He almost turned into a plant. I Have returned to my practice and though I am not yet meditating as frequently as his Holiness does I have thrown away my clock One of the perks of being old enough not to care much about time After all it is one thing that will probably always be there wherever you have gone And I'm writing this now because I think it might be helpful medicine up for you Especially those of you who will be freed as I have been and to a wider and deeper Understanding of how to rediscover the clear sky the clear sky that is our mind When we have learned to out-sit the mental clouds Imagine the mental clouds his Holiness has out-sat. I have found sitting as often and for as long as I can Coupled with learning the news from comedians Trevor Noah Samantha B. Seth Meyers and others to be a reliable support for these times the historical pattern in situations similar to ours When the people are in depression as we are fear as we are and despair as we are is For the oppressors to drug them into submission Knowing they are desperate to endure no more pain This has happened in many other countries like China for instance, and it has happened and it's happening here It is essential to learn ways to protect the mind Increasing one's frequency and length of meditation and learning bad news first from comedians Could be one of them. So yes by all means protect the mind I was speaking with sister recently just the fact that you have an hour an hour ago about You know some of the lyrics and some of the music that we are assaulted by I mean And we are assaulted, you know the things that are said about our bodies the things things that are implied about our minds We are being battered into a kind of Sudden mass of misery and often by young people that we love You know or even not young people that we love that we try to protect and care for Because on that line of development, you know in consciousness, we have been derailed I mean the for the most part the the people who who suffer from some of the lyrics of some of the music Are people who tried very hard to have a revolution who have tried to change society? And we have found that so much of it has not only not changed But it has regressed and it has become more vicious and it is actually lethal to us and these are this is one of the areas where we can circle and and together find a way To liberate ourselves from this because otherwise we're just being damaged daily I mean we are being harmed. This is how this is real harm to us The psyche is not meant to be abused in this way. The body is not meant to be abused in this way You know the female body is a holy The holy Beautiful What would you call it just goddess? And it should be revered and it should be respected, you know And to hear the ways in which it is being degraded It is almost unacceptable and it is unacceptable and it's almost unbelievable Given where we came from in trying to have a revolution in which we would actually see the fullness of our our goddess cell And the beauty of ourselves as people of color for instance and intelligent beings of whatever color and kind So This next piece that I want to read to you is Well, I think I think there's some words that we actually need to Do more intensive study of in order to free ourselves from The ways in which they hurt us and nigger is one of them So this next poem is called nigger in the language of love Because we need help here, and you know, there are those of us who just can't bear the word at all There are those of us who who use it because you know Our parents use it and the people on the street use it and all of that But I think what is missing is that real understanding of its original function And the way that it was used and has been used and can be used In a very different way than the way that it is used that wounds us So this is called nigger in the language of love and it's turning a poison into medicine And I have Buddhism to thank for this this idea of how you can use Things in a in such a different way that they can actually help in your healing rather than in your destruction And I dedicate this for all those who remind us of how this works for instance in Fences, I don't know if you saw that the movie that was made of August Wilson's play that Denzel Washington directed but it is you know, there's a whole part of it that was very striking to me In the use between the people and among the people of the word nigger and it reminded me of how I grew up in the south Where people use this term and they used it in a different way than what other people often use it in so Pretty soon. We might all be niggers Adjust karma just karma is beginning to snow down upon us Maybe you will be happier then to find you can indeed live on your knees and Sometimes create a tune or fashion a break dance there Among our people during enslavement and segregation known otherwise as the extended period of identity eradication the extended period of identity eradication lasted a long time Nigger became a bonding word a word of self-defense a claim of solidarity It could signify intimacy brother or sisterhood a playful or anguished invitation to acknowledge shared abuse a stubborn standing it also meant after ages after ages of fighting among ourselves and Destroying each other's clans in tribal warfare in Africa We discovered holy shit We are one Among our scholars it signified aeons of village life along the Niger River and Our captors lack a facility with accents unlike their own then as now None niggers have always been a frightful visitation Invading lands and bodies while calling it discovery raping women and children Cutting infants in half when not feeding them to their dogs Smashing worlds murdering anything alive for the fun of it Caring for nothing they could not gobble up Ravish our cell Some of us badly raised call them pigs or More gentile trash Not human as niggers understand the term yet Imagine we niggers fell in love with the very ground. We were enslaved to destroy We noticed its fecundity. Yes, but also its magical faithfulness Didn't we realize it would never belong to us We protected the slave masters offspring as though they were our own What to do with such backwardness None niggers made us sing because they did not know how or Were afraid to fully open spirits of mouths None niggers made us dance because they were as if born that way ashamed to freely move It was niggers who taught them to boogie They burned our drums. They burned our drums. We drummed our bodies We endured a level of life none niggers denied themselves And now we see how disconnected from nature and even feeling is the ruling caste How it has always been Though it pretends these days so traumatic for everyone to care about both To gobble up the world and lose everything just the same To die in the misery of global suicide When you might have lived happily and long as a nigger yourself Praising life enduring meanness and stupidity But boogying on through the misery. What a different world we'd have If you had learned to prevent notice or share our suffering Rather than ignore ridicule or profit from it To grasp and hold as precious as precious The deep lessons of soul and liveliness You were carefully and through so much pain nigger by nigger Being taught how did you feel about that? We can't run away from words that hurt We have to figure out what they're really saying what they really mean and who we are in relation to them and Also, who the people are who using them to abuse us You know these things we have to interrogate we have to know Because you can be kept enslaved By what someone calls you and they don't know anymore about what they're calling you than you do You know all this stuff has a history It has a history It has a meaning it has a reality so The next one I just wrote I think two days ago maybe three days ago Because I really was so happy to learn that Sweden had dropped the charges against Julian Assange He was charged with raping someone who Later confessed that the police told her to say that And I think that what he does for the for the world is so important In sharing wiki leaks with us And with you know everybody on the planet basically so that we're no longer quite So far in the dark Do you realize how you know Compared to what is out there for us to know how little of it we know I mean in order to make decisions about how we live and how we want our children to grow up We know so little And it's been so deliberately kept from us and so unless we have People who are strong enough To share What they you know dig out of the the vaults Uh, it's very possible that we cannot make good choices about anything You know not about seeds not about food, you know not about Monsanto not about you know, you name it, you know, not about these politicians who pretend to be Working for us and obviously they're not You know, uh, so anyway This is called acts of truth And I I like this. Do you know Michael me the mythologist? I hope I hope you learn him if you don't know him already because um, his way of looking at the world through myth Gives us incredible grounding in our understanding of present events Uh, and it helps us to realize that all the stuff that we see all of these behaviors You know for example in your maximum leader That behavior that he's demonstrating Um is the behavior that in myth has existed forever You know that extreme narcissism that you know the ignorance the You know the inability to feel for other people So so there's a model in myth for all of these You know these beings who seem so puzzling to us and and and they you know, they are scary and they are You know We'll we're we're it's good for us to to have some you know fear Uh and not just be you know acting as if they can't do great harm because obviously they they do Uh great harm every day Anyhow acts of truth For julienne assange Inspired by mythologist michael mead Michael was telling us the other night about some things that might save the world One of them surprised me, but the more I thought about it the more it made sense The whole world can be saved and if not the whole world in the world of our relationships, which is you know the world By committing simple acts of truth In the story michael tells a dying child cannot live If his parents cannot find courage enough to commit an act of truth So the father after much blather Admits he is and has been a fraud in practically everything he's done The mother says she never loved him Even in the fake throws The fake throws of passionate love Even the monk who was called on to help these hapless liars Admits he has no real idea of the right path or the honest way He only took holy vows because a person taking holy vows is admired At each act of truth each utterance of what is true The dying child revives little by little Until he is whole enough to skip away That child is our ailing world Our human universe Lying dying right at death's door And each of us Each of us lying about everything imaginable Including hair color and concern about polluting the water Fur coats and love of animals That caps up on our diamonds The bombings and oil thirst Was now decided Do we want our child this world to live? Our musted die Can we commit an act of truth that begins to set it skipping once more on healthy feet? Because i've known humans at their best I know we are capable maybe not all of us but enough To commit daily radical acts of truth There is even a collective one We can cease to lie to confuse the neighbors Whether next door or in countries we've never seen We can be deeper more courageous indeed more fearless And much simpler than we know Standing in our acts of truth our words of truth As others like small children watching a fascinating and very unusual game Skip to join us How are you doing? Now this last one uh i wrote just after the uh the women's march Which i just loved i i thought um And i loved all the people who joined you know all the the men the children everybody it was just such a such a healing Time an expression Of how we are not done in yet You know they all have a ways to go to really do us in And we needed that we needed to show that um So my sense of how things are on this planet is that we transition from it Uh, and we become part of what is my sense of what god is this essential Awareness is great, you know this great awareness of of life of being um And that is what this prayer is a prayer to the great awareness And it's dedicated to the awakening I do not doubt that you are there And that i am also In some future pastime And that together we are enjoying it all and so i thank you great awareness In which i also live for calla lilies and birds and hollyhocks and bougainvillea And the aroma of a good po sole And the fit of a new dress There are then the stars that i love And the rivers i adore And the single leaves of trees in which i can lose my temporary this moment self in the sheer wonder of it all And women marching everywhere And being the most wondrous of the human lot With their amazing capacity to recreate the human universe Oh great and everlasting awareness I have been with you While looking for you all my long life And here you turn up today as you do every day As myself As all the awakened women children and men in the world And everything else So the other part of my teaching has to do with my belief that It is better to just have people ask direct questions and out of my experience if i have any medicine I'm happy to offer it Especially if i can remember it So I think i'm sitting now with someone and two people and if you If you have any anything that you would like to ask I will do my best To offer what i have Thank you Yes, thank you so much So we're just really quickly what we're gonna see because i see there's a person ready to ask a question So we're gonna talk a little bit and then we're gonna open it up and when you ask your questions You do need to go to the microphones And we thought we might um start and i do have a question But by invoking Beverly Buchanan A wonderful artist in our current exhibition A friend Of yours a beautiful poem in our source book as just a brief passage. I can't believe i'm about to read your words to you But How do we make new and restorative a soul the old pain? There's a question for you Really, you know what you have to How do we make new and restorative of soul the old pain? How do we learn to carry with grace and humor all that has happened to us Really It's doable. I mean that's what you have to remember There will always be of everly Buchanan arising from a virtual quote nowhere To cobble together the broken pieces left over from the beauty that is destroyed And paint them red Paint them red for dancing Thank you for that so my personal truth question You mentioned our fear and despair and depression But one thing I noticed you didn't mention was our anger And i'm wondering what you think and are feeling about the anger that I think a lot of us are also feeling at the current moment Well, I feel that you must sit long enough to understand that you don't want your anger to get you into trouble I I have a very practical Place in my thinking about anger I affirm it because of course it's natural and we should feel it and we do feel it and you know However, what I've noticed in many neighborhoods and in many cultures If there is not sufficient preparation and thought Our anger leads us into such danger That we are undermined not just personally but the entire community So it is something to be handled really really gently and carefully But never but we should never say to people that they must inhabit It's it's a right. Do you have a right to be angry? And it's actually a good force because it is it has a cleansing quality to it. I mean, you know yourself I hope I hope you do That to be really cleanly fiercely angry Is very good for the spirit because it gives it a little jolt You know, it says wake up, you know, you've been insulted And you are in the you know the the words of my upbringing in the church You are a child of god and this must never be permitted to happen to you. So be fiercely angry However, the other part as I've just mentioned says Uh, you must have caution and you must use really good common sense Because actually you are needed, you know, even the anger We can use it in painting. We can use it in demonstrations. We can use it in dance We can use it in building It's a force that can be harnessed and used for something that we need And we dare not just throw it away just because we feel like it It's too precious anger is precious I love who I was doing that. I know In actually keeping with thinking about kind of the uses of anger, which is also an incredible a title of it Audre Lorde essay that was also so important to us in putting this exhibition together You're wondering if you could talk to us a little bit about Feminism in your life how you came to identify or disidentify and maybe even your experiences at Ms magazine and then to womanism Give me a direct question What was it like to work at Ms magazine? And why did you leave? Okay, that's that's a leave it open. Well, okay Well, let me put it this way. I was living in Mississippi Martin Luther King had just been assassinated. I had just had a miscarriage. I was very low um Gloria Steinem came to Mississippi And asked me if I would come and work at Ms magazine because I had been sending my stories to north Not going north myself because Martin Luther King told us to stay in the south. So I was there But it was very it was very challenging uh, so And interestingly, I don't have a memory of her actually doing this in Mississippi because I was totally grief-stricken. I mean I was I was under the I was under the sod with grief But eventually Mississippi after 10 years had really gotten to both me and my husband and my my child Although I don't think she remembers much of it And we decided to leave and so I went to to accept this position at Ms magazine It was really important to do that because I wanted To expose the especially the African women writers that I had discovered while I lived in Mississippi And also Zora I had discovered in a big way in Mississippi And we needed a place to publish These African women writers and other you know women writers And also to to to have a place where Zora when she was resurrected could actually be Noticed, you know There were very there were no other places really for that to happen I went to Essence for instance with some of my work at some point And they were offended by what they call the dialect Of people Because they said black people didn't speak that way. Well, my mother spoke that way So what was I supposed to think you know, I got myself out of there So it was a challenge though Because I understood that my womanism, which was Absolutely crucial to the black community, which is that you do not Me you you struggle with black men, but you Understand that you are in a situation together and that you have to You have to work it through now many black men never understood that about my work They never understood womanism, but it doesn't matter You know, I understand what I'm saying So so to be short make this a little shorter It was okay to work there as long as I could also have a room of my own there Because I accepted the reality that I was very different You know, I was very different for most of the women who were white Who were middle class? And who had a incredibly, you know so many more opportunities than I had so I You know, I knew the work that I needed to do. I wanted to really explore and expose these African writers I wanted to Write myself about, you know, the women that I was experiencing In Mississippi and Georgia. I wanted to write about my mother And I wanted to write Among people who even when they didn't understand what I was doing all the time. They respected that it was a passion That I as a woman, you know embodied and that it had to be done as far as I was concerned, you know So there was respect And that was not to be had anywhere else at the time Thank you We're gonna jump around a little bit here um one of the most Rewarding parts of the exhibition we wanted to revolution for me has been to see the The driver for a lot of the enthusiasm and the support and the belief in this exhibition has been by young women through social media and That for me has been a remarkably rewarding experience to see Young women pushing a dialogue about the need for this exhibition in their lives and in their friends lives and in their family's lives and You spoke about your blog and So and you have obviously lived through this sort of emergence of this new way of communicating and Reaching people and I'm wondering if you could tell us a little bit about that. I know you founded wild trees press in 1983 Obviously, so you were I imagine already thinking about wanting to Get your own voice out in your own way Um I didn't publish myself I published other people And I did that because at the time I was being trounced by you know, everybody and everybody's brother and some of the mothers too About the color purple And and I just repaired myself to the countryside and founded a press And I decided to publish other people who were well, they none of them were as unpopular at the time as I felt I was but you know, they didn't have a large following Um, so that was uh, the model there. I think was the hogarth press Virginia wolf's press and I figured if Virginia could do it. I could do it And so I had bought I bought 40 acres of land in mendicino And I would have bought a mule You can still buy a mule no no no darlin. I got a rototiller um I But anyway, so so I I bought this land and and there are all these little shacks on it And I just renovated one of those little shacks into a publishing company and settled in there in the country and While people were raging about you know How I was destroying whatever and blah blah blah. I was publishing and I was very happy Yeah, what was the other part of your question? Your blog it was a two-part question Um, no the other part was about now how you how you use your blog and how you use um The internet to sort of get your voice out in a different kind of way. Well, I like it very much You know the blog my blog because I'm an aquarium And people how many aquariums are in here? Yeah Well, you know the thing about us Is that we live a lot in the air And and it's a very natural highway, you know for for us we think we think like that and So to me it's almost as if I was waiting for this means of communication to happen so that I could could Extend my work in the way that feels most natural to me, which is just to put it out there Uh, because you know what you may not know, but when you write a book sometimes it takes at least a year So by the time the book comes out, you know, you you don't feel very connected to it But then you have to go and do all the things you have to do to promote it Whereas if you just write it on your blog you put it out there and you know, you don't care where it lands If it lands, you know, it's just your contribution to You know the whole thing There's a wonderful feeling of of connectivity and also liberation and just I I just love it Mm-hmm. Do you have Interactivity with with your readers through your blog? I don't let them do that That is a totally understandable Stance to take yeah, and I I actually counsel young people Not to let people just have a thought about what you should be writing instead Or how you should be doing it instead you'll do that yourself I mean you can you come to your own Editorship And it's and it's something that is organic and it's good for you. I mean it's good for you to in the the stillness of your room and your heart and your wherever you are To decide and to come to know what is the exact right word? What is the exact right phrase? What is the exact exact next step? You know these people who Come on to tell you, you know, how something you've written or something you said is Wrong or should be done a different way. What do they know about you? Really, I mean what what do they know about your study of you know of life and the essence of of creativity and reality? Very little and then they so often misspell So so basically I would say they're just bad for you And you should just click off that part and I did that I never have had it underneath You know where people can say stuff now There's a there's a blog thing that my my one of my publishers uses and they they have that Function where people write and they write really nice things and I'm sometimes really happy to read them But I can't be controlled by what other people think about what I'm doing Does this mean we shouldn't look for you on Facebook Um, I have a hard time with Facebook although my friend Valerie who's out there who's been trying to bring me along Uh, and sometimes I love it because there there are pieces you would never see anywhere else I mean wonderful things and I love the animal parts, you know, like there's a there's a little there's no really there's one There's there's one of a little um Penguin little dancing penguin That's my favorite I don't know the penguin. I mean, oh you should Yeah Well, we came so the poem that you read a piece of So lovely so beautiful to hear you read it about Beverly Buchanan. We found it on your blog And you know, we came across it and we're so taken by it and wanted to include it in the exhibition But we would love to hear A little bit about your relationship to Beverly and to her artwork Well, the other Beverly is here in the audience my friend from many years ago at Spellman And she introduced me to Beverly Buchanan and I went I don't know if we went together to see we went together to see Beverly and I was so taken with her work because um You don't have any of what i'm thinking about in the exhibit, but she did something So magical with shacks, you know, so many of us in the south grew up in shacks We we lived in shacks And so it was the the responsibility of our our mothers usually to make them homes And as many of you know, if you've read any of my work about my mother My mother made our shacks really beautiful Because she was an artist and she was just you know um, so Beverly In Athens, Georgia, I went to see her work and there she had created these shacks In these vivid beautiful colors Uh, and they were just dancing they were just If you have ever seen pictures of the the shacks, you know from long ago that people had and they were gray You know, they leaked They often didn't have a porch, you know, you just have to use a stump or something to get into them They were they're really pretty bad and yet what she managed to capture was The way that the some of the inhabitants like my mother for instance Out of her own spirit somehow turned those desolate places into dancing Shacks full of life And I think what I really liked was that she shared Something about how you can Remember your childhood's happiness Uh through art In this way, you know, you just create the garden you create the shack you create the quilt In fact in this exhibit, I was expecting a quilt by Faith Ringo to be hanging somewhere Because she was such a master Of that form and it has such deep roots in our In our world, you know in the african-american world because for so long that was the way we told our story In fact when I was writing The screenplay for the color purple I decided that It was boring to me to write the thing just as I'd already written it so I decided to make The letters into a story quilt But didn't work But it's a part of our tradition, you know to to write the story In quilting When we were talking about this exhibition and we were talking about What to call it I walked into the office of our then Vice Director of Education, Radia Harper, who's here tonight and we were talking about This show and these artists and wanting to have an impact on the art world and Radia Put her hand very firmly on her desk and said we didn't want to change the art world We wanted a revolution And that's where this exhibition title comes from And I'm just wondering having heard you speak tonight about meditation and that sort of practice How do you feel? Do you feel differently about what revolution meant in To you in the period that you started off talking about all those assassinations that moment and then where we are today Yeah revolution meant tenderness toward the self and love of the self And love of the people in your community and the devotion to to each other's freedom And we have not arrived Except you know some of us have and some of us do because we just keep up the struggle I mean we understand that to to be fully liberated Is a full-time job you you have to really Fight hard against the oppression in this culture Which actually works overtime to make us feel like we're odd that we're we're not quite the right In fact, I I spent a lot of my time outside the country and when I come back I was trying to explain this to someone it was as if all the people were in the u.s We're just watching themselves on tv You know and in a way that's true, you know if there's a There's a mesmerizing quality to television and it captures people But what it also does is it makes people of color feel like they're minority In the world And this is very dangerous You know pretty soon Pretty soon you won't remember you won't remember that you're in the majority You know because you're just programmed to believe that you're that one dark face and a sea of pale faces You know And and you have to really really pay attention You know to save yourself from that and also what I noticed coming back is how Many of our children have forgotten what they look like You know, they they start really early redoing themselves to to fit tv And and this is Extremely cruel is cruel to them that that they are being forced to be this way Though you understand how it happens. It's not mysterious You know, they they want the same hair. They want the same color. They want the same nose It reminds me of being in south korea many years ago And the people there under under american colonization are so brainwashed that at the time they all want to round eyes So that it was coming up to a graduation day and and the whole Class of people who were graduating and they were all really brilliant and made great grades and did all kinds of stuff They were all being taken en masse You know to have their eyes made round Now really I mean, do we need more round eyes? It's just you know, it what is what is happening through this this this disconnect Of what is real in the world? And what is you know, what is fake? It's it's really hard. It's it's it's doing us in You've been very patient Maybe we should start with some questions from the audience And again, please if you have a question go to one of the microphones on either side of the room so that you can be part of the live stream Thanks so much and um, thank you so much miss walker for being here and joining us and sharing your light with all of us Um, I just to dovetail on the last question that you were saying about My history as a broadcast journalist. It is so true that one has to fit in the box of the television And cannot have the hair the way that it normally would be and so I I very much Um Understand that in any case. I'm also a poet and a getting a meditation teacher certification with jack cornfield and tower Brock And the initial opening Which you just uptailed back to about the business of getting to know the mind Calming the mind understanding the mind why we're here how we work how we're connected at a more experiential level I often find that people usually try to go to meditation for two things one to kind of be calm and the other thing is to kind of um Sort of Find a way to do what you're doing at a deeper level to connect with everyone But because of what you're talking about that masquerading of ego and personality and conditioning as the true self Meaning the deeper connected part people don't then sit They don't actually find their way to the cushion through the self-hatred and through the conditioning So I'm wondering if um, you have any recommendations for There's a way to get people to be able to sit and not see it as a luxury when they feel like they should be Out in the streets and and and doing stuff and also not use it as a way to be sort of spiritual bypassing as a way to Just sort of retreat so a more perhaps practical You know suggestion if you have any for that I'm not sure I understand your question So if you're sitting on a cushion and you hate yourself when you're filled with conditioning And you think that your ego self is who you really are based on all the things that you've been talking about Is that what okay Yeah, that that's why there's that phrase more sitting required You know, you just sit and sit and sit and sit Uh until you you settle out, you know, you just kind of uh A lot of that stuff will actually just start to drain away because it's not you You know, it is conditioning. It's just stuff that's thrown on top of the clear sky that you actually have in there somewhere, you know Um, and it does take discipline But uh, I think in my own case I did it because I I needed to You know, I reached a point where Um, I didn't see any other way of actually saving The clear sky that that I I have, you know that I deserve as a human being Uh, which means that I can actually encounter other people without harming them You know, how about having a mind that is so clear that you don't have to harm people No matter what you think about them I mean really So that's that's what I would say, you know, just just keep at it, you know, it's it's uh If you can go to pilates if you can go to yoga if you can, you know, ride your bicycle for 10 miles you can sit for another two hours You know Milarepa sat for, you know years really he did because I don't know if you know the story about Milarepa but he was a guy who Was mistreated when his father died and his mother He and his mother were really badly treated by the village And she was so angry the mother that she gave him Enough money. Did she I don't know how she got it, but she sent him off to be trained by a sorcerer And he became this powerful sorcerer and he came back and he put a spell on the whole village that had abused them and killed all of them And so he then, you know went on his way, but but you know, you can't actually do that And continue to feel that great about yourself, you know, which is which is interesting because you think about How many bombings that you know people do and how they're gonna actually have to feel about but anyway, so he Wanted to clear his his soul And that is why he he just sat he sat in a cave for years You know and and the plants just grew all over him Um, and he became someone with time that the buddhist all all buddhist really revere Because of his dedication to transforming this evil act Uh into something that he could, you know overcome and then use his abilities for the good of people Thank you so much Thank you Yeah Thank you for being here. That's wonderful in and of itself and i'm glad that you brought up, um quilts Because I recently read your everyday use I loved it. Um, oh and By the way, the faith wringled you mentioned her quilts We don't have a quilt, but I thought the the piece for the woman's house was very quilt like so maybe You'll take a look at that and enjoy it. I'm wondering if there's a story behind your story of everyday use Of course, I'd love to hear it. Oh dear I you are oh god, I'm sorry. I there's something really sacred about um What we put into something like a quilt that it's hours and hours and heart and blood and it hurts It's painful and then to use it. I think is is beautiful and sacred and I that's why it moved me So I would like to hear the story, but I think what I was I was wanting to share though with people Is how We can be trapped by art And think of it as something that is just a decoration when the function of art is healing and covering us and and protecting us and so One sister wants the quilt to hang on the wall The other sister who is the more downtrodden sister Wants the quilt because you know, it's all her memories, you know, there's her dress. There's somebody else's pants You know, there's a whole history in it and she wants to use it because she loves it She loved people who wore the clothes that the quilt was made out of, you know uh, so it it really um You know, I I have mixed feelings about museums I do I do in fact when I was in the Louvre and also at the British Museum Uh in the British Museum, I was I was very close to throwing a fit Uh, and in the Louvre, I was very close to jumping out of the window Uh, because you just see all the stuff they've ripped off And they've done it in every country Uh, and so and then the and the way that in the British Museum I felt they had deliberately twisted the the identity of the Egyptians And they did it in a very clever way Uh, they had all these, you know statues and All the stuff that you see from Egypt And a lot of the bald head people But what they did was they had found, you know, a wig that I'm sure they bought just right outside the door there But a very straight wig So that and they they put that there So you would just assume that the people that you're looking at all had hair like that And they didn't You know, I mean you can look at some of the The drawings and you can see that they didn't Uh, so so this kind of use of of uh, the museum as a way to further Oppress people, you know and mislead them, you know, I I have a hard time with with that And then in the Louvre, I mean honestly they those people have looted It's just so many countries and so many people of their Essential material that they need for their own health You know, you need your art You need it. I mean you need it daily those and that's why it's called everyday use You know that that this quilt Uh will be something that heals this young woman, you know as she's lying under it You know And it's not just hanging somewhere where she'll never see it again. I mean we have to really rethink museums. I think Thank you I'm glad I'm not the director We're gonna we're gonna do that though because you're not wrong. You're not wrong Um, can we have our next question? How's it going? My name is Delacia. I'm an organizer Also the kid with the snap. So thank you for the shout out. Um I have a question about working class women of color and Advice for empowering and illuminating the natural womanism that exists in working class communities If you have any thoughts on how we can kind of change the paradigm Around female empowerment in working class communities of color because we're powerful and we exist in our communities as powerful women But often because of media as well as a myriad of other things. Um, it's not always internalized So it's not what always internalized the power that we hold Well, you know, I I really am of the opinion that people can really free themselves if they want to be free And that they can do all kinds of things, but they can't do it alone And and that collectivity and circling Is really the the way of the future if there is one So, you know, when you have a query like that Uh, the way to deal with it in my view Is that you get on the phone or the whatever and connect with like 11 or 12 other women that you You know, you like and you admire and you think can think with you on this Uh, and and you and you you go to the mat with it, you know, and and then you just keep uh expanding that circle with this query Uh, and at some point you will begin to come up with what you need yourself I I think we are really in danger of of losing a sense of possibility in in um in community I mean, look at what happened when when all the women and men and children got together For the marches, you know, there you have that that flash Of what actually people can have more of in their lives on a daily basis if they can move themselves to to make it, you know to to to insist On having circles communities of people Uh, who who get together to work on specific areas like this Thank you Hi, I graduated from Spellman and went back for my 25th reunion last weekend Um So, you know, I always thought I was being raised to be a revolutionary Against racism and sexism and then Was raising my own children that way both boys and girls and my third child who's now nine is transgender and uh And so I think I immediately I thought I was had failed To at the time the child was three and said mom. I'm not a girl and I thought I had failed to raise a feminist Like maybe I have forgotten to talk about um, so you're in a truth To my three year old or you know, I thought maybe this kid was rejecting being a weak girl And so it took me a long time to understand that once again, this was just about Uh owning yourself and determining who you are and then letting the world sort of deal with it As confusing as that is so I'm just curious to know how you Think about This current sort of gender revolution that we are seeing all over magazines and on television I mean, I see it in my house And in my friends houses, um, but yeah, just curious to know how that the revolution is Translated in gender, which I thought always for a long time was very static. I didn't think it was something that we could Determine I thought it was already predetermined. I think it's amazing I I do I mean It just proves that the whole thing is never ending After this, it'll be something else, you know, so the best thing to do just roll with it You know, I mean help our children to be whoever they are And I have no problem with any of it because I think a woman's body, you know, is where we all come from really And that being the case, you know, it could be you could be anything really, you know So It just keeps going Thank you roll with it And you can tell I don't have a whole lot of experience, but i'm learning I didn't yeah I just wanted the the initial sort of the Gut reaction to it. Not that you were studying it or anything, but how you rolled with it felt it Thanks I guess I feel too that all of these Things that seem so odd to us Are our teachers And that we are to learn You know to be more Inclusive we were to learn to have bigger spirits We're to learn a lot From the things that you know, we have no way of even imagining them years ago Um, and I think that's how I accept it. I accept whatever happens And sometimes what happens is very painful And and very challenging But I do accept what happens as a teacher that I'm going to learn something from We have about five minutes more. I'm just warning you in advance of the time when you're not all going to get to ask your questions But please Go ahead. Thank you Hi, miss locker. Thank you for being here. I have a General question about how to engage in the revolution. I am a recent college graduate So I was very involved in I'm sorry a recent what A recent college graduate So I was very involved in the black lives matter movement on my campus And one of the things that often comes up in conversations with my friends is the idea that We need to have self-care and make sure that we're taking care of ourselves While we're also involved in these revolutionary acts, whether or not we're going to protest or we are writing letters to representatives But there's also this idea that you kind of get lost in it, right? Like these things are happening and you're hurting and you're struggling and You're trying to figure out like where your place is going to be So I think I have two questions for you How do you kind of balance self-care while being in the revolution? But also, how do you find what your specific place or what your specific act is going to be in that revolution as well? How do I determine what my specific act is going to be? Lots of sitting Because I don't want it to be wasted You know, I don't want to go off into a direction that is not fulfilling for me on some level I want to keep growing And I also want to make alliances with people that I respect It's really important to to be allied with people who You know have character, you know and who have depth and who are not just chattering Which is so likely it seems in some quote revolutionary circles where people just talk, you know But if you say to them well go out there and and help this farmer who's been thrown off his land Um, they they won't know how to get there. They won't know anything about farming or they won't want to study it You know because it just doesn't it doesn't make sense to them. It's not it doesn't have a strut in it You know Revolution is work You know revolution is work. It's like love love is work Um, so what was the other part of your question? How do you balance self-care while engaging in acts of revolution? I think I think it's important. I haven't had enough of it. Although my friends think that I just have all these hammocks that they see I do I love hammocks. So so wherever I live even in my living room. I have a hammock Um, but I'm you know, I don't get in there as much as I should but it reminds me Uh, that I have a right to lie in the hammock after I've done, you know, all of the stuff that I've been doing Uh, and I guess what I would say is just love yourself, you know, love yourself respect yourself And be you know, just be secure and knowing that you were created out of wonder Me you you you know, you're precious And therefore it is totally right for you to you know, have self-care There's nothing ever wrong with taking care of yourself You know, and then you go out and out of fullness You you offer what you have to the people and to the community and to the world not out of poverty Thank you Can you this can be our last question? Yes, you? Yes, okay Um, I have a question about the color purple You know, I went to the movie read the book and I made sure it was in the library I'm a retired librarian, but my question is In watching the movie and reading the book of color purple And you see what's happening in our lives in the lives of our young black community with in with the police and And black lives matter. Do you see that theme coming back again that you could? rewrite the color purple Well, uh, how would you rewrite it? I mean because of what's happening in our communities today Right the the violence between the black community and the police the our young boys and The things that are going on because when you when we watch that movie you see all that You know when the violence that's going on you see what I'm trying to well I I think what I what I see and what I will offer although it may not be useful I would contend that the violence was happening then Right as well As now that's exactly what I'm saying and how can you bring it up? rewrite well not rewrite the color purple, but maybe add do a new addition to it Well hold on a second volume two. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. I I wrote I think let's see four other novels after that Right And so They they're not going in the direction of police violence exactly but but other kinds of violence I mean the racism that's being bought out today. It's being bought out more today. I don't know if the console what's going on It's being more open You know what I'm saying? I do. Yes. Yes. Right. It is more open. What's going on with our president and the thoughts You know how to bring it up? Well, you know, I I write on my blog In fact, one of the pieces that I wrote when trump was elected was it's called don't despair You know, uh, so so it's You know, I'm not the kind of writer who is interested really in writing sequels Uh, I just I just don't like that. But um, I I am responsive to what is going on And I do write about it and it's there and it's free I mean, that's the that's the part that I really like. I mean, you don't have to pay a cent To to read, you know years of stuff. I started a blog when when obama was elected the first time Right, so since uh 2008 I have been publishing And and you have you don't have to pay anything. I mean it's just right there. You just do you have a computer? Yes, I do. Okay. Well, then we're in connection. You just open it up and turn to my you know page and You there it is Yeah, thank you We actually we have time for one more question actually Thank you Hi Again, as everyone said, thank you for being here. Um, I'm Isabella. I'm part of the museum apprentice program It's a team program here at the museum I'm sorry And I'm lucky enough to be in a African-american literature literature class at my high school in the senior And we were doing presentations all week and today one of our groups was teaching about sort of the skin bleaching industry And you were brought up as someone who sort of coined the term colorism Um and Sort of just about that I was wondering Do you think that part of like the solution or part of deconstructing colorism within oneself or your own community? um Is what you said like moving past what someone Calls your labels your ass even if it's your own community or a group of people For some reason I I have a hard time. Sorry. I could did you understand this? I understand the question either could you repeat the question? Yeah, sure. Um, I guess do you think that Part of moving past colorism within oneself Um is moving past what someone calls you even if it's occurring within your own community Well, I think the answer to that probably is just self-acceptance, you know, really that you Um Develop the capacity to tune out what other people call you Uh and to realize that you are divine. I mean, you know, if you If you just think about what a wonder it is that you exist You know, what other color? I mean, what a miracle Can you imagine how silly it is for people to be talking about? Oh, you know, what color you are what shade of color you are what your hair is like and all that when they should be saying my god, you're here How did that happen? Really So so I I kind of hear what you're saying I'm not hearing it as well as I would like to but I'm just saying go to a deeper level of self-acceptance and love of self And really, you know, just exhilaration At what you are, you know, that you guy here, you know in all your Hairiness and all your, you know, pickiness and all your whatever, you know If people could just see themselves as the wonder that they are You know, and and they could if we weren't programmed so severely You know into judging every little thing about each other I mean, we're we're incredible beings We just let your fingers move and you don't tell them Yeah, that's true. It's amazing Um, just sorry one more thing part of I feel like my issue Not I guess with that is Sort of leaving someone else behind that Is thinking those things about you because they must think them about themselves So when you move past something within yourself Like is it Just as important to weigh that you're leaving Someone else behind thinking the same thing because colorism is very internalized And someone that's telling you something or is being colorist towards you probably thinks the same thing about themselves Gosh, I really wish I could hear you But what comes to mind and this probably has nothing to do with what you just said because I can't claim that I really understood what you said But there is a you know the damapata. It's a it's an Indian the old old scripture. That's amazing But it says something like It is better to go on the path alone Than to travel with a fool So so if I'm hearing you even close Um, sometimes, you know, we are with immature people Or people who just need a little more time to reach where you have already gotten Uh, and and then I think with tenderness and a bow You go on your way Really, it's it's hard to do but uh Don't be stuck by somebody else's um You know smallness You know people do develop at different rates and and that person or persons they you know, they may or may not Develop to where you are, but you can't just wait around You have to keep moving Thank you Thank you. Thank you miss walker. Thank you all for being here. Thank you so much Um as you leave I'll just mention that um this that every thursday in june We'll be screening films by young black queer female identified and non gender conforming artists and filmmakers working in brooklyn Um working today as part of our what we believe black queer brooklyn on film series You can find out more about it on our website also Thank you. Also our june 1st saturday queer continuums is devoted to we wanted a revolution and pride month And our july 1st saturday is also devoted to the exhibition Along with july 4th. We'd love to see you all for the music performance tours of where we wanted we wanted a revolution and more Thank you