 Well, good evening and good afternoon for those on the west coast. I'm Shauna Sherman with the San Francisco Public Library's African American Center. Welcome to our conversation on Black Joy and Resistance with photographer Adrienne Waheed and poet Stacy Ann Chin. First, I'd like to start with acknowledging that the San Francisco Public Library is broadcasting from the unceded ancestral homeland of the Ramay Tush Ohlone where the original inhabitants of the San Francisco Peninsula. As the indigenous stewards of this land and in accordance with their traditions, the Ramay Tush Ohlone have never ceded, lost, nor forgotten their responsibilities to this land as well as for all the people who reside in their traditional territory. As guests, we recognize that we benefit from living and working in their traditional homeland. We wish to pay our respects by acknowledging the ancestors, elders, and relatives of the Ramay Tush community and by affirming their sovereign rights as first peoples. Information on the San Francisco American Indian Cultural District will be available in the chat as well as information on what native lands you may reside on. It must be said that the library also stands with the Black Lives Matter movement and supports all efforts to end inequality and structural, systematic, and institutional racism in our institutions and in our communities. Find out how the library is working toward racial equity at sfpl.org in the about section. It's February, so happy Black History Month, which here at the San Francisco Public Library we call more than a month. Our celebration officially starts on Martin Luther King Jr., on the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday and runs through February, but we center Black Voices all year round. Thank you to the friends of the San Francisco Public Library for supporting our programs. I'm going to go through a few that are coming up. You can find more information at sfpl.org more than a month. We are on the same page selection this January and February is The Old Drift, a novel by Namali Surpel, find it in our catalog. Please support our local bookstores. Marcus Books is the nation's oldest Black owned independent bookstore and still operating in Oakland. On February 12, author James Dale and Maya R. Cummings will be talking about the book. We're better than this. We're going to take a look at the future of our democracy by the late Elijah J. Cummings. That's February 12 at noon. On February 17, author Melissa Valentine will be in conversation with Amber Butts. Her book is called The Names of All the Flowers. And on February 20th at 11 a.m., we have a presentation by Jan Batiste Adkins on African Americans in San Francisco. Now on to our program. Today we're going to start with a conversation between longtime friends Adrian and Stacy Ann and then there'll be a short time for questions and answers at the end of the program. Please put questions in the chat on Zoom or in the Q&A section and also in the chat on YouTube if you're viewing it from there. Before we get started, I'll give a brief introduction to both of our guests. On the screen now is Adrian Waheed. She is a visual artist based in Brooklyn, New York and Berkeley, California. Her work bears witness to and holds space for the beauty, brilliance and resilience of black folks across the diaspora. Waheed is a accomplished photo editor who during her 20-year career has researched, produced and directed numerous shoots for publications including Vibe, King and Essence magazines. The photography has been published by the New York Times, National Geographic, Photo District News and The Fader. Waheed's work also appears in the inaugural issue of M. Fawn, a journal of women photographers of the African diaspora. She has exhibited at Rush Arts Corridor Gallery, the Underground Museum, the Long Gallery and Betty Ono Gallery. In 2010, she created the Waheed Photo Archive, a collection of found photographs of African Americans from the Civil War to the present. The Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture acquired the archive in 2015. Her self-published coffee table book, of which you see a picture here, entitled Black Joy and Resistance, was released in December 2018 and is available from her website. Stacy An Chin is the recipient of the 2007 Power of the Voice Award from the Human Rights Campaign, the 2008 Safe Haven Award from Immigration Equality, the 2008 Honors from the Lesbian AIDS Project, the 2009 New York State Senate Award, the 2013 American Heritage Award from American Immigration Council, and the 2016 Planned Parenthood Excellence in Media Award. Chin is also a 2017 LGBTQ Humanist Award recipient. She unapologetically identifies as a Caribbean and Black, Asian and Lesbian woman and resident of New York City. A proud Jamaican national, Chin's Voice was featured on the Oprah Winfrey Show where she spoke candidly about her experiences of growing up on the island and the dire consequences of her coming out there. Widely known as co-writer and original performer in the Tony Award winning, Russel Simmons Deaf Poetry Jam on Broadway, her poetry has seen the rousing cheers of the New York Recon Poets Cafe, one woman shows off Broadway, writing workshops in Sweden, South Africa, and Australia. Chin's three women shows, Hands of Fire, Unspeakable Things, and Border Clash all open to rave reviews at the Culture Project in New York City. Chin is the author of the memoir The Other Side of Paradise and is currently touring Motherstruck, her critically acclaimed solo theater piece directed by Cynthia Nixon and produced by Rosie O'Donnell, chronicling her incredible experiences about motherhood which opened in New York in December 2015. The most recent publication, Crossfire, a litany for survival, is the first full length collection of Chin's poetry. She is currently touring and sharing poems from Crossfire, be it on 60 Minutes in the New York Times or the UK Guardian. She has a reputation for telling it exactly like it is. We're still looking forward to this conversation between longtime friends Adrienne Wahee and Stacey Ann Chin, please welcome them to the virtual stage. My turn to speak now. Yes. Thank you for tuning in. I'm really excited about this program. I want to thank Shauna and Anissa and the folks at the San Francisco Public Library for having us and I want to thank my friend Stacey Ann for joining me in this conversation. So it's Black History Month, although we celebrate all year and as some of you may know, my book Black Joy and Resistance came out at the end of 2018 and when I put the book together, little did I know that it would be so relevant right now the themes around Black Joy, Black Joy as Resistance, Black Joy and Resistance. And so I'm really thrilled to be able to talk about this with you all and to share some images. Now the book, which is two years old now, I've decided to share images that I've shot recently through the 2020 protests that happened through George Floyd protests, the Black Life Matter protests. And so I decided to show you images that are not in the book, most of them, and are never before seen, but I just felt like those are relevant to what's going on right now but also still keeping in the theme of Black Joy and Resistance. So I'm excited about it and excited to have a conversation with you, Stacey Ann. And so I think what we'll do is just start off with some images. Is that good? Okay. So what I want to do is just start off here, share my screen. This image was shot in July of 2020 and this was the show up for Black women visual, candlelight visual in front of the Brooklyn Museum. And what I want to start off by saying is just that everyone is experiencing these unprecedented times with COVID and with the killings of continued police brutality and murders, state sanctioned violence that has been perpetrated on Black bodies continuously. And in 2020, the pandemic and the killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor sort of like this storm, this perfect storm that pushed so many people out into the streets and it literally pushed me out into the streets and out of quarantine because I just I had to lift my voice and I had to do something, you know, I felt I was feeling helpless. I was feeling enraged and I just needed to go out into the streets, both to document what was going on and to also raise my voice in protest. So this particular image is one of my favorites, which, you know, it's a quiet moment, but it's a moment where we were having a moment of silence for the women that have been murdered by state sanctioned violence. This was a rally that was attended by the mother of Eric Garner, Gwen Carr. And so we had a moment of silence, this image depicts the moment of silence that we were having for Eric Garner, her granddaughter, and all of the women that have lost their lives. And so what I love about it is just the quiet moment and how this Black woman is illuminated in this moment. And I just love it. And as we stay seeing and I were talking earlier and you were saying that, you know, there was joy in the moment for you. There was joy in this image. And so, you know, maybe you have any thoughts about it. You want to speak about it? For sure. For sure. I was listening to you saying that there's a way that you're looking at the images and you were a little bit unsure about whether you should put images that were maybe more traditionally received as, more traditionally received as joyful. And I looked at those pictures and I thought the same, I had the same thought and then I said, no, Black joy can also be quiet. Like there is a way that Black people and particularly Black women in order to be noticed in order to be lauded, in order to be lifted up, in order to be celebrated, that there's a kind of, there's a very narrow lane for performance for us, you know, where we must be wide open, mouth-throwed back and screaming where we have to be, you know, dancing. Like everything about us has to be larger than life in order to be noticed. What I loved about the image was how quietly graceful it was, how she was shielding that flame in the way that Black women often do, that we put our bodies or our hands around the thing that seems vulnerable and protected, you know, from the historical stereotype of the nannies, you know, these Black women who run from place to place, you know, minding the babies of white women all over New York City to our very mothers who stand between us and a world that is so brutal to us, that flame made me think of us and our babies and all the babies we protect all the time and the secrets we protect and the joy we have to kind of, you know, if you're holding a flame in the wind, in the wintry wind, in the summer wind, it takes so much like, you know, delicate grace to protect it because if you do something else to it, you might hurt it, you know. And that's us, we protect everyone else, we show up for everyone else and so we, you know, as you were saying in the conversation earlier also, we need folks to show up for us in the same way that we show up for everyone else and so and those marches, those marches that you documented, Adrienne, those marches are, you know, are a testament and your photographs are a recording, a kind of historical document of Black women standing up and saying, no mass, no more. We would be marching underneath this flag, you know, that still has now protected us and we're still demanding for that protection under that flag just as citizens, you know. I often wonder, I often wonder sometimes when I think about all the stories and all the ways in which Black women, Black girls, Black trans women continue to survive, you know, not just to survive, but continue to be like a broad back for everyone's use to step up to stand on, I wonder all the time, like where do we get the fortitude to keep coming because every election that we get it right, Black women are at the forefront of that. Every, every, every time we talk about, you know, who's leading, you know, any kind of radical progressive movement in any form, there's always Black women at the forefront of that, you know, and I can't recall any movement, any rally, any march that I've been to, that Black women have not been integral in the planning and execution of such a thing. Right, and this movement has been no different and that's why I wanted to highlight Black women and trans women in this particular program because I just feel like we don't get enough shine, we never do, and being out there in those streets, I went to over 40 protests and what I was inspired by was the young Black women who were leading this movement, you know, and so that's that's why I'm highlighting the Black women leading this movement here in this in this program today because I just feel like we deserve to get our shine. And, you know, these photographs, you know, the kind of body of work that, you know, so centers the Black body really reminds me of the the textual work of writers like June Jordan, like Audre Lorde, who at a time when no one else seemed to be making it central, Black women's identities were at the center of, you know, how they would write a blueprint for for the future. Yes, absolutely. And the next one, the next, the next slide is kind of, you know, the two characters, you know, the kind of like there's three yellow headbands in it. Yes, you know, one party's looking mad militant in the middle and this, you know, I just love how this Black woman is screaming rage, but like hell of fashionable with her pink hair. Just just just fly and fierce. Yes. So this was that same March, you know, further along on the bridge, but you can see the feeling, the feeling there is just palpable. You can you can see the rage, you can see, you know, her pain. And I remember just being on that bridge that day and and it was being led by a group of young women called the Freedom March NYC. Amazing women under 25 who led this march and led many marches throughout the summer and they're still doing the work right now. But I love the image and we were we were singing we were chanting, but the idea was that we as Black folks were dealing are dealing with two pandemics. And so right before this image was taken, there was a time where we sat down on that bridge and a young woman spoke. Chelsea Miller, she spoke about being having to deal with two pandemics at the same time being racism as well as COVID-19. And so, you know, that and that's real. And so that's really, you know, what was happening here in this moment. And I just feel like the image really captured the the feelings of rage, at least the feelings that I was feeling. And obviously this woman here was feeling. You know, I'm cheating and scrolling ahead. And, you know, we can't talk about any of this with Black women without talking about the ways in which the Black Lives Matter movement started spearheaded by, you know, a trio of Black women and how in the last 10 years there has been nothing that has been as sustained or as forceful as the Black Lives Matter movement created by, led by, and perpetrated by Black women, you know, and how it is that such a successful, amazingly necessary movement has been, you know, like, you know, the past administration had these women marked for terrorism and the Black Lives Matter, you know, it almost reminded me of what happened with the Black Panther movement years ago. Like every time you see Black people rising up, you know, when Black women are minding their babies and keeping white babies alive, when we are washing clothes and we are sweeping, when we are teaching in schools, when we allow our bodies to be used as rungs on a ladder for everyone else, no one notices us, no one talks about it. But as soon as we say, okay, our time now, we are terrorists and ought to be locked up. And he's just, you know. Something that gets me so angry and that's why I have to just embody Black joy as a, as an active practice, you know, as a, as a means of self-care because otherwise I would just be so enraged because you see the double standard right in front of you, you know. And every day, every day when I think about, you know, you and I, you know, we have all kinds of, you know, oh my God, the house is leaking. Oh my God, you know, you know, I can't find this contractor. Oh my God, you know, my girlfriend done left me. Oh my God. I think I'm going to leave this girlfriend. Like whatever the conversations have been over these last 20 years, there's always the deep yearning for joy and the space to be joyful outside of these unforgiving gazes driven by white supremacy. Sure. You know, it's so. We create that joy, you know, that joy is created at your house parties pre-COVID, you know. What do we have to? Yes, we have to. As a means of survival, we have to. Because the terror of being alive in these times is, you know, what you can't be doing the work that is portrayed in these photographs and you can't be like dancing to, you know, like singing on the top of our voices. I'm not your superwoman in a Brooklyn apartment. You know, you need to be singing. I'm not your superwoman. I'm not the kind of girl you could let down. I think that everything's okay. We got to sing that loud and in unison when juxtapositioned the way these images are set up. The pain in this woman's face when she's like, listen, we got to do this. We got to be out here in this March pandemic or no pandemic. We got to be out here. Exactly. It's a matter of life and death. The same, the same energy, you know, but the next photograph has this kind of like joyful rage. Almost like these characters are like, yeah, we fighting, but we know we on the right side. So we dancing, we singing, we screaming, why would we fight? Exactly. These sisters, this is where we were coming over the Brooklyn bridge and these sisters were leading the song, say it loud. I'm black and I'm proud. So as this photo, when I took this photo, this was in the midst of these sisters leading the charge of say it loud. I'm black and I'm proud. And you can see, you know, from the signs, get your, get your knee off my neck in the background. You know, and this sister with her t-shirt is size. We, we march. You mad. We sit down. You mad. You know, we silent. You know, and so that, that tells you everything right there. So, you know, you have that, that rage, that frustration, that pain that is seen on their faces, but you also have this, this joy that's embodied that you'll see in the next slide, which is why I included this next slide here is because, you know, you, you see the sister in the background, you know, she got that face like she, yes, yes. She in church. She in church. Yes, exactly. Tell it. Tell it. Say that, you know, and, and that's for real. And that's, that's black folks. That's black joy right there in the face of resistance as resistance while we are fighting for justice. And that's, you know, And I cannot because I am black and because I'm usually at the bottom of the fashion pile. I just have to lift it up to these black women. I'm scrolling back a little bit and everybody's hair is on point. Everybody's coloring. Everybody's got the fade. It's just like ill. It's just really, really, really ill, you know, you know, we're going to protest. We're going to protest in style. You know, we're going to have those masks with all the design and shirts and all that, you know, and that's that joy. I think that we embody just as a people. Yeah, I, um, I want to ask you, um, when you're going through and you're choosing images to share with other people, um, do you ever, do you ever like hit a photograph of like a white person and you think that it's like relevant, but you are like, I am going to give you no more space. Or do you feel like this is an important part of the story? Like, how do you navigate? Cause I know you shoot mad white people in those markets. You just think question because yes, I've shot many white people at these protests and you know, I will say from being out there that it was refreshing to see our white allies out there, you know, because not always, but a lot of times they're coming from a place of privilege. And what I appreciated was that they understood that and they were out there to give their assistance in any way they could, you know, whether it was putting their bodies on the line or station set up with snacks and set hand sanitizers. And so, you know, what I appreciated about the movement this summer was the white allies and how they were showing up. And that was really inspiring. Now, of course I shot many of them. And there, there will be a place for those images in the larger body of work. But yes, you know, you're right. I always tend to lean towards showing images of my, my black folks and my beautiful black folks. And so, I mean, I don't know. I guess that's, that is the imagery of our folks is kind of what inspires me the most. And so that's what I like to share. But, but the whole story and the whole picture of, of what happened this summer does include our white allies. And, you know, I have shared some of those as well. The next slide, the one, the woman with the, with the bullhorn, with the speaker. Tell me about her. She looked mad. She, she looked mad focused. This was on June 4th, 2020. And this is Chelsea Miller. And, you know, Chelsea is, is an amazing young, you know, activist, youth activist. Her and Naila, her friend Naila, they started the Freedom March NYC activist group. And she was, they were one of the several groups that I followed over the summer. And so this was taken in Washington Square Park after we had, you know, marched from Brooklyn, you know, into the city, into Manhattan and into Washington Square Park. What I love, loved about the movement was that there were certain places where you knew that if you go there, that's where the protest was going to happen. So there were, you know, basically designated spots where you know you could go and you could gather with like-minded people. And you knew that the protest was going to happen. The protest was jumping off the march. And so this, this image of her is one of my favorites because, you know, you see her leading it, leading the chance. And you see the crowd in the background with their fists raised. And it just, for me, shows the strength of our young black women out there. And it's inspiring because, you know, this is our future. You know, this woman is under 25 and she's, you know, her and her friends are super motivated to, you know, just change, just change things. Just push. We have to keep pushing. And we need our youth to be able to do that, you know? I mean, I'm getting old. So I had to, you know, I had to rest my bones sometimes. But, you know, it's encouraging to know that these young black women got it, you know, they have. You know, when you talk about, you just segued me into the next question nicely when I, there's a way that the old heads, you know, and, you know, we're not quite old heads yet, but we're heading there. Right. You know, I remember it being like a really hard push to get a lot of the kind of established voices to make room for the young voices we were. And not just with regards to youth, but black, you know, what some people call cis women, I know lots of black women who are, you know, who resist the term cis. So I said, you know, in an effort to speak to a group of women who occupy a particular identity space, but also with some understanding that there are lots of black women who resist the word cis. So I said, and as we move into the next image, I think the images of trans women. Yes. And so the transition of making space for other voices and voices that are traditionally marginalized or silenced. And here in your work, you are, how it is that you include, there's a, you know, there's a, you know, between Hilaria Baldwin or Ilaria Baldwin and, you know, the Rachel Dole Zolls of the world. And, you know, there's a really fine line, the Kim Kardashians. There's a fine line between, you know, between appreciation, appropriation, and celebration of a culture that is not your own or a body that is not your own. So how is it that you, when you choose, like to present an image of a trans woman who is, of course, you know, in ownership of her own body and her own image, but you have to make the call to include all different kinds of women and black women. How is it that you kind of come to the place where you're like, this image is an image I'm going to present? Well, I would say that just being out there and experiencing the movement as a whole, and when I say the movement, I just, you know, from June through December, just being out there in the streets with these women, I learned a lot. And this woman here, trans woman here, Queen Jean, was one of the leaders of the marches there. And so, you know, after following her, there was no way that I could not include her, you know? She helped me realize the importance of inclusion, including trans women in the conversation and being very intentional about including them in the conversation. So when I decided, okay, I want to highlight black women, it was not a, there was no second thoughts about, absolutely I have to include Queen Jean. Because, you know, the fight for trans liberation, which is what she talks about, you know, that's part of the fight for all of black liberation. And talk about black joy, even in the struggle to speak about her right to be included, her right to be, you know, to be documented as a part of, you know, the black women's progressive movement or all of the fights we win. I kind of love the way that, first of all, I can't not mention the fashion there because all of that. And I think, I think all of what's tied up in the head wrap is also matched by the mask that is pulled down under the chin, fitted body, and then the kind of locket around the neck, you know, on any, on my best dressed day, I'm not this well dressed. But there's also like a, there's also like a kind of uprightness to the back and a kind of, a kind of beautiful grace, like she's quite beautiful. I mean, if you enlarge the photograph, I mean, the skin, the eyes, the, you know, there's a way that, that, that I can't help but wonder what she's saying in the photograph. Like I wish I had been there to hear it because that's the moment that it seemed so much like whatever she was saying was something I should be hearing. Well, you know, that's a compliment. That means that the photo, that's a, that's a good photograph. This was Marsha P. Johnson's birthday. Marsha P. Johnson birthday rally on August 24th at Washington Square Park. And so I believe she was speaking about Marsha and the, the strides that she made, the barriers she broke down and how she led the way, Marsha P. Johnson led the way for trans women, like Queen Jean, to come along and how she's carrying on that, that torch to, you know, black trans liberation because that's what she's called, you know, and, you know, liberation for her sisters and her brothers. And that's part of what her mantra is. So I want her to be very inspiring and, you know, happy to have been able to follow her through the streets, you know, the man in justice. The arch behind her. That's Washington Square Park. Yes. There's something kind of beautiful about it and very much present in almost all the photographs. There's so much context, you know, even as Queen Jean is foregrounded and in full focus and the rest of it is very soft, like the context is very much there, like even the photograph that follows, you know, there's a way that I can, I'm drawn to the central character or the central, you know, framed person who is there. And I, of course, I enlarge so I can see what the photographs, what the sign is saying. And there's a kind of power to it. You know, we don't want your apologies. We want action, no justice, no peace. But then, you know, inside of the moment, there are these two women who hands are raised and all the hands are raised in a kind of, a kind of we are with you and we support you and almost like, you know, the way that background singers, you know, support the lead singer, that photograph gives me that sense of it. Yeah, this was the take back, the take back March, no more, no more stolen lives and looted dreams. And so, you know, I love, I love all the names of these marches, you know, they all had a name, they all had a theme, and it was all just, you know, blackity black. And it was so necessary, but this was also at Union Square Park. And, you know, these three women are just part of, part of the crowd that was there, but I just love, you know, their energy, their expression, the woman to the far right, I mean, even though she has a mask on, and you can kind of see in her furrowed brow and her eyes that, you know, she's upset, she's, you know. I mean, these photographs could be paintings in that someone went ahead and like positioned these bodies and brush stroke by brush stroke created the emotion in it, you know. Yeah, well, I guess that is my challenge as a photographer to be able to capture those moments in a way that will allow you to feel what I was feeling. If you skip ahead to the next one, the flag behind this body is almost an extension of what feels like she's dancing. Yes. Yeah, it's almost like, you know, a continuation of her body. Yeah, and I mean, it almost is, you know. This is Drea, a black trans woman, and we were, this was the Stonewall March in Raleigh in New York City. And, you know, Drea was just a wonderful person and great energy. And I was, I marched, probably marched for hours, but, you know, she and I had a real connection because, you know, when you're a photographer in these things, it's like this dance you have to do between capturing the moment and experiencing the moment and also not impeding on someone else's sort of space, you know, and comfort zone. And so she and I got a vibe and, you know, we danced a little bit down the street. You know, I took many pictures of her and it was, and she was just amazing. And so I love, I love the energy in this image. I love the like, the pants remind me of like, those Michael Jackson pants from, what was that video? The disco inferno era. The video, I think it was rock, I don't know, disco inferno, I think it was like rock with you or something. No, but what I'm saying is that this, this, this image almost pays homage to that the 1970s when people were in like this shiny disco arena. But those eyes are so arresting. Like, you know, how did you catch so much in this one moment? And every time I pull away, you know, there's, and even the, the woman out of focus behind her in the heels and the, the ball gown that says, I am actually going to a grand ball tonight and not at a protest, you know. Exactly. Yes. And that's, you know, the Stonewall protests happened every Thursday throughout the summer and they were always just a party. You know, they would, we would block, you know, New York city streets, just blocking intersection off and do like a fashion show type of thing. You know, because it's just black bodies taking up space, you know, taking up space and demanding to be heard. And, and so this, this image just, I hope kind of conveys a little bit of that. For sure. And the next photograph, am I mistaken? I mean, am I one of those white people who don't know the difference between black people that Queen Jean again? That is Queen Jean again. Yes. I love that it's a different moment. This one is it, the other one was like, I'm going to put out my, my, my, my well-dressed outfit. I'm going to speak to you all nice and soothing. I'm going to tell you what it is. But this image is like straight up like, yo. This is when we took over the, the, the FDR, you know, for those out there that might not know the FDR as a major freeway in New York. And this is when we just stormed the freeway. And the, I love this image right here because it just, well, first of all, the light on these women, it's just wonderful and that beautiful black skin. And we can look so good while we're protesting, you know, and, and I just love the feeling of this. And so this is really like, this is a really like nerdy techie question, but how is it that when you photograph all these like ranges of black skin tones in one photograph, you can make all of them look beautiful. But when you see people, other people photograph black people, it's like, I don't know what happened to the light. Well, it's, it's a matter of knowing your light. You know, you have to know, um, know your lighting, know what black skin needs in terms of, uh, your, your, your apertures in your camera settings. And I guess I've just, I've just been doing it for so long that it comes as second nature to me, you know, I, So photographing black people requires a certain kind of knowledge about like, do you think like anybody can do it? Hmm. I, I mean, I think, I don't know if anybody can photograph black, anybody can attempt to photograph black people, but not everybody is going to be able to capture them in their fullness, you know. And so, um, I just think that it's perhaps shooting black folks is, is a sort of a slightly different aesthetic. Um, then, then maybe shooting folks that are non-melanated. Um, You're being very, um, you're being very politically correct here. I'm talking about all them white photographers that make like all these black women look strange, like all of these different tones of black women, some of them light, some of them cream, some of them, you know, peachy, some of them chocolate milk chocolate dark chocolate, some of them ebony black and all of them look so beautiful, like skin so beautiful. Like how is it to light them? You have to know how you, but in these photographs, you don't, you're not lighting them. You're not putting light on them. But at the same time, I know my light. So like, I'm not lighting them with any artificial lighting, but I'm all, but I'm using the sun's light in the way that I want to in using the sun, um, and my camera settings to manipulate the amount of light that's going to come into my photograph. So like, you know, back in the day when there were film, I mean, you know, when film cameras were a thing, uh, we would, black photographers would gravitate towards Fujifilm because Fuji had the type of colors and tones that looked good on black skin, whereas Kodak had more blue tones in their film that didn't look as good and made black folks look a little bit more like ashy or, or flat and their skin didn't really pop, but Fuji had those red magenta tones that, that allowed for a black skin to really sort of glow and pop. But now, you know, it's digital, but, but in my mind, it's still similar. Just, I guess it's just second nature for me. And, you know, I, I love the, I kind of love, you talk about complexion, like this woman's complexion in the next photograph is like amazing. And I love the, um, I love the juxtaposition of, you know, I think it's like T-Mobile and, uh, Old Navy and Gap, like all of those corporate signs in the back with all of these women who are protesting and calling for a more grassroots response to change and visibility. Yes. This was the March for Jacob Blake. You know, this was, uh, the day or two days after he was shot in the back with seven or eight times at point blank range, folks were angry. You know, it's like marching all summer and y'all going to shoot this man in the back, you know, and, and this sister here, um, Phoenix Robles, she's also a photographer. Um, and, and so she'd been on the other side of the camera with, with me on several protests shooting, um, capturing the moment, telling our stories, but she also, you know, is an activist in her own right. And so this particular day she put that hat on and was leading the march through Times Square. And so I just want to say how beautiful it is, how amazingly beautiful it is to see sisterhood in action, not just in the photograph in the way that these marches, but in the way that you, it's almost giving a silent, not an a tip to another black photographer, a black woman photographer. It like warms me from like tip to toes. Um, that just made me smile all over and think like, my goodness, is there a better example of how we should be with each other? Absolutely. Yes, we should. I mean, you know, just being out there, there were a lot of photographers. Okay. And you know, there were, there were black photographers. There were a lot of white photographers. And, you know, I, I can't speak to, I don't know everyone's intention for being out there, but there were some who, there were some, some white male photographers who were being white men, taking up too much space, not being considerate of folks around them, you know, not respecting the space or the moment. Just there, I mean, I'm imagining just, just to get an image for the associated press or whomever. Um, and so when you sort of have that, um, almost like a battle line or something where you're, you have to like jockey for vision to document a movement that's about your own people. Um, it's difficult. And, you know, in those times, um, I guess alliances are made, camaraderie is had, you know, there might've been moments where this sister right here and I gave each other a look like, oh boy, here they go. You know? And so in those moments, like, you know, you, you have to look around and see who's, who's for you and who's not. And, and so, you know, yes, that's why it's very important for me to big up other, uh, image makers, photographers that were black women that were out there doing their thing. Um, I'm listening to you. I'm listening to you talk about, you know, the various hats you wear and the various hats women in the, in the, in the marches in the rallies might have to wear and, um, the various spaces people take up. And in the next photograph, um, my brain can't seem to make up its mind about what the women are doing. Are they at a hip hop concert? Are they at a reggae show or are they at a protest? There's something remarkably beautiful about this. And I think maybe I want to print of this in my house because there's something wonderful about it. You know, where the stands, I mean, they could be like singing some biggest small lyrics and be like, yo, yo, yo, you know what I mean? Yeah, that's, um, that's going to be your housewarming gift. Um, actually this image is one of the, I think the only one in this presentation that's actually in my book, black joy and resistance. This was in Johannesburg in 2015. I was in Johannesburg really on vacation. And I hear it heard that there was this protest going on that the students had marched out of their classrooms and they were protesting the, um, the raising of the tuition and fees. Um, and just marched out across Johannesburg, not, I mean, across South Africa, not just Johannesburg, but also, um, in Cape Town and Derby. And so I had to join them, you know, and so I just, I joined the protest. I marched with them for hours and miles. And this was, um, down in Bromfort, um, in Johannesburg. It's kind of like a downtown area. And these women were chanting. Bromfort. Yes. Yes. And these women were basically chanting down the establishment. They were, they were calling for the, um, the university president to resign. And they were calling for either to come for him to either come down and negotiate with the students or resign. And so I just, I included this image because it's like across the diaspora, you have black women, you know, raising their voice, you know, fighting for what they believe in, you know, um, just strong black women. And, you know, like you said, they, they could have been at a concert, but that's because our joy and our resistance. So, so oftentimes come like hand in hand. Mirror images of each other. Exactly. And during the next one, when you move to the next one, that calls to mind that do you remember at the, uh, the Olympics where the three men raised their, the positioning of it. Right. In the sixties where they raised. Yes. I see that. Yeah. I see that now. This one was right. Basically in front of, um, Lafayette Park, which is the park right before the white house. And, um, you know, after Trump, after Trump did his little photo stunt where he had the peaceful protesters tear gas. So he could come take the picture in front of that church. After that, that area became a, an encampment for. Black Lives Matter protesters. They were holding that space down. Um, the mayor of DC had the Black Lives Matter, um, painted on the ground and then it became Black Lives Matter Plaza. So this image was taken actually in, um, August of 20, um, August 28. Uh, or 27th the night before the big commitment March on Washington with Al Sharpton and everyone else. But, um, I, what I love about Black Lives Matter, you know, you know, what I love about this image is, you know, the sister and her and her mask, you know, which says Africa is not a test lab. And I just feel like it, it goes really well with the image before because that was actually in Johannesburg. And now we have this woman here in DC. Who's saying Africa is not a test lab. And it just kind of goes to show you sort of like the, the pan African mindset. And when we talk about now we're in COVID times and, you know, we have this vaccine and, you know, of course a lot of the black community is, is skeptical and doesn't trust the vaccine or trust our healthcare system for good reason. And so, uh, her mask, um, it just kind of speaks a little bit to that, you know, um, and yeah, I love the flag in the background and just kind of just the, just the energy. I think that, I think that the next book should just be a book about images of black women. I think you should do that. I think, I think we would love that. And that's necessary. And I've never seen that come from like one of us. Um, Yeah, you know, um, there's a kind of power. Like, you know, when you talk about the power of the body, there's a way that, um, you know, we could post a hundred different posts about the world, like change that, um, you know, move that, you know, I post things online all the time and people tell you how beautifully moving it is, blah, blah, blah. But there's something about the flesh being present. That won't let a photograph captures when I look at, I'm like, you know, there's a way that I kind of speed through the images back and forth as I'm talking about. And you can see the sinew, the muscle, the backs, the tattoos, the sweat, the mouths open the eyes. Like there's a, there's a kind of carnality to what you've, uh, what you've, you've, you've, you've documented that. You know, like no matter how many times you, you, you post it online, there's something about the still photo. In an age when everyone wants to see the moving image, in an age when everyone only wants to see these funny videos that are, you know, created, curated for like two minutes. You know, you, you just watch them while you don't want to do your work at, at your desk, but there's something beautiful about these very still high res images that, that bring you, that you can, you can go close up. You can almost smell these bodies. You can almost reach out and touch them, how flesh they are, how present, like, you know, in a way that, you know, um, or present preoccupation with filters don't allow us to experience the body. You know, and the body when we're talking about the killing of black body, and all of these beautiful photographs that you've made of black bodies in protest. Uh, it's really quite affirming. And, you know, um, like it makes me proud to be associated with this time. You know, this time in history that they can't say we weren't here because we weren't here because we weren't here because photographers like you document it. Right. Yes. I think that that is one of the important, the importance of, of the still image, you know, because you, you have to pause, you know, you have to pause and take it all in. And if, if it's a good photograph and you're, you're not only going to see it, but you're also going to feel it. You know, and, um, that as a photojournalist, um, that is one of my sort of missions is to create images that people feel, you know, um, and to convey sort of what I'm feeling and seeing to be able to convey that to everyone, you know, the, the very last photograph here. Is it the last one? No, I think we got. This is a second to the last one. Okay. Um, you know, this is the one that made me talk about the flesh and the muscle because if you, the, the, the, all the names there is very interesting. The Breonna Taylor. It's, you know, kind of striking with the Afro pic, but it's not, but if you widen, if you, if you, if you really open the photograph, if you really look at it, you can see every muscle in this woman's back. Yes. And you can see the sheen on her. Yes. She's wet. Her arms are wet from sweating. Yes. Exactly. And it's sort of, it, it reminds me of, um, just the sort of the, you know, it reminds me of, um, just the sort of the, the, the toil, just the, that we have to like push through sometimes. The work of it. You know, um, just, just the fight, the push to, to get to a place where we are fully recognized. Um, for all that we are, you know, we should have to fight to get to a place where we are fully recognized. You know, we shouldn't have to fight to be recognized as full human beings. We shouldn't have to fight for our sisters and brothers not to be murdered and, you know, proclaimed guilty before innocence like the weight of all of that. I feel that in this photograph. Mm-hmm. The very last one has moved me. I can't even tell you what to, this woman is fresh of her tattoo. Yes. Like the tattoo, she still got the plastic over her tattoo, meaning it ain't dry yet. It's not dry yet, nope. And she out with this hand in the streets. Right. What strikes me about the image and why I included it? Well, there's so many things going on here. But first, you know, her mask, which says I am black history, you know, and we are black history. We're making black history right now. Every day, we are making black history. And it's also her eyes, you know, because even though she has a mask on, you can see it in her eyes that she's, you know, frustrated, she's fed up, she's tired. She's, you know, what I see in her eyes just connects to what I was feeling when I was out there. Yeah, because you said, you said, you know, I mean Malcolm X said by any means necessary, you said quarantine or no, I got to get out of quarantine to go take these pictures. And she said, I just got this tattoo and I really want to go home and just lay down in my house but I got to be out here. Right. With her black pan African flag waving. And the other one, the one before I had the black, the one before I had the black African flag. Yes. Just stuck in her backpack or something. I mean, because it's just stuck there. Yes. Yeah, you're gonna see me coming and going. Oh my God. These images man, I keep, you know, there's something beautiful about about kind of just scrolling through them. You know, like, if you just allow yourself to go back and forth between them. And it's almost like this crazy movie about you know what I mean, like it's a crazy movie about the movement and about black women strength and about black women's fight and about black women's ability to stay in a fight. Absolutely. And there's 100,000 more images where these came from. So, yeah, I think we, I think we only have one time. I mean, I don't know what the time is, but I think we have time for one poll. Is there anyone who knows better than Adrian or I who want to just say what we should be doing because we've been having such a great time chatting in here and then keeping track of the time. Donna, you have time. Okay, 15 more minutes. Yeah. So I want to, you asked me to read a poem or two or three. So I think I'm going to read one poem. Okay, because I know you agree with me on this one when we talk about, you know, and I think just the share the beauty in these, the beauty in these photographs and the beauty in the stories you've been telling about, you know, you should, you should find a way to chronicle the stories that go with these photographs. And in the next, you know, in the next iteration of your next book, you should yourself write the stories on the back or on the other page. I think it would be good. I need to journal all this stuff so that I don't forget the details. So this is the, this poem is called tsunami rising, and there's never been a better, a more beautiful illustration of this black women, black fight, black fierceness coming, you know, rising like a tsunami in this notion of struggle and progress. So I read this one for you. I read it for your images. I read it for the women, the black women in the, in the listening audience tonight I read it for the black women who came before us. And the ones who are to come still the ones you gave us little glimpse of these under 25 filled with all of the energy and and fight that we need to get through the next generation and pass on to the next generation. So this one tsunami rising me too. In the balance of human biology, all bodies are created equal. Everybody is about 70% water, regardless of race, religion, gender, sex or sexual orientation. We all die after about seven days without drink. But the idiots obsessed with category have decided that a double X chromosome designates me subordinate to those with an X and a Y intersect to those two X's with a fact of my blackness. And my existence is suddenly coded as dangerous hostile, a direct threat to the endurance of the white patriarchy, and everybody knows that white men have spent centuries appropriating what they wanted. The gold they found in Africa wasn't enough. So they packed human bodies, head to toe submerged in a swamp of urine and thesis. They dragged us across violent waters. Many of us drowned or young, rather than let them live at the mercy of white men, and their sons, and their grandsons, and their grandsons, sons. Just to keep breathing, some of us became one dimensional in the public imagination, in books, in real life, we became one thing or the other, spinster or mother, victim or virgin, damsel or whore, some of us went underground, some of us slipping away. Others revolted, took up arms, crawled through sewage, defied geography to build new lives in new cities. And that's how I find myself in Brooklyn, spending my nights reading tales of Nubians bathing naked in the Nile. Kushai queens equaled the kings, all of them praying to a black woman named Isis, the most powerful goddess among gods. And I imagine, if I were Isis, if I were the most powerful goddess among gods, I might use my might to slight those motherfuckers who look at little girls with lust in their flesh. And I would exact vengeance on behalf of every black woman who has disproportionately borne the weight of racial and sexual violence, while everyone in the suffragette movement and the black civil rights movement and the LGBT movement turned a blind eye to her swollen lips and saying, me too, me too, someone help me to get him off me too. For centuries, black women have endured the culture of rape and racism combined. For centuries, the world has been silenced while black women and black girls were bullied by black men and white women alike. For centuries, rape was only a word black mothers spoke quietly, but every daughter knows what it means. It means lies still, it means it will pass, it means keep quiet, it means ignore those girls who scream too loudly in public. It means don't you shame this good black family. And then one day, one day something brilliant happened. A black woman named Tarana Burke inspired wealthy white women to say me too, too. And herein wriggles the strange rubric of America's particular brand of racism. Ironically, the viral mobility of the me too hashtag was only possible because a white woman with power retweeted a black woman's words. Two words which unleashed a wildfire of public testimony, pulling the shroud of sexual violation from the shadows and shoving it onto primetime TV. Yet 12 years after Tarana Burke's me too moment, black women are still largely missing from the public dialogue about sexual assault. And we are so tired of this one sided sisterhood, we are so tired of being disregarded. And if white feminists gave us room to speak honestly, this is the letter we would pen to you, you white feminist who's crying consistently drowns out the sound of black woman suffering. Dear weeping white women, even as we cannot find the space to show you where or when or how we were torn open, we are only exhausted from centuries of holding you and your children. We have a hard time trusting you because you have never been able to stand by us, stand up for us and we are so tired of explaining the genesis of our rage. If you wish to know more about why we are so angry, please Google us or read some bell hooks or some Britney Cooper or any of the blogs of the bed your black women writers your white publisher husbands are too afraid to publish. For centuries, black women have been carrying the weight of white fragility, year after year, marching for everyone else's freedom protesting for everyone else's privilege but ours. Well, this mad gaggle of global witches and hags are done braiding beats of silent acceptance. Simply put, in this century, black women intend to take up more motherfucking space. Black women are crafting a collective response to centuries of being under everybody's water. We are a rising tsunami of fury come back to take back what was carried away without consent. And while we're all here being candid, I might as well confess to you that I don't give a fuck if you don't like me or my big mouth, black like my lover's ass. It has never endeared me to the gatekeepers of white civility. My proclivity to speak the unspeakable is essentially the only defense I have against the indefensible violence of your manmade history. Inside my house, there is no shadow talk of birds and bees. We trade indecipherable metaphors for concrete words that will not confuse my daughter. I tell her your mouth, your elbow, your hair, your arms, your legs, your vagina, your whole goddamn body belongs to nobody but you. And if you even feel a tiny bit unsafe, you open your mouth and tell me and I will always believe you. In a world that so regularly demonstrates how much it hates black women. This is what we have to say to our little black girls. And yet, yet black women continue to survive. We continue to thrive. We continue to arrive into adulthood with the ability to laugh and love and wear hoop earrings and tight skirts and found social movements to liberate other motherfuckers from bondage. If any of this sounds like I'm speaking your story, this poem is for you, my love. If ever you have ever had to argue that you are no less deserving than your white counterpart, I am speaking to you and for you, my love. If you, the rest of y'all, if you have ever been inspired by the magic of a black woman with thighs and ass that move mountains in their stride. If you have ever been told you speak too fiercely from the thick lip of your own truth. If you've ever been called girl, like it was an insult if you've ever been called bit you step forward now if you are itching to light a fire in the fucking bonfire, a house of white patriarch, you come stand with us black women now. If you want to be free like Harriet Tubman weapon in hand wading through unfriendly waters her power compelling the freedom of even those who did not want to be free. If you desire to be confrontational like sojourner, if you wish to be audacious like Audrey antagonistic like Angela gangster like Winnie Mandela, angry like a Satish or you come, you roar with us at these rallies. You sit beside us in schools you sing with us in church stand with us where it matters vote with us vote for us at these polls travel with us in the virtual in the flesh over these waters they've used against women as weapons across the land of this rock we all call home. Let us use fire to crack open the ground wide with an uprising that will never again die down. Let us say to them, no more water, we will use fire next time. No more water fire next time no more water, we go use fire next time. Yes. So I mean, you know, those, those images like so like it's, you know, I think we could do a just a rolling, you know, you know, video of those images with this poem, because it is so much like, you know, these images so speak to the presence of black women in this movement, and the necessity of, you know, the, or allies to make space for us to, to step aside to be quiet to bring water to these, to these, these rallies and hand them to us but give us the fucking Mike. Yes. You know, and when the stories are being told and when the New York Times articles are being written. And when, you know, this praises are being sung, like, you know, we don't want to hear about the people who published Amanda Gorman. We want to hear about Amanda Gorman. We don't want to hear who put her on. We don't want to hear praise for Biden or Jill Biden who did all of this stuff to make space for her. We don't want that we want to speak with our own tongue. Stop cutting our tongue out and playing translator for us. Give us the fucking Mike. Yes. Absolutely all of that. And I mean, thank you, my friends that I love that I love that poem. And like you said, the images and the poem just go so well together. So that was a blessing. Thank you. I don't know if we have time for, are we taking questions from the audience. Thank you very much for inviting me to be a part of this, you know, in this time when we are not really being out there in the world. You know, these moments when we can connect and when we can reminisce and when we can make room for stories about how life is outside of this COVID reality and how it is that life can still continue even in the context of COVID. I'm very, I'm very grateful for your work. And for these images that have forced me to look again at a thing that sometimes you forget, you know, I'm in Jamaica now. You know, my kid is homeschooling from here. And sometimes you can forget, you know, sometimes when you're in a kind of bubble of your own forget that that, you know, all these things that are happening and the kind of carnal beauty of life. You know, even when it is difficult. And your, your, your photographs certainly remind me that that there is beauty and resistance, even in the very, in the most granite act of struggle that there is joy and there is beauty and there is flesh and there is sisterhood and there is, you know, life and we're still breathing. Even as they try to take our breath, we still breathing. We're breathing, we're creating, we're thriving, you know, in spite of it all. And so I thank you, my friend, because, you know, your words are brilliant. And, you know, as it can show you contributed to my book. And I feel like, you know, I'm privileged to be able to have a friend so talented as you, you know, just call up. The love is so mutual. My, my, my, my, my, my, my, my agent, my literary agent who died last year, Francis Golden used to always say to me, you know, she used to say, I love you and I say I love you too and she goes good because unrequited love is hard. Absolutely. So it's nice to have that mutual love. Yes, this was amazing conversation. Thanks so much to you both. There's lots of love in the chat for the conversation. Lovely poems, lovely photographs. When I look at them, I, even though, you know, these women in these photographs are fighting, like, you know, fighting for their freedoms, like I get so much affirmation from them, seeing them. And I think it's because, you know, because they, you know, their voice, it's their, I can tell that their voice is getting out there just like your, both your voices in the images and in your poetry are out there. So thank you so much for this conversation. Thank you. Thank you to the San Francisco Public Library for making this happen. Thank you to all the people who made this because, you know, I'm not an organizer, you know what I mean, I'm, I'm essentially like the person who takes these voices in my head, and these pieces of feelings that I have and like bellow them from somewhere. I'm deeply grateful for the people who make zoom links and, you know, remind us of meetings and, you know, gather our bios and, you know, remind us that things are to be done in a certain manner in order to get them done. And, you know, it's just amazing to have people who know what they're doing who can put something together so thank you so much. You're welcome and like, and this conversation will be on our YouTube channel and please check out Adrian Waheed's book at the library or from the website is in the chat, and I have Stacy's book on my phone, but that's also available at a market and website. There it is. Yes. Quick that you know my book is sold out on Amazon I have a reserved select amount of copies that I can sign personally for anyone who orders it from my website. So, and if you say you support black women by this book, this image is this these books that this book that has images of black women from all over the world. You know, I'm so tired of people telling me they're going to give me, you know, the way everybody's tired of prayers for like the violence against black bodies. If you're going to give me prayers for every moment that you pray you got to give me more like you can't just be like, I don't want no more prayers with nothing else I want prayers and money prayers and support prayers and a house prayers and some close from a child. Jesus have mercy stop sending only prayers prayers by themselves is only insulting and it made me upset. Put your book, put your money where you say a fucking politics lie. There you go. There you have it by their books. Thank you again. Thank you everyone. Peace and love. Peace and love everyone.