 I'm trying to get this unconnected for our mod. Oh, there we go. Thank you for your gift. Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to bring a dear friend and colleague of mine to the stage. He's gonna sort of explain it, but how this conversation will go will moderate this dialogue. Very quickly, this will also happen via Twitter. These two wireless mics are gonna be run up and down the stairs for you to respond to the things that we want to discuss as a collective want to discuss in response to all of this. So, ladies and gentlemen, please help me welcome to the stage my dear friend from Congo Square, Samuel Roberson. I'm wasting time. Hey, everyone. I am really honored and grateful to be here to moderate this conversation with you all. I think, as I said, all of the beautiful words that we needed tonight, along with these wonderful performers and playwrights and poets. And so I'm just gonna keep it real for a second. We only have about 30 minutes to have this conversation. And so, I just wanna lay out some ground rules so we can have a productive conversation. First, you know, there's this, we see it on the billboards, we see it on the buses, see something, say something. I think there's one more component, right? And that is, amen. We are all on the same page. Okay, so do something, right? So tonight is about action. This is a call to action. This is not about talking about feelings, all right? You've all done that on Twitter, Facebook, everywhere we've seen it, we've read it. This is about action. This is about what do we do now? So I also wanna just ask people to be respectful. This is not about getting on a soapbox. If you are on one, I might stop you, tell you I love you, but it's time to get off. Yes? Hey, all right, great. So first we just wanna talk about what you just saw. Talking about action, do something. What is resonating with you? Any lines, words, visuals? What is resonating with you as an audience right now? Anyone, be brave. I think the one thing that really, anytime that I come to like any type of thing like this, is when things are like linked to Disney and ABC, and I'm like, holy shit, it's me. I'm just as much of an issue as everyone else is, and it's nice to be able to remember that and then know that I can change that, so thank you. Absolutely. Anyone else, anything that's just sticking with you from what you heard? Pafirah, can you pass down the mic? This brother, forgive me for not knowing your name in the blue, I think that you just really captured everything when you went into the end of your poem, talking about all lives matter, trans, black lives. I mean, when you said all black lives matter, trans black lives, women black lives, because I think for so long it's sometimes separated, and we rally when they're a black man whom we love and we adore, but the truth is yes, all black lives matter, and if we could just continue to rally not just when black lives were taken unjustly, but all black lives, then I think that we're on our way to a better start, a better progress. Absolutely. One of my biggest struggles right now is trying to talk to my privileged friends and get them to see that they, I guess, should not choose silence, should not choose apathy, and that's often a hard conversation, and I think when I was watching three piece first song, I was like, all my white friends need to see this, all my privileged friends need to see this, because it was just, I think, a beautiful way to break it down, the cycle of theft, I guess, and criminals higher up on the chain just given birth to other crimes, and then, but they're not the ones being punished, only the ones at the bottom of the chain being punished, so that was amazing, and I continued to look for ways to have those conversations successfully, so any help, please, please. Absolutely, I mean art has a way of doing that, right? So art has a way of looking at something from a perspective, allowing us to see details, see ways to communicate, see ways to talk to our friends in a way that might make things more palatable, because telling them they have privileged, and that's not okay, might not go over so well. I'm gonna go to the back to our Twitter feed. Yes, this is from a Twitter user on what's resonating with them. Trans Black Lives Matter, Women Black Lives Matter, Old Black Lives Matter, All Black Lives Matter. Come on, man, I almost hopped out of my seat. Man, if you didn't hit them all, that's what we're talking about, right? We're talking about Black Lives Matter. We're talking about something that is a specific epidemic. This is a systemic problem that we are having, and I think that all of these people up here, these playwrights touched on that, and I wanna shift the question to what was effective about what they did. We're all, well, we brought a lot of artists in the room, so what was effective about what they were doing, and how might that be different than what you might be seeing on TV or what's happening in the streets? What was, what might be effective, what moved me is the possibility of doing something about reparations for the people tortured by Joan Burge. And if we could come back to that and be a little more specific about what we can do when we walk out of here, that would be a help. I'm gonna write that down, yes. Back to what you previously said as to what do we do. Like, what was most effective to me and what bothers me as a Black woman is the idea that the Black man himself is a weapon. He doesn't need anything, just being Black. Like how you said, they see us as a gorilla. They see us as this King Kong type figure that is gonna cause this destruction and I don't even know what you do about that. I don't know what you do that you and trousers and a shirt walking down the street is a weapon and that it bothers me innately. It makes me wanna cry and Sammy, I don't know what you do. Like, if anybody can say what do you do about being yourself as a weapon that causes people to shoot you, tell us, cause I don't know what you do with that. Absolutely, yes. Nikki really moved me. I'm a big woman's AAUW, et cetera person. I feel like we've been trying to do something for decades and I wish we could figure out something to do that would really matter. So let's talk about that, yeah? Let's talk about what can we do? What is our responsibility as artists, as people in this room, right? We have a room filled with power, with very powerful people, with very strong artists. What is our responsibility, what can we do? Well, I think you did it tonight. To all of the artists on stage, there was so much truth and poetry and art in what you presented, it's very powerful. I thank you so much. It was, in my opinion, revolutionary. Please continue, it's very important. I think that what you should do is hit them where it hurts and that's money. If you really wanna change things, you really wanna get people on your side, you need to hit them where it hurts. And that's taking away their freedom, stop making them comfortable. But if we really wanna do something, we have to realize that we're going to have to sacrifice our comfortable lives, phones, cameras, whatever it is that we have that makes us feel comfortable, clothes, food, whatever it is, and realize that you're going to have to take some liberties away in order to be able to gain a sense of freedom. So now you're calling out specific things. Take it with, you're talking about touching on capitalism, right? So what is our, what can we do as artists then to make that happen? Yes, we have one here. Yeah. I think that we constantly need to challenge everything that we read, everything that we see, everything that we hear, but be a vessel, be willing to listen, be willing to encourage each other, be willing to give space. And I wanna thank you guys for making this opportunity happen so that we are, we're all in witness to something that is beautiful, that's created out of tragedy, beautiful that's created out of hurt, out of shame, out of fear, out of confusion. And yeah, I think that if we constantly challenge ourselves to ask questions, and I think I'm gonna challenge myself right now, I have a question. Come on. I'm all with it. I'm listening. I enjoyed all of the pieces very much, but I have a very interesting question with Schizophrenia America, Americana. Schizophrenia Americana. All right, that piece really challenged me a lot. It's forcing me to understand the fact that we hear all of these, we hear so many tidbits, right? You know, in the media we hear this happened, and I saw this, or Michael Brown did this, or you know, that wasn't true, or this wasn't true, and it's how do you know really what happened? And we may never know, we may never truthfully know, but what I do know is being a black and brown body in this country, there is a stigma, and that's unshakable, that is evident. And that is something that we need to constantly be aware of and be okay to talk about, be okay to say, hey man, how do you feel truthfully? I love you. Thank you. Thank you. Absolutely, I'm not, yes, yes, Anne, right? We are having these conversations. These are very important conversations, and I just want to take a quick poll really fast. Do we have our Twitter? Yeah, well I'm gonna take one from Twitter, because that's my job, and then we'll move on. I have a quick poll of the audience. Okay, Twitter user Jessica says, are we preaching to the choir? Don't we need work like this in places where it's scarce, where it is revolutionary? Woo! Yes, okay, question of the day. Are we preaching to the choir? What I want to ask, and what I want to pull the audience about is, how many of you have taken part in the actions that have been happening in Chicago? Raise your hand. How many people have not been taken part in the actions in Chicago? Raise your hand. That seems like a lot of people. So if we're preaching to the choir, we're not preaching to a very active choir. So, I don't say that to put anyone down. I just say that because somebody said, are we dead? America, we are dead, right? I think he said, let's march, let's write, let's fight. Yes? So how are we going to find our way in? For those people that have not been a part of the protests, of the things, the actions happening in Chicago, what has stopped you from joining the movement and taking to the streets? That's my question. What has stopped you from doing it? Because all of these people up here want to help you get to there. Want to help you get to the streets. Yes? Sorry, I can't see who has the mic, so. I just wanted to get back to, I'm sorry to change what you just asked. But what was so effective, what the artist did, was I thought restore the humanity behind the cries that are happening all around the country. It's been twisted in that it's just pure anger and like these, it keeps being said that it's just a thuggish cry from, you know, these poor people, these people that don't matter. And you guys I thought as artists, and our job as artists, is to restore the humanity behind the message. Bring back that middle part of black lives, that life, like restore that vital energy. That's what art can do on a universal basis. You guys all spoke about something universal, something that we can take to people, that they cannot just sit there and be like, that doesn't matter. You cannot deny humanity. So thank you guys for doing that. I thought it was beautiful. To bring it back to what you just asked, it was a beautiful speech, by the way. What personally stopped me is someone who struggles with mental health, with someone who's struggled with sex trauma, with someone who's struggled with police violence. It's hard for me to feel like I can put my body in the forefront when it's constantly attacked every minute, every second, every hour of the day, every year, before I was even a concept, when I was still an egg inside my mother's womb. So for me, what's also been really beautiful is to recognize that sometimes you do need to protect the self-health, the self-awareness, and to protect that mental sanity that is so important that gets forgotten and lost in the chaos, and to remember that there are in fact little ways that we can participate. Like as an art maker, an art thinker, I try to bring these into these spaces that I work in. I try to be as uncomfortable as possible to recognize that those feelings are real and that I'm not disengaged, that I'm not a victim of social media, a victim of just silence. Trying to remember that those are things that are still possible for me to do, but how I make change doesn't necessarily always fit into protesting or fit into active rage because that's unsettling and can be a trigger for anybody in this room. So that has been my hindrance, but has also been my self-awareness in trying to challenge me to figure out ways to infiltrate the system in other venues. Yeah. Hey, everyone. How's it going? One of the questions that was asked was, how can we use art as an effective way of working on this? One of the projects that I'm working on is surviving the mic. And the concept behind it is very simple. Once a month, a group of us gather. We bounce between the south side and the north side. We have two permanent venues. And we just gather either at my house or Mojde's house. And people come in and they read their work and they talk about what they're surviving through. And it's all kinds of trauma. Another one of my folks in the audience, Alexandra, hosted a night at her house where we just did a whole night of domestic violence pieces. One of the reasons why I started this is that these are the stories that people are so uncomfortable with. That when you take it to an open mic, when you take it to a public space, it's the kind of stuff that people don't wanna listen to, oh, you're depressing me, oh, you're bringing me down. But that stuff, the hard stuff, the complicated stuff, the narratives that are not simple, that are not easy, that are not media-friendly, that is what art is for. So I would encourage everyone in this room to figure out ways to gather together, host a reading at your house, host an art-making event at your house, put a bunch of materials on a table, and just put on some music, get that new DeAngelo album, and just get some wine and collage together, and talk about all of this stuff. That's, I think that being together, as somebody who can't, I can't get out in March. I have a young 17-month-old son, so I can't do it and I'm an organizer by day. So every single day of my life, I'm talking rape and police brutality and all of that for eight, 10, 12, 14 hours a day. But one of the things that I can do is make space safe for people. I can hold people. I can look at people. I can believe people, and they do the same for me. So. Church, knowledge, we have one in the center, somewhere. Thanks. There was a tremendous amount of truth that has come through here from many different angles. On the question of what to do, I wanna pose it around the second word of the theme. We must breathe. I think we have to take the word must and pledge that it will happen, that all these things will end. We're at the start of an upsurge, an awakening that's going on, and there's tremendous amount of truth coming out. There's tremendous amount of questioning coming out. We have to follow this path, figure out what it's actually gonna take and be committed to do what it's gonna take to put an end to that. Everybody got a flyer about a dialogue with Cornell West and Bob Avakin. That's one place to go in terms of what it's gonna take. But my point is we have to be true to it must end. All right. Yes, yes, yes. So you asked the question, why didn't you get involved? And I'm from Chicago, but I've been living in Portland and I didn't participate there. And the reason being, and I think this is probably true for most everybody who didn't participate were the reasons that I had to not. I'm in graduate school, I have finals, I have papers to write, I need to sleep. And those are my reasons and they're valid and y'all have reasons and they're valid, but that doesn't, they're valid in that they're reasons but they're what stop us from taking action. And so for me, what I see me personally, what moves me to action is the humanity and what I really got connected to, what I've always been connected to when I'm moved to take action is getting connected with the humanness of what's happening. And it can be hard with the media because it's all, it just becomes these like blips of, these are people, they're lives, but we don't actually get connected to the emotion and the people, their lives, their communities are affected in that the world and the trajectory of where we're going is affected. And so one way to do that is through art, which is what you guys have done and I was deeply moved by many of the pieces, but not everybody is gonna be moved by that and continuing to do art and continuing to have conversations with your friends, about humanity and people being connected. So that's my little bit. And I think if this movement is about anything, it's about humanity, right? I mean, is that understood? I hope it is. I truly, Twitter world, HowlRound, I hope we all are on the same page about that right here. Yeah, I just wanna kinda give a yes and to what you had just said about having these local ways to just inhibit these stories and getting more things that break away from what we're seeing in the media, the main media. And I even wanna go deeper with that. I'm a filmmaker and I think that what we're seeing day to day, even just like through the commercials and through the advertising and what this bread and circus that we're constantly being drawn to kind of steering away. I wanna kind of, I guess as a way that we can use our art to make a statement is just to kind of be that host and just to try to get away so that we can use our art to, I'm sorry, I have all these thoughts in my head and I need to put them in the background. Come on, share. I guess if we as a collective use our art to be what the media right now isn't. And to, and what's great about this event is that it's not just in this auditorium that it's being seen all around, which I love and I want this more to happen. I want people to tune in to these stories all around instead of just clicking on the TV and seeing all of this capitalist shit. I want it to be something deeper. And so hopefully there's a way that we can invest in that and that we can keep making this work and that we can start local and then we can act global and that it can be these small stories, these small collective things, but that it can go much bigger so that we're constantly talking about this, that we're constantly sharing these stories, that even though it's uncomfortable, that even though it will hurt, there's that time for restoration and that we can repair. So thank you for this and that is so global. I love you. I'll be brief, but I think the tie between artistry and activism is nuance. And so I think what we have to do is really think about, I've heard a lot of dialogue about why aren't we going to the streets and we haven't taken it to the street. As someone with an invisible disability, I am relying on my brothers and sisters who are on the street to march for me as well. And so what I do as an artist, as an activist, as someone who works day after day in higher education with multicultural students, I've had to get quiet with myself and say, okay, in artistry there's nuance, in activism there's nuance, so what can I do? I'm not quite sure what we can do, but I know I can add my voice to the collective and kind of make sure that it's an empowering voice. At the last poem kind of talked about someone's grandma and making the greens for the vigil and that act of care is an act of activism. And so I think we have to really redefine how we see activism and what that truly is. So I wanna go to Twitter. Okay, Twitter, one Twitter user says, art can restore the humanity of this movement. Another says, occupy your non-ally Facebook friends pages. Repost poetry and music about the issue. Make your voice heard. Okay, I like that hashtag. Occupy your non-ally Facebook pages. Awesome, yes? I think that activism on the street and marching and protesting, like that's really effective and it's so important and I'm like, I just have undying gratitude for that, but I think people really can also use the internet as a vehicle to spread information and awareness and that's one of the things that I do day in and day out like 24 hours a day. I'm always on my blog. I'm spreading awareness. I'm talking about racism. I'm talking about sexism, transphobia, homophobia, all of these important topics. And so I think that I know what you mean by like asking us why we're not on the street and I appreciate that because I think that people assume if you're not marching, you're not doing something important but there's so many avenues to share these important stories and experiences with people. And I really, I urge people to use the internet as a vehicle to do that. So I agree. I'm gonna ask a rhetorical question. Who controls the internet? Who controls your Facebook feed? Who controls your Twitter feed? Who controls all, I'm just, you know, think about that. I think it's awesome, but think about that. Yes. Hi, I wanted to first thank you all for the wonderful work that you've done. You keep us focused. You keep us on the course. You keep it real in ways that media does not do it. I've been fighting this battle for a long time and I'll make this very brief. I don't know if any of you remember about six years ago, six years ago an 83 year old grandmother was tasered by the police department. And that happened to have been my grandmother. And I fought the good fight. I fought, I stopped by it. I fought all the way. I held them accountable. I can't go into all the details, but believe me when I say I held them accountable. But one thing I noticed about the media at the time is they spent a lot of time redirecting people. It started becoming an issue where people were angry with me and my mom for, well, why did they leave her alone? Well, where was the family? Well, why, nobody stopped to think about the fact that even though she had a mental illness, she still had her civil rights. So we couldn't just make her go here or move her there. We had to go and legally fight to become her guardians. But the media just misdirected. Just kept taking people back to blaming us and nobody started stopping and thinking, why would a sergeant or large police officers have to deal with an 83-year-old grandmother who's on a two-step and a cane by tasering her? They just totally left that. So I said all that to say this. What you guys do is you keep it real. You keep it really real and I appreciate that. We know we're gonna get it straight up from you, no misdirection. And I love you for that. Thank you. Absolutely. I'm gonna shift into the last kind of segment. I know we only have a few minutes left, but do we have a responsibility as artists? How are we going to motivate and engage with bystanders? And how are we gonna hold each other accountable for these occurrences of injustice and inequality? And I'd like to ask, honestly, there was some beautiful work up here. Some people shared, poured out their hearts. Who in this room was motivated to act? Feels like they were motivated to do something. That's what I wanna know. I wanna know how many people in this room were motivated to do something. I think that's what we do as artists. We make the revolution sexy. Yeah, by telling truth in our creative ways. Well, I love that you're speaking about what artists can do and I think we can also incorporate everybody in that. Everybody's an artist in a sense. And one of the things that we can do is right now, money is power and we can take that power back to the people and we can go to www.wolf-pack.com and take money out of politics and really ring in that power. And every single one of you has access to the internet and you can go on there and figure out what you can do on a state level. You can call everybody, your governor, your mayor, your alderman, every single person can do that. It's not just artists, everybody can do that because we, the people, have to come together as a community and that also means you can get into your communities and find out what projects are going on. Especially in black communities, what great projects are going on in Chicago and what can you do to donate your time, your talent and your money to? And that's one of the biggest things as a community we need to come back and regain our power in all those different areas. That's all. Absolutely. Good evening. All of the pieces were very touching but one that really stood out was Cap and I Believe with the black hat on. Is that your name? Cool. When your poetry actually kind of incited me and in a good way, it was beautiful but it made me think about America, the broken, America, the dead. When I keep thinking about America supposed to be the home of the free and the brave, the land of the opportunity, America, the beautiful. And so what can we do, and this is what getting together like this does as an actor and a playwright myself, I keep thinking and as a teacher, I wanna educate my students but I also wanna educate my children and that's where we can start is educating our children to know that, yes, this is the ugly face of America but America is the land of the opportunity. America is the home of the free and the land of the brave and it's up to us to make sure that we see that through not only for ourselves today but for our children tomorrow. And so it's our job to make sure that our children are coming to things like this, seeing this, seeing plays, seeing poetry and making sure that they realize the true faces of America but then that they do something to make the America that we all believed in, the America that everybody fights to come to, the America that everybody wants to be at and so your poetry, I loved it but it incited me because it's not the America that I want to remember as. I wanna remember the America, the beautiful. So how do we then take this kind of work in support of the movements that are out in the streets, right? Do we only have to do it in a theater? Does it have to be contained? How can we take it? How funny, what I was going to say is that actually as artists, so many artists in this room and looking at this entire panel up here of artists, we look at them and we're like, they did such great work and then we talk about, well, this was asked to do for this was this commissioned to do for this, were they paid to do for this? How does that work? And then when we're talking about, we're looking at this theater right here, a big theater, there's other big theaters here in this city too and everyone in this room has the ability to influence those theaters to do work like this that speaks to people. So instead of looking at these seasons that are completely lily white, no offense, we can get things like this on the stage so that they're not just having to do this as something for free to help out because we need it. We all need this. And that's something we can do as artists. Come on, there. Don't hurt him. I need to speak to what America was built on, genocide, Native Americans and slavery and the fact that that truth came out through this art tonight I think is what really inspired people here. But that's what we cannot forget. That's what this country was made about. Now, I just wanted to say one thing, the people going into the streets, the fact that truth was coming out, you know the other side is trying to change its strategy too and they're going after people, they're going after leaders in the streets and if that allows us to stop, if that makes us stop, this is a moment in history that and I think tonight was very historic and I think the way that we were moved and the truth that came off the stage is very moving and so a system so illegitimate, so horrible to so many people. We've got to keep looking at what that really is and deal with it and that'll give us the power. Absolutely, right here, Isaac, Isaac, yes. I would like to say as someone who is in the streets and is protesting, please join us. The thing that I experienced at the first protest I was at, the positive, I'll speak of that first, was a greater connection to thousands of Chicagoans, black, white, trans, gay, straight, people I've never met in my life hugging each other, linking arms, laying in the street, if you have something that you're scared of, please join us, you will never feel more lifted up and loved in your entire life than standing alongside people that share that cause with you. The negative side that we must speak to is these police officers that we're protesting. The reason we're in the street is to speak directly to them, whether it's a white person speaking to them or a black person speaking to them, they're laughing in our faces, they're passing out fun-sized Snickers bars, it is a joke, it is a game to them. The last protest, last Saturday, National Day of Anger, people were out in D.C., people were out in New York, the turnout here in Chicago was very small, please join us, let the Chicago police force who are among the most brutal police forces in the country know that this city will not take it anymore. We are preaching to the choir, I would like to preach directly to them, I think someone needs to tell our mayor, someone needs to tell our police departments that they need mandatory butts in seats watching pieces like this. Force them, make it a law for them to sit and hear the humanity of these stories, something could change if we do that. All right, and if you have anything to fear, please make it another loss of a person of color due to police brutality, please make that your fear and be motivated to do something. I'm from St. Louis, first of all, it's not going to be true. And I want to go back to the non-allied people. Yep, I lost my job because of it, because I would go to work and talk about, I went to the protest, this is what you need to know, come down and join us. And in doing that, because I worked at a restaurant where Bob McCullough would come to all the time, I lost my job in part of it, and I'm not ashamed of it at all. Because it wouldn't for me to be there in the first place, obviously, because I spoke how I felt about what was going on and correcting them and would have to listen to my boss say, it's not even that big of a deal, I don't understand why they're out there. They should just let the family mourn in peace. Peace is what got us here. Till people are free, we ain't gonna stop. Till people are free, I can hear my neighbor calling, I can breathe, now we're in the struggle and we can breathe, calling out the violence of the racist police. We ain't gonna stop. It reads, we build this memorial to honor the black lives we've lost and to bring a little happiness to the youth and the struggle. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for coming to this performance here at Victory Gardens. Let's give our artists one more round of applause. I also just wanna remind everyone that you've heard a long list of ways we can help. As artists, as community members, I encourage you to investigate those further and let's keep this dialogue going beyond the spaces of this theater. Thank you so much. Thank you.