 Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to our life, the Black Youth Stories Project. The stories we're about to hear are based on the real experiences of young Black Americans shared through our nationwide interview initiative. At this time, we would like to ask you to please silence all cell phones, cameras and other noise-making devices. The taking of photos and video recording are strictly prohibited. Please unwrap any candy or cough drops at this time and take a moment to identify the exit in your issue. Please feel free to join us for our talk-back immediately following the show, and thank you for being here and listening to these stories. Watch these white lives. Those comments themselves infuriating New York City's police youth officer, Panallel, spent two hours in front of the grand jury telling NBJ police. When they finally stopped that car, Cleveland police officers fired 137 shots. Let's talk about the elephant in the room here. I know it's been bothering everybody, so it's only right that we address it before it creates too much more anxiety. It's not fair for you, Walter, to pretty much sit here and soak in the tension that has been created. We feel it, and you feel it, so we may as well talk about it. I can't dance. I mean, I can't. I mean, never have been able to, and never will. I mean, there it is, out for everyone to know. I can't dance, so your assumptions of me are incorrect. I overheard some folks talking the other day about seeing a Black girl dancing at a club and wishing they were like her. Yeah, like her, because they didn't want to be here. They just wanted to know how to dance. See, no one can say that about me because they wouldn't be gaining any sacrosanct aptitude for dancing. They just have to deal with being Black. Now, I'm not ashamed of not being able to dance. That was y'all. Y'all are the ones uncomfortable with it. Here's the thing. I put up with a lot of stereotypes that I don't perpetuate at all. For instance, I don't drink Kool-Aid. I mean, do you realize what that is? That powdered cold water? It's disgusting. Also, don't eat chicken. In fact, I don't eat meat at all. So, sorry to ruin your notions of my nightly meals. Here's a good one. I have no illegitimate children. What? Yeah. Therefore, there's not even a chance of me being delinquent on my child support payment. So, you know, don't even go there. Also, I am not unemployed. So, lose the idea that we're all lazy people who suck the teeth of our government aid. I mean, ain't like they interested in helping us anyway. Speaking of employment, I admit that I started at an entry-level position, but I climbed on my way up. What I'm most proud of is that I did it without having to be less Black and more White, though they tried. Being encouraged to wear a tie toward it. I mean, stop saying ain't and y'all. Giving skin and dap to my White bosses so they think they're included in my circle of non Negro Negro friends. I got my promotions because of my work. Not my desire, I should add. There are some assumptions about me that you would be correctly making. For example, I do play basketball. Mostly because it was my way of staying out of trouble when I was young. And it's now an easy and fun way to keep myself active. You know, active body, healthy mind. Healthy mind, happy life. Another one you'd be correct in making is that my father walked out on my family when I was young. You know, I did feel the stereotype of being the man of the household when I was only a kid. You're also right that I didn't have the same childhood that most White suburban kids have because I was busy taking care of my mother and little sisters. And you're also right that my family is more important to me than anything. And you're also right that I listened to rap music because it provides the only surefire avenue I have to being influenced by people that look like me, have been through what I've been through and have navigated this hateful system in society the same way I have. And you're also right that I wrecked my hood but what you don't realize is that these aren't stereotypes. Family first. Never forget where you came from. Support your brothers and your sisters. You'll share your heritage. I mean, these aren't stereotypes like watermelon laziness and fried chicken. These are principles and gospel. They're pieces of the moral compass that we are so often accused of not following. But the truth is, we don't navigate blindly. The fact of the matter is that you arrive to a series of misguided interpretations of what black music is when you're so focused on ignoring the elephant in the room. Love singing. Guys love singing. Acting, dancing, anything to do with those forms of art. Of course, this led me to my passion of musical theater. I want to do this. Like when I get older, I want to have been at least 30 musicals on Broadway. I guess some of them could be off-Broadway. I won't get mad. But my family doesn't exactly agree with this type of career field. Her first honor can sing. I think my old uncle can sing. My mom can sing. I'll even sing with her. She's really good at matching pitch. However, they left any dreams in an artistic life behind and went for very safe, practical careers. They love it. If I was them, I would too. And I'm me. And me wants to sing on Broadway. Now, at first, my family was very against the idea of me going to a four-year university known for computer science in order to pursue a bachelor's degree in musical theater. And I never understood why. Being a family rooted in the church, maybe they were afraid that I would be lost in a world of sin and hatred. Being a family that believes in stability, maybe they were afraid I wouldn't have enough income. Both are very likely. Maybe it's because we're black. Maybe it's because they believe that as a black man, I need to believe I can be whatever I want to be. Which means I can be president, but I shouldn't be a singer. Which means I can be an astronaut, but I shouldn't be a dancer. Which means I can be an adventure, but I shouldn't be an actor. Because our history is rooted in the arts. The arts was our way of expressing hardship and pain and truth. But since I need to show everyone else that I can do anything, I can't do what I know I'll love. Because that's what any black man will do. Because as a black man, I need to do what white people can do. Because if I sing and dance and act, I'm being impressed like my ancestors were impressed. Maybe. Maybe I just love singing. The first few days of second grade. And I remember sitting at a desk in the back of the room. There were two girls sitting in front of me. They were muttering something under their breath. They were complaining, saying they didn't want to sit by the black girl. One of them even said that she didn't feel like I belonged in the class with her. Our teacher came up to them and asked them to repeat what they said, so they did. The girls looked at each other and told the teacher, we don't want to sit by that black girl. She doesn't belong. The teacher looked at them for a moment before shaking her head. She seemed to stiffen, and for a second I wondered if anybody was going to say anything. Where the grimace our teacher said, the correct term is African American. Do not call someone black. But she turned around and went back to court, preferring to be heard as African American after that. It was ingrained in my subconscious and my identity. My name didn't matter, age, height, weight. Nothing mattered but the fact that I am black. Society told me there was a politically correct way to address my identity and that was the only way that I can be considered a person because I'm different and therefore have to be placed into a category. I'm not allowed to be just a person. I'm not allowed to be a student sitting in a classroom. I'm not allowed to be the kid those girls didn't want to sit by. I'm the black kid. I understand now what my teacher was trying to do. In her head she thought she was helping me by placing me into a category that was created for me. But what I realize now is that being colorblind doesn't mean anything. And categories, that's all of us are. White, Asian American, Mexican American, African American. Why do we have subcategories of American? Why can't we all just be American? I am not African American. I am an American. I am black. It wasn't until I got older that I realized the lack of identity I received that day in second grade. Then I truly understood what the inability to call myself black meant and how being colorblind doesn't mean anything. When you take away color you're left with white, which is still a color, a privileged color but a color. Isn't it better to stop categorizing human beings and individualizing them into subcategories of Americanism and just let them be people? Weird. Yeah, I get that all the time. I had a guy the other day call me the N-word I was here before class and everyone just laughed at me when I was with her today. I didn't stop thinking about it until I got home. Adam, do you? Well, team, I've never really hung out with many other black people. So that's saying something. I feel pretty accepted. Some white people don't even acknowledge me. I mean, it's 2015. 2015 and people still pretend like I don't exist. When our teacher was talking to us about you interviewing us for this project he had to ask like a ton of people about who the black students at the school are because unless we play for like a sports team until we get in trouble of course. Also, I don't like black girls. They're so loud all the time. If it were my choice, I wouldn't even consider myself black. My friends call me Oreo because I'm black on the outside but I'm white on the inside. Dude, I'd say something wrong. You don't see what they've done to you? What do you mean? You didn't used to think that way, did you? Weren't you ever curious about your culture and heritage? After a while actually, we don't talk about it in school and no one ever wanted to teach me. So I figured it wasn't important. I know what I need to know. Harry Tumman built a railroad for slaves and Abraham Lincoln freed them. Man! What? Open your eyes, man. Don't you see that your friends have warped your head? What do they call you? When they're talking amongst themselves and you join the conversation, what do they call you? Like I said earlier, Oreo. Or sometimes, Tokyo. Tokyo? Like, Tokyo and black top? Yeah! Isn't that funny? I mean, I guess it's a little weird. It only bothers me if Marnie in a bad mood. We're friends. We root on each other. Do they tell black jokes? Yeah. Do you tell white jokes? They're white jokes. I don't know, Winnie, but it only seems fair that if they get to tell black jokes, you would be able to chime in with some white jokes every now and then, right? Like making payments on time or eating mayonnaise and parsnips. No, not me. I don't want to offend anybody. But you're okay with being offended. I mean, no. Not me. I stand up for it. Like the other day, someone called me the N word. You just said that that kind of stuff doesn't happen to you. Not that I think of it. Never ask me about it. I don't want to talk about this anymore. May I leave? All right. What's your next question? Each person that has, with no regret, shared a discriminating piece of their stereotypical junkbook will call themselves my friend. Every pat on the back, every warm hug, every fist bump, every peace sign, every high five, we call each other friends. They have my back and they will always be there for me. Whenever my teacher begins to timidly dive into a brief lecture about black history, they all involuntarily turn and look at me as if my skin color is a doctorate degree in African-American studies. They're my friends. Whenever we hang out on a weekend, and I quickly mention that chicken sounds like really frickin' good right now, they all let that jackpot smile lined with a thousand black jokes conquer their face while their elbows nudge me, pleading for forgiveness because they know I can hear their brains chuckling about Proble Frank and Watermelon. They're my friends. Whenever a black couple walks into the theater right before my performance, they eerily play the game of find my parents, not knowing that the white man and his mixed son are my uncle and cousin, and they are the only ones who can make it to my show. My friends basted my family's coming, but they didn't, so I can't blame them. They could've asked what I met when I said I wanted chicken, but they didn't, so I can't get mad. They could've asked if I felt comfortable watching the night professors skim through my history like a stack of magazines, but they didn't, so I can't get annoyed. So when my friends come up with a really good black joke, and when they find the nerve to ask if I'll get mad, you can say it. I'm sure it's after the punchline, and when they decide it's time to lay down a couple more. I've definitely heard that one. Finally, run out of bullets to pierce my African-American dignity. That was pretty good. Bedtime story do you want to hear tonight? Let's see, what do we have? Oh, how about Cinderella? White. Snow White? Wait. Still White. Story I'm supposed to tell. My story. What about my story? It's fit for a fantasy. An average girl from a middle-class neighborhood who married and had a child. What about my story's fit for a fairy tale? All of it. What's more valuable than sharing with your child that you were able to make for yourself the life that you wanted, by what others expected of you? I guess. I mean, I didn't do it on my own. I had close friends. And I had a teacher in college that really helped me, Mr. Leonard. He was my black studies teacher who really taught me about my history. He told me that I do have a valuable place in this world. I just needed to learn to have creative for myself. What did Mr. Leonard teach you? What story do you remember with him? I was 18. A freshman in college. He told me how much of an accomplishment it was for him to be teaching a class on the topic of black studies and to have a black student. I was the only one. He basically told me I'd be his favorite if I took it seriously because most others didn't. Others either pretended like they knew the material or pretended like it was irrelevant to them. That's why I eventually took up the major. I found that the more I learned about my heritage, my history, the more I discovered about myself, it's a pretty amazing feeling to learn about yourself from events of the past, especially when you're learning it from someone who will teach you what others won't. I remember being in high school just a year earlier. I really spent 25 minutes in U.S. history class talking about slavery, the Civil Rights Movement, and the Waltz riots. I was a lucky one. Many of my friends and classes didn't talk about the Civil Rights Movement at all because it's easier to peck at the objects of service and crime. So when Mr. Leonard taught me about Black Wall Street, during North Carolina and the church meetings during the Civil Rights Movement that he attended as a young man, I knew I was about to learn something special from someone phenomenal. He fought so that he could someday have his own classroom and he fought so that I could be in one of those seats. There was no way I was going to waste that. Well, here's your chance to inspire someone with your story. Just like Mr. Leonard did for you, I'm going to tell you a story about how your mommy made a difference to one very passionate and smart man because I want you to know how important it is to inspire others and know your history. Where you come from is not insignificant. We can tell all the fantasy fairy tales of princesses and kingdoms you already descended from royalty. I zip my jacket and you zip your bag. Both our breaths are equally cold. There's one of us equal and there's one of us told. Told what to do and told what to be. Click. I see the looks, the whispers, the groans. I know the nods, the wide eyes, the tones. Tones of voice are suddenly stopping. The tone of silence, the tone of fear. I sense the tension the moment I'm near. Click. Beep. Door lock. Click or alarm. Beep the realization that I'm the stereotype in violence, you fear? Boom. Occupy movement, being intense for months on end, supporting something. A 1%, right? Or was it the 99%? I'm pretty sure it was the 99% because that's most of us. The idea was that the 1%ers were the policymakers for the other 99% of us who have some sort of problem with that for something, I think. Did you see how the police totally cave and provided security and shelters and porta-potties and years and stuff? What a victory for those folks. I mean those folks who protested in their tents during the day and then rented them out to the homeless community at night while they returned to their homes. So much good for only trivial compensation. Did you know that 66% of the occupied protesters were white? Mm-hmm. And some 80% had at least bachelor's degrees. Wow. What an eclectic group of people. The potential for degree diversity is off the charts. That's 99% representation right there. I personally feel very well illustrated. Especially considering blacks make up about 13% of the US population. An enormous 18% of which have bachelor's degrees and higher. That's how you peacefully protest. For example, occupied movement. Not like those guys over in Baltimore. I mean you know the ones who started out with the peaceful protest and then were later agitated and antagonized by the public. Calling the silent demonstrators niggers and thugs. Which totally and then were later agitated and antagonized by the police who broke up the silent and peaceful protests to which we have a constitutional right I should add by throwing tear gas, mustard gas and combo grenades. Even though there was no evidence of any hostility. Yeah. Those guys went about it all the wrong way. What they should have done was occupy Baltimore. They should have protested the overall governing decisions of the city and hoped that the whole Black Lives Matter thing would just kind of fall into place through that. Why fight for one cause when you can fight for so many others bunched into one and be really inclusive and neat. Because protesting for a cause has been something. The people of Baltimore, Ferguson, Cleveland, Oakland, Portland, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Sanford, Charleston, New York City, DC, Detroit, Tulsa, Riverside, Seattle and many other cities all had one cause for which to fight. Justice. Justice for Freddie Gray. Justice for Eric Garner. Justice for Trayvon Martin. Justice for Tamir Rice. Justice for Mike Brown. Justice for Yvette Smith. Justice for Victor White III. Justice for Esau Ford. Justice for Walter Scott. Justice. Justice. Justice. Justice. These holds sits comfortably in a cell with three ejaculating 12 people in an Aurora. Meanwhile, 12-year-old Tamir Rice will never again return to the park he was playing in when he was shot by Officer Tim Lowland who still holds a job he never proved to fight for under restricted service. So before you pass judgment upon us criminalize us, animalize us, take a moment to inventory what privileges you have. Meanwhile, we'll be over here. Counting off the innocent family members we've lost. Occupying Blackness. Diversity. Diversity is defined as being a range of different things. Diversity in the workplace is supposed to represent people using their background and influence to inform their approach to a common issue, challenge, or goal. Institutional diversity is just about the number of diversity groups. Percentages and numbers. Now what do all these percentages and numbers actually achieve? Grants. Private monetary support and demographically specific programming. Sounds great, right? But what does this actually translate to? Money and recognition. That's it. That's the end of the conversation. Where does the money go if not to funding programs to support the unacknowledged populace of this percentage? What's the difference between bragging about the number of Black students you have for the sake of recognition or bragging about the number of Black slaves you have for the sake of status? If you're that proud of it, why not work harder to help us succeed? Why is it while there is a growing number of Black students enrolling in higher education no more than 40% complete their degrees within six years? Where's the effort for retention? Where's the effort to create a sense of belonging? This was not a gift. I was not giving the opportunity to go to college or allowed to work at this job. I earned it. I worked just as hard if not harder than the people that surround me on a daily basis. Mostly because I have to. I'm acknowledged for achieving the same things they do despite having put in twice, three times, six times the work. Conditions of my home life changed and when I asked for help not to pity but for assistance I was brushed under the rug. I mean the number of Black students that drop out of universities isn't a coincidence. We don't drop out and then we're Black from the moment we grace this Earth we're Black. We were dropouts. Drug dealers, gang members and low lives in the eyes of an overwhelming percentage of people that don't look like us from day one. So when I was searching and begging because in their mind my fate was sealed. So I was predestined to work two or three dead-end jobs and despite doing the right thing after falling behind by asking for help that's exactly who I am not because I believed it but because no one helped me believe that deserved better. Institutional diversity is not about the success of minority groups it's just about the ownership of it. My cheeks, my hands, my eyes, this is my chest my waist, my hair, my face my softness, my body this is my womanhood which leads them to believe that this is their body that my body is not my property but there they touch me as I walk into a room they call out to me on the street they take their indiscreet quick glances at my chest they rub her neck as I ignore them and walk on by this is my role these are my fingers my toes my ears my lips an itemized list of strange fruit this is my skin the color of animism the color of sexual aggression the color of expendability so they take my womanhood as if it were their own so they take my strength as if it were disobedience so they take my innocence as if I never deserved it so they take my self-defense and turn it into shame I try to be the strong woman that I am and say no, they just say I didn't say it loud enough has nothing to do with the clothes that I wear no matter my wardrobe I always wear sex the guilty pleasure that warrants no remorse these were my hips my legs my eyes this was my chest and body this was my womanhood this is my skin evidence that racism still exists you can't look around and see that it is a prevalent part of every second of every minute of every hour of every day of every week of every month of every year a recent study at the University of Chicago was thousands of employers nationwide the information, job experience education, you name it, was exactly the same but the first name was changed on half of the resumes they used the name David on the other half they used the name Dante upon evaluation, the resumes for Dante were 50% less likely to be called back for an interview dumb cosmetics you know soap and body washing stuff marketed a tanning oil as being best used on normal to dark skin Blacks were 4 times more likely to be pulled over by cops all the recent events regarding the black body and police violence in fact in 2014 more blacks were killed than those that died during the 9-11 attacks also more blacks are incarcerated in prisons than there were slaves in 1850 the fact that I was accused of stealing a painting from a department store last week after I had just purchased it and was walking out the looks and glances I get walking down the street the new racial slurs that's ghetto war he's a thug in a recent video by 16-year-old actress, Amanda Sandberg she points out that popular recording artists are profiting off black stereotypes Katie Perry eats watermelon in a music video and points to a picture of a wreath of Franklin Taylor Swift crawls under a line of girls twerking with a black female leading the line because after all black bodies are the ones that are easily expendable and acted against whether it be sexual or violent in 2004 a board game was created called ghettoopoly monopoly but the railroads become liquor stores the tax square alternates between pimping hose and carjacking you don't buy property you steal it the game pieces are things like a marijuana leaf, a pimp a hoe, a 40 ounce a machine gun, a crack rock and a basketball racial profile period I'm always without a doubt stopped in the line at the airport if I'm walking into a store I'm watched, sometimes followed questioned when I'm walking down the street people expect me to step off the sidewalk or they'll just turn the other way just to avoid me because of the color of my skin do you need more because I have 20 some odd years of daily experiences shared with you 6 years old my brother and I were outside of the park and I were twins and we of course did all the same things we have the same everything same shirt, same shoes, same hat all that this day though we had different toys I had this super cool megazord action figure that split to all the power ranger vehicles but my brother, we were just playing with our toys outside when he started pulling it at people and making bang bang noises and then he saw my brother and saw his body walked by a police officer 6 years old, killed because he had a water gun who wanted me to die that day and I looked at him not because he was my brother but because I saw what I would look like if I were killed one thing to say that could have been me and another to ask is that me it was my brother wish it were me instead my mom was so distraught and heartbroken that she couldn't tell us apart even though she always could somehow they had to ask me who I was so she'd know which one of her children was born never been the same since then since I watched my brother and I had died at the same time I see blackness as a way of life but others see it as nothing but limitation so every situation I've ever placed in no matter how offensive or racist I see no hope for changes this is the safest the one fact that remains is no matter when or where the hate hits I'm stuck and I'm worried for my family having a black child is insanity if it's a boy he's facing criminalization if it's a girl she's the face of sexualization bringing a child into a nation of discrimination where's the humanity we're a civilization based on a foundation of racism but we can't even face it we're complacent I see blackness as unification I see perseverance as an ideal meant to best by those meant to protest to contest the events of recent past and strive to put it in in time for future lives because while I accept that there will not be progress in my lifetime I know that my children deserve better than me my forefathers are not the ones who founded this country they're the ones who fought and died so that I could have an education that fought for principles upon which they themselves would not be able to capitalize my people fought for me and so will I fight for the next generation blackness will continue to be generalized, criminalized, and sexualized for many lifetimes to come we must protect them from the system designed to those limitations we must demand to be heard by those who ignore us and care for our own and the people that care for us because blackness is us blackness is beautiful blackness is sexualized insulted stereotyped excluded limitation ingrained used blackness is all my life like the talk back end this performance we both recorded because thanks to our partners at Holland TV this will continue to live on as an archival copy so that in other places people my mom's gonna get to watch me and beyond that also educational programs and other theater companies will have the opportunity to see this so we just want to make sure everyone is aware of that my name is Ross Jackson I am the creator, producer and one of the writers in the front of it it's maybe a the one of my dreams she is the co-creator and one of the co-writers and soon will be joined by a few of our cast members as well as our director oh great, soon I mean that this is one of our actors Marigold Martinez our director will be joining shortly again I mean now he's our director as well as our director we begin with the talk like everything we also want to take a moment to acknowledge Professor Joe Wienstra who is here this evening he was also one of our co-producers on the project and he is helping and I like to do this so I ask that you all also give yourselves a round of applause for being here and taking that back to you so before we now our stage management team who makes all this possible because they give us the same place to create these things Alex Meyer who is our stage manager and as in everybody we also have a fantastic board-off that does sound lights and projections before we dive into taking questions and comments we just want to we'd like to give a little bit of the history of how the project came to be and things like that and so I would like Amanda to tell all of you a little bit more about the process and getting into where the stories came from but what happened before we get to the rehearsal room? So our story-gathering process came through a variety of different things some of it was through email or Facebook and Ross reaching out like you said in the pre-show announcements a nationwide initiative but another part of that was also story circles that we did with local high schools and also here at UC Irvine where we went in and Ross and I collaborated to come up with questions and activities that help these individuals talk about these experiences and that's what helped to develop the play throughout and what we noticed in every single story circle is that everyone mentioned that they had never been asked these questions before and they just were so thankful to have a place to be able to share these experiences because otherwise no one would even ask and so a couple of the questions that we asked of those story circles were when was the time that you ever felt excluded? We asked if they believed that racism was over, why not? and we asked if they had a role model in their lives and who that person might be and we also asked if they or what they wanted to be when they grew up and also they felt like they actually could achieve what they wanted to be when they grew up so a lot of those questions and a couple other activities really helped us get ideas for this play It informed the entire rehearsal process with the staging with the design lots of different aspects just remembering those people that spoke up at the story circles and shared their stories it affected the entire process and it was really exciting because some of those individuals have been able to come see the show which is really neat to sort of hear them react to the things that they contributed to really awesome and something else that we did within the rehearsal process was that the actors got a chance to also participate in the story circle so they got asked those same questions and had to think about those things that the youth and also the individuals here at UC Irvine had to think about those really hard questions and answer them together in rehearsal so that's kind of like the backstory of how we got all of the ideas rolling and how the writers were able to get inspired from that and then write some of the pieces for the show Do any questions or comments come to mind? We can continue to also give you more background I'm curious if any of the story donors that you had if they participated in the crafting or the formatting of the piece that you used or the material that you actually used Well I being one of the writers of the show I wrote two of the pieces I did and yes I did end up formatting personally I did so that was a big thing mostly because I'm just speaking for me because I also performed pieces that I didn't write and one of the parts of the process was making sure one that the main point of each piece was expressed, shared for lack of a better word and at the same time that it did the way we said it was a way that was natural for us so yes some of the pieces were kind of tweaked into ways that we would normally say things even the ones I wrote I was like I wouldn't say that I don't know why I wrote it and so I did change it but also some of the pieces we didn't write we realized that just some of the like syntax and the words that the way it was formatted wasn't the way we'd usually say it but we still the main point was to keep the objective of the piece and to keep the issue in the piece and not change that so like main points of the pieces were not taken out and stuff like that so yeah As far as the stories that were inspired by the stories that was locally and submissions that we received from people that reached out to us from different states we have people from Florida we have people from Arkansas people from Louisiana people from New York from Seattle, Oregon Portland Oregon and a couple of the places that I'm forgetting submitted stories and what we took we wanted to stay under the guise of ambiguity so if there was something in a story that was very very personal to the person that wrote the story we wanted to make sure that they knew and felt comfortable with giving us that story knowing that their name wouldn't be attached to what was being presented and so the stories were formatted in a way and they were aware that the stories would be formatted in a way where their personal anything personal that they had said would remain between us and that it wouldn't be shared with within the production and then we also took specific ideas or specific things that were cited in different interviews and things like that and kept those work-a-word transcripts and put those into stories as well so some of them are compilations of different stories or compilations of interviews because we also did interviews with some people as well just to get talking about these issues and then also a couple of the pieces are poems that were inspired through conversations and inspired through stories that we read and things like that what was it like for those of you that wrote pieces and got to perform or anybody else in the creative process to show your own work like that to share a story it was interesting it was kind of difficult not going to lie because I think one of the main things for not only me but the people for us and for the people who actually participated in the story circles and interviews is that and for this production is that we don't get the chance to say these things ever and this for me personally I was at first hesitant when I thought about it to be like do I really want to say this? I mean I never said anything I was like either way I already gave to Ross he's going to put it in the book it's already scripted already I was hesitant in thinking about I am actually saying these things and I'm actually getting to say these things and there was a relief but at the same time and Ross mentioned this in earlier talk bags that and it goes with many of the kids on this campus were afraid of repercussion of what will happen if we actually say these things and that's a big thing that I think that's a big problem with this is that we don't we don't get to say it because we're afraid and that's sad that we can't even speak our mind because we're afraid so for me it became more important that I got to say these things because I wasn't the only one who was thinking these thoughts I wasn't the only one who accepted black jokes I wasn't the only one who was hesitant to go into the arts because I was black I wasn't the only one who had to deal with being black so it was more important to say it than it was to not say it I wanted to add to that not only we because I just had a very intense experience my last talk back not only are we scared of the repercussions we're also it's also ingrained in us that it's okay to not be a human to not be seen as human it's okay that you're lesser than your classmates who happen to be white it's okay that you have to work harder in order to be at the same level and still we've seen as less than people because that's just how we're all programmed and taught since we were babies to think and that's how our parents were thought to think and that's how and it's just like this cycle and it's just part of who we are as a people not we but all of us you know that's how our education system is that's how um my personal family background is it's okay to make yourself lesser my grandmother and I've said this before and I think you've heard it actually Adam my grandmother used to say the only black things in this house are me and the pots when my mom would bring home a black man that she was you know a black Dominican man versus like my father who was white and he was a good guy and actually he ended up being the worst person that she could have ever met so like you know this is the thing where it's ingrained even in the people that wear the color so not only am I when we had this discussion earlier with some of my faculty members here I was scared of what repercussions were I'm still here for another year but it's not okay because next year Chris is still here next year Nicole is coming in next year people are coming in and those people are going to have to keep fighting so it's not okay for me to just be like I'm just not going to say the thing and I have to muster up whatever courage I have even if my whole body is saying no and tears are flowing down my face and I'm terrified because it's not okay it's not okay for everybody to think that this is the system that we has been built for us you guys have built it but this system that has been built for us is the system that we live in and we're just going to live life easier by ignoring it that's not okay because people get to live in this color every day and they're getting dehumanized every day do you guys have any future plans? you're this is now their fourth performance and it's every show we've been asked that so it feels really good there are future plans and we're talking to a couple of cultural museums as well as some schools and things like that and there are some other things that are building but we're in an interesting nexus of what that is because we're interested in maintaining the integrity of the piece that you saw this evening as opposed to chopping it up or somehow changing it to make it a little bit more of relief or creating more of a solution which are the two things that we avoided in this because this isn't over all the issues that we talked about didn't just end because the show was over right and so we were very adamant about maintaining that and so there's a lot of discussion that has to happen about how it is that we can ensure that we get to maintain that integrity and that goal so there are future plans in the making I'd say but it's all exciting possible oh yes please thank you for your time it would be really nice if you could travel with it typically California is a little bit more educated and even though this campus you wouldn't think I've been here a year and I've been studying racism and research on racism um but I come from Georgia I live in Georgia and you won't believe that it's still like in the 50s and 60s it really is to the fact that um people just will ignore you but in the South they speak to you but it is a different kind of racism and I was chosen myself and four other teachers to go to a school that was a black community a really proud community you know everybody in the staff 82 people were all white and kids scores were so so low they were sensitive and they couldn't read on the first and second grade so I was and I was getting the stuff that my parents talked about and I do and I'm retired but my car scratched up my car ran into in the daytime in the school part of my black jelly beans on my desk I come in with all the glass and stuff broken from my you know, awards or pictures of my family so I think that right now we need to conversate we need to go to a conversation we need um because you all touched on the issues that we really need to talk about and they because kids need to hear they need to hear I'm trying to make about I'm trying to fit my child's law and especially for the kids that are out by racial they don't know where to fit and they feel like they're in a token of being pulled in either way so I think we need to conversate because I was telling a friend today that in my lifetime that I don't see peace or tranquility or people getting together I really don't, you know and these last few years we've seen it even more and we've got the blame for it I don't even know if I've got the blame for it so I do appreciate it but I really wish I was going to ask before that young lady did oh well actually the video itself will be available online at howroundcv.com and it's accessible for any adult including this talk back actually can be accessible because if you just saw the video you can have open a conversation and go on after the video thank you thank you for writing and taking time and looking at all kind of projects for the three performers my question to all three is after your Thursday to Saturday performance when you get up tomorrow morning do you put on a different coat do you put on a different face how are you walking on UCI is it the same it's the same I mean I moved beyond belief as a parent and I moved and I've heard your story touch personal and I just moved and I'm just wondering as students how do you after performing now wear your mask when you're emotional and sad when you get up tomorrow morning after you've just performed does that change anything or do you push back a little more tell me something I mean honestly and this is going to sound pretty horrible this show anchors me anchors me that people are still going through this anchors me that I'm going through this and I cry when I get frustrated and I cry when I get sad and I cry when I get angry so it's it's anger so walking through these halls knowing the things that I've experienced by people that were supposed to be safe anchors me also I'm more educated and therefore I can see the world clearer and therefore I can make choices you know what I mean like it takes eye opening this is why I love theater so you sit there and then things are told to you and you get to decide how you take it hopefully hopefully I'm going to say hopefully you you take the message and you learn from it and then yeah and some type of I mean honestly after after the performance people come up to me and say wow that was touching and this and that but they're not realizing the pain that people with the skin color knowing through to wake up and and not be seen as a human every day but I said something about it and I guess that gives me some type of love gives me something I don't know what it is but how easily can that be taken away from me you know it happens every second every day somebody looks at me and well they go look at sex look at that it's like okay well I'm also trying to be a person that's how I walk out of this last performance is a little more angry I think and I hate that the like angry black people we have something to be angry about we don't get to be a human that's like the basic thing of the human experience is to be a human to be a being and I don't get that I don't get to be that I know that your question was for the performance so Kristen Taylor do you want to add anything well coming from where I was before I got into this project and another project called Sunset Baby which was a project I was written by Dominique Morissette it was based on it was about in the world black culture black lives dealing with that which I had never experienced through the theater before and so that coupled with this piece and and coming from a place of not being aware and being indifferent because I have been given the gift of being able to live in a safe Orange County community where my friends are not necessarily they're not most of them aren't black and so the tragedies and the events that happen out in the world unless I take unless I'm hungry or curious about it I won't necessarily encounter that on a daily basis and so because of that coming into this I have been awoken and now I am aware of it and me being black was something that I didn't I didn't live with because I didn't I guess I don't know the word for it but I guess the phrase I didn't have to I was the black I was not in the story particularly but in terms of where I grew up in high school I was the black kid that played basketball and so even if I had a couple black friends at the school I was without a doubt seen differently because they didn't play sports and I did you know I was bringing money to the school because I was playing high school basketball I was people coming in taking through the soul and stuff and so coming from that and now being aware and and through this project really taking pride in me being black and not shy away from it because or not just not even really knowing it or acknowledging it because because I wasn't on minded of it every day or even if I was registering so me waking up tomorrow having had this experience is for me personally is is exciting like I feel even better about myself being able to have pride in being black and wearing that now now despite how the world around me takes it they're dealing with their own mess about how they feel about me that's them I'm in terms of me feeling a certain way about myself because I'm seeing through their eyes I've learned not to do that anymore I'm seeing through my own eyes now I'm accepting this and we'll see what happens because quite technically this is the last day of actual school for a lot of us so in terms of walking on campus I won't be doing a lot of that but coming back coming back next year and then just having the summer to really mull it over and live it and accept it and to go through these ups and downs and be in the world and see how the world treats me now that I'm no longer ignoring the black jokes now I'm like I'm not sure what's going on but I'm going to ask you to not say that around me I'm going to ask you to have a different perspective or maybe have a dialogue so why do you feel like you need to say these black jokes every time you see me and why are you upset because I'm asking you not to so these are things that I'm excited to wake up tomorrow and experience because again it's like I just didn't I was always kind of scared and in terms of making friends it's easy for me to do that so for me to think well me accepting this might mean I have less friends or people might be more confrontational but at first was scary and now I'm like this is me I am black and I'm going to make that known you're comfortable or uncomfortable with it that is something you're going to have to deal with but you're not going to change the way I see myself so yeah excited knowing there's going to be ups and downs and there's going to be some high ups and there's going to be some barely bows that I will be experiencing for the first time but I am without a doubt excited to wake up with this new found of awareness pride fine bows those things which is the easy answer truthfully tomorrow the chain, not chain it was different for me when he asked me to be a part of his project when I decided to step back and look at my life for me is when I woke up different the thing I've been seeing is not something I like I've been seeing the things people say I've been seeing the friends that I talk to who aren't saying things that are funny anymore I'm seeing the faculty members I'm going to, the teachers I have who are saying things that they think are in my best interest but are just stereotypes recently I talked to a faculty member about wanting to put on musical and the first thing they said was oh that's great you can make it you can do it hip hop style and I didn't understand why they said that and then they stepped back and they were like you know cause teenagers like hip things right and it's funny but it's not because I wouldn't, before this I wouldn't have heard that before this if someone said that to me I would have laughed and then continue the conversation but I stopped and I decided that I wasn't going to talk about it anymore because from the day this project started I've been seeing, my eyes have been open and at the same time I am excited because now I can see these things because I would have just walked away before this I was, that was my life I was walking away from all this I was seeing it and I was like oh it's fine it's whatever, it's just a joke it's just a comment it's not the end of the world but it still hurts and as someone said in a talk back before it's like a paper cut you can only and you can get so many paper cuts but then it becomes scars and they stay there and they don't go away I have a scar on my finger from a cut I got from work and that's not going to be gone forever I have cuts like that in my heart from all the black jokes people have told me I can tell you right now a bunch of black jokes my best friend has told me I can tell you word for word I can tell you he laughed I can tell you I laughed back because I didn't know what to do so tomorrow I'm going to wake up with my eyes open the way they were when this project started I'm going to wake up excited because my eyes are open and I'm going to wake up angry because I have to tell the people I love and the people I thought cared enough to know that they don't understand so she's my real kind of mention about my girl's name I'm a fourth year I'm a grad and I have a baby four months old for example today I was walking to a joke and I was carrying her basic clothes and a lot of people don't see me and they see my baby and they will say she's so cute she's adorable and then I even had a mother and a little girl off task and the mom will come and say to her daughter the girl is in the baby and I have to say thank you out loud because she said I've walked these paths and I feel like there's oftentimes where there's an age limit to where you are you can be visible and then somewhere there's a cut off to where you're out of your elbow once you have an opinion there's something along that and I walk around in Seattle right across here and I have a kid's clothes so I kind of feel like you're studying human there's something about it to where whatever it is you can call me the baby but we can't acknowledge the mother that's caring that you don't see that so I think the ratio is really big it's sometimes happening but the question was in her program she said she asked if she was an activist who was an activist so I wonder if you needed any funding for the new narratives in the initiative program did you want to say you were an activist but kind of held that you needed funding well we I think started this project a little bit weird to be able to ask for funding but that actually came about mostly because of a project that I worked on before this which was with the service workers on this campus and we did a similar thing we did story circles and wrote a new play based on their experiences and everything they went through with strikes and UCI administration was really long and in-depth history and a part of the show was petitions asking if UCI administration would be willing to have English second language classes for free for the workers and also have workshops for them and their children to learn how to apply to the FAFSA, how to apply to college all of those things to help them progress so that thought me into conversations with vice-translers and directors within human resources and I went over there and talked about these petitions that we wanted to do for the service workers and somehow they had a lot of information about me I don't know how to say they knew I did that show, what I was asking for they knew I was going to work on this show and so they were like oh you're kind of an activist aren't you and I said sure give me whatever label you want to and it's in the program but what I really care about is telling stories of individuals whose voices need to be heard that's all I care about I'm not afraid of anything of offending anyone or anything like that I'm just interested in telling true stories and real experiences so that's what that was about but yeah I think I don't know if Ross wants to talk a little bit more about trying to get funding or anything but that was part of what that was about most of the funding stuff is you know timeline related and things like that but I will say that the word activist has gotten thrown at both Amanda and I because in these kinds of meetings and things like that it's this and it's thrown at us I'm sure it was you too but it's thrown at us in this negative connotation like we're just trouble makers and it's you know and so you know I got hit with oh you know you're becoming quite a little activist or you're what was the other one oh yeah you're proving to be kind of an afro-pessivist and I'm like yeah yeah yes sure so you know those conversations have been very interesting and so you know I I will say that what New Narrators did for us was publicize we're on their website and that's kind of where where it happened you know they sort of promoted us they promoted us at their other events and things like that and that was that's kind of what our partnership was because where we align with them is that it's conversations about what their tagline is conversations about race and identity and things like that and so we fall under that but but I also will say that you know there's no coincidence in the fact that Amanda and I both kind of just termed it thrown at us in this kind of negative negative way almost as if it were insult in some way yeah it's very interesting thing to bring up and I'm thankful for what you said also regarding you and your child because I think that that's important to realize that many of us were actually knowledge of human being as human beings at some point and then at some other point soon after that stopped and I think it's exactly what Megan said it's you know when we start to develop opinions we start to kind of represent ourselves in a way that is either counter to what society believes in us or is disobedient to what parameters society has set for us but once there's the possibility for it to be yeah or even the threat up and so one of the things that we discovered within this project which we talked about in past Talkbacks which I just had a wonderful conversation about just a moment ago before the show began was regarding the willingness the students that we interviewed at high schools and things like that who were all willing to talk about is racism over why or we're not and every one of them was ready to stand up flip a table and say no it's not over and here's why and that's fantastic that's phenomenal to get from those students you know who we considered to be kids but people around our age and you know older or beyond beyond those years aren't as willing to talk about it and I believe that some of it in the conversation that I was having earlier with Chris's parents who are here we were talking about where the how it is that the repercussion as you as you grow where the repercussions become greater and greater and greater as you move into the collegiate institution and then through into larger institutions and into more corporate institutions of the repercussions or the things that we face are more detrimental because we have families to support there's more of that and so so I think that some of it has to do with where we are in terms of creating or not living within the parameters that are set for us some of it has to do with that but then the other part of it is that as we grow older the parameters get smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller until we're trapped which is the motif in throughout the show the jail cell used in different integrations represents the imprisonment there's more than just by the way outlandish number of incarcerations for black people that happen that are going on right now the new Jim Crow we are also imprisoned mentally we're imprisoned emotionally we're imprisoned and locked down in all of these different ways that are beyond just being incarcerated or they are being incarcerated but they're in some way or another each of us are blackened and imprisoned and locked away some part of us aww some part of us is, sorry writer and so it's important to acknowledge that because I was talking about earlier how at some point and this wasn't in the topics it was at the time sometimes these conversations, these conversations continue after the topics as well as they should there will come a point where we'll have to sit down with kids and not only tell them about birds and the bees having the sex talk but also to say there's a chance that I might not come home someday there is a chance that or there is the absolute that you will be treated differently because you look different than the people you go to school with you look different than the people that are teaching you you look different, I look different than the people that I work with and so there's all of these there's all of these possibilities and all of these extra things that people don't see people that aren't in the situation don't see it and they never will see it and that's one of the things that it arranges me to the point of people being like say well no no no I understand you do not and that's be relieved by that you know because if we didn't have to understand if we had the choice we wouldn't understand either but we're in a position to where we have to and it's the conversation that we're going to have to have someday with our children ma'am you were so eloquently saying that you don't believe that you'll see a change in your lifetime and many of us that sit up here don't believe that we'll see it in ours I specifically don't feel that we'll see it in my children's lifetime and that makes me want to fight harder it puts me in a place of action it puts me in a place of I have to create something that is not is not a promise of salvation but in this moment we're able to have these kinds of dialogues mostly safely and it's it's terrifying in a way you know I mean we the words that you heard the words that we heard well we heard what blackness is those are our youth that's their response to the question tell us what you believe the condition of blackness is and they're saying words like fatal, terrifying sexual love scum, ingrained just these words that beaten, bruised that is right now that is our our future that's what they are stuck believing blackness is and that's not right in any way shape form or fashion I don't care who you are it's not right and so for us to tell those things that was very hard somebody asked we could like saying those words in response to what blackness is we don't we don't want to have to say that but we can't say it's wrong we can't say it's incorrect you know and so I think that it's at a very early age that at some point we no longer become we're no longer human we become scum, we become beaten we become bruised, we become this right it's not okay, it's not something that we all want to just say it's gonna be fine that's why you keep hearing them avoid words like king and hope it's because I stood in the rehearsal room and in all of these talk backs say we can't rely on hope there is no hope there is action thank you thank you there is no hope that we were talking about change because we don't believe we'll see it does it mean that we can't fight for it does it mean that we shouldn't fight for it we just we can't expect to have ever hit an end goal we can't expect to have ever, because once we believe our work is done then that's it right and we're not I personally believe we're not in a place right now where we should say that the work is done any other questions less of a question more of a comment one of the things I was so grateful to be watching tonight not only were we seeing a larger broader perspective on what's happening, but I was also hearing the individuals in the room and outside of the room that were a part of this I was hearing voices and I think that's so important because when we do hear about things happening, when we do hear about conflicts, it's always rationalized in numbers and numbers aren't people and it's even degraded further by rounding them and I just want to say thank you for bringing the voices out the idea of bearing witness I think is so important and not just grouping things categorizing things, you've said it in one of your later pieces we shouldn't have to show these statistics and these numbers, but they are here but we shouldn't have to but two things I want to say number one one of the reasons why sometimes in the community we don't know what people talk about because they may not have the much experience where like with my grandparents, I never really knew about their first child until I was a teenager and that was a simple fact because the first child who had died he was sick, they took them to the hospital and it turns into black they had to go to the black hospital for their way, so of course by the time they got he died so I never knew about my grandfather's first son because of that, because it was pain so sometimes older people don't speak because of the pain, it's not just that the repercussions put a lot of time to the pain but what I wanted to say is I think this is important especially with this session because I think when there's a discussion there's a little bit of understanding and there's more so just putting yourself in someone else's shoes so I hope at one point either when you tell this my mind is kind of so I can't hear the name of the station that you said or the internet site that you said I think this is something important for the younger children at least to have this discussion and to open up that dialogue because like you said earlier, we really don't discuss it I may discuss certain issues with my friends when something happens but a lot of the times I think when I think about stuff on some moments I'm so excited about being black about being beautiful it's powerful but then stuff like this today you know at first you told me it was spoken word and I was like okay I'm going to spoken word tonight but then when I was here I was like hold up I was kind of worried because the more you know the more you're responsible for and the more you get pissed off so just like this I wasn't prepared for this today so when it started I didn't know I can't watch Rosewood all the time I didn't see myself because I get upset about stuff and one day I watched and I have to prepare my mind to watch certain things because to see the truth just wipes me out so I just hope at some point with all the anger and with all the frustration that you live in I pray that some of those days you also enjoy the black so I just pray that they you know say you're better and the last note I remember when President Obama got office I'm not really big in politics and I really don't like politics but what cracked me up was how I cried because as a kid you're taught okay you can be anything in the world but being a president was never I knew as a child you could be anything in the world you could be a president all the way you could never be a president so when he was actually elected I cried because my president's daughter who is ten next we used to tell the president I'd say oh we're off the phone you know in her life she saw it so even if there's nothing that's changed from my life to her I just hope you'll share this especially with young people one of the things that we talk about many times is that we enjoy the idea of being able to do this because we're able to have this kind of conversation so when he asked us I think it was our second performance we were considering the idea of doing a film as the first one we were on the same page we were considering turning this into something more film medium and it's an intriguing thought things like that it's just unfortunate because of who runs Hollywood and how the message would get skewed from that but also this kind of dialogue after the film the film is to credits role everyone goes home and they find their own solution and they seek their salvation and one of the things that we're proud of with this and that we've been credited upon by scholars actually which is really amazing that we created no sense of sanctuary because the fact matters that for us as black people or people of color women and people of color there is not that same place some of us have the home I grew up without being safe in my own home because of what my father was and how he was and so so that is something that was very important to me to say not everybody has sanctuary not everyone has a place where they go and they're protected and they're safe and they're okay so and in keeping with also what we were talking about with President Obama the thing with President Obama is that yes it's almost new frontier-ish what he achieved for us and what happened but the other side of that is that it also creates this perception I talked about I briefly mentioned a book called I just kind of showed up but it's a book and what it does that it challenges this era of color blindness that people perceive that we live in now that we have a black president and it's not that's not the case we didn't get a black president and the racism ended no matter what the RNC tells you that's not the case I'm sorry oh yes ma'am absolutely and the other thing is that hate hate doesn't just disappear it remanifests in a way it disguises it wears a new disguise but it doesn't just go away so I personally as hard as it is to write these stories to tell these stories to sit up in that back house left seat every night and listen to the stories of what the stories are not because of anything that you're doing because they're doing such a fantastic job but we've all done very well but it's that the other stories are not easy always to hear but at the same time there is joy in that we've created something that creates this kind of dialogue and this kind of conversation again it does not offer a solution we do not say everything is going to be better we can't say that just because if you've watched this and you're now in a place where in the deepest previces of your heart and soul you feel that you are not a racist that's great but your job is not done you're not fulfilled the conversations that take place outside of this room are part of what continues that continues the pursuit I think it was Christina the pursuit of perfection is more important than reaching perfection itself because we'll never reach perfection and I've mentioned this we were talking about this in the last talk back and in other conversations that we had with the individuals that have stepped around and talked to us about it we were talking about movies like Selma and things like that and I think they're Hollywood grossly misrepresent events of grossly misrepresent things but grossly misrepresent blackness and black history and the struggle that is currently happening that people live with and are navigating through and suffocating with every single day because Hollywood will look at it and it will say and it's movies like Selma get created and it says oh this all ended in 1964 this is no longer a problem everybody's happy racism is over we already fought for this we don't have to keep fighting anymore and that's just not the case because all that happened was on paper things look better but the reality is that people are fighting and struggling and that my children are going to fight and struggle and you can't just watch those movies and think that everything's going to be okay and that's sort of an issue that I have with and then I think everybody up here has the media and the way in which it can skew everything and the way in which yeah it makes it seem like it lessens the problem and it makes it seem like people that still talk about it that there isn't really a struggle there really isn't a fight anymore it's just people being sensitive it's just people not understanding you know it's just people thinking that because yeah it offers a solution it offers hope it offers some sort of manifestation of I don't know yeah of something but also it offers and it's just not the case you mentioned those movies about that conversation and how I had a conversation with someone the other day and they told me there's so many black actors in Hollywood now and I just looked at them and I said yeah but what roles are those actors playing? they're playing slaves they're playing people in prison they're playing thugs they're not playing human beings they're not they're playing stereotypical identification they're not playing you and he just looked at me but they're in the movies but they're being included being included and then people and he was talking to me about how he feels like black history is being remembered and in a way okay yeah but not the full history is not being remembered high schools don't teach about black wall street high schools don't teach about they don't teach the full spectrum of history and they stop at they don't go past it except to talk about riots yeah except to and when they do talk about riots it's over the senate in 1964 and these guys are just whining they're just mad about weird things and they say these people they skew it and they twist it and somebody at a previous talk back had mentioned how a great way because we were talking about how the purpose of this project is to raise awareness and a person had suggested that maybe a way to do that is in the education system and to make and to acknowledge that black history is American history and that it deserves more than just like a 20 minutes second class and we were saying that's yes but also the material that is taught needs to be thought about because you can't just teach certain parts and you can't just because it grows in this represents that and that's a tangent but there's something important in that about introducing this kind of this kind of study to a young education system in that people will want to protect their students from this kind of information and it's one of the things that it forms me to see young black children boys, young men, young women in this audience over the course of the four performances we've had it warms me to see that because it really is the opportunity for us to supply this kind of information so that when they go back to these schools and they're faced with this adversity that they have fought they themselves finally have some ammunition I don't know what little we can supply but the important thing being that it creates the opportunity to potentially at some point allow that person to defend themselves that much more and then the opening sequence of this show is grounded in with the producers of our inventions it's grounded in the fact that there are people that believe that racism happens when CNN television happens or box news television happens or when it's in the media and that it happens at that moment the media is talking about it and then we move on to the next story or we change the channel and then it's gone we create by flipping past these channels or by scrolling through these segments we create this false sense of detachment from what is happening and our point is on what Sami was saying earlier the individual and about how the people that face the same struggle that you see on the television you're sitting next to them at this moment or you're living right down the street from them they're your neighbors they're the person that you sat across from in the lunch room today or wherever you have the restaurant that you ate at or the coffee shop that you went to these are people who have the opportunity to reach out and touch no one thinks that information says you know let me acknowledge or whatever that is I don't want anybody to come to me at a coffee shop and say you black, you headed, you headed hard I don't want that either but I'm just saying that the incidents of this are not isolated and rare they are present ever present and the microaggressions that we see that are covered nationally and there's the microaggressions that we face every single second of every single day that go without acknowledgement when somebody says oh well these things happen every now and then it doesn't happen all the time you know and when you do that you're deteriorating the poignancy of the things that we have to that we otherwise