Black Female Voices: A public dialogue between bell hooks and Melissa Harris-Perry | The New School
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0:02 - 0:04[ APPLAUSE, CHEERING... ]
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0:16 - 0:24[ GAIL DRAKES ] Right? Right? Yeah.
Let me just say, I agree completely. -
0:24 - 0:26I so approve that message.
-
0:26 - 0:27[ LAUGHTER ]
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0:27 - 0:29So good afternoon.
-
0:29 - 0:31I'd like to welcome you all
to this afternoon's event, -
0:31 - 0:34"Black Female Voices, Who is Listening?",
-
0:34 - 0:37a public dialogue between bell hooks
and Melissa Harris-Perry, -
0:37 - 0:42the last public event in bell hooks'
week-long residency at The New School. -
0:42 - 0:44My name is Gail Drakes,
-
0:44 - 0:46and I am the director of
the Office of Social Justice Initiatives, -
0:46 - 0:49housed within the Office of the Provost,
here in The New School. -
0:49 - 0:52The office seeks to both support and amplify
-
0:52 - 0:56the efforts of those who are working throughout
the university to more fully realize -
0:56 - 1:01the New Schools progressive vision
as reflected in all aspects of our institution. -
1:01 - 1:04Having just arrived in The New School in August,
-
1:04 - 1:08I can say that the bell hooks residency
has been a highlight in my time here. -
1:08 - 1:11And that is not only thanks to insights
shared at various events this week, -
1:11 - 1:16but because of the excitement it's generated
within the New School community. -
1:16 - 1:19In the week leading up to the residency,
it seemed that at any given moment, -
1:19 - 1:22just walking down the street, or entering an elevator,
-
1:22 - 1:27you could very likely overhear conversations and
reflections amongst students, faculty, and staff, -
1:27 - 1:30on bell hooks and her work.
-
1:30 - 1:33So it is my hope that while
this week-long residency is ending, -
1:33 - 1:37that those conversations and reflections
on the significance of bell hooks' work -
1:37 - 1:41can continue and expand here at The New School.
-
1:41 - 1:43Of course, I would like to thank-
I would like us all to thank -
1:43 - 1:47those who made this event possible,
and the entire residency possible. -
1:47 - 1:48So please join me in a round of applause for
-
1:48 - 1:51Stephanie Browner, Dean of Eugene Lang College,
-
1:51 - 1:58Judy Pryor-Ramirez and Catherine Smith of Lang
Office of Civic Engagement and Social Justice, -
1:58 - 1:59Heather O'Brien, assistant to the Dean,
-
1:59 - 2:04and everyone at both Berea and the New School
who helped coordinate these events. -
2:04 - 2:10[ APPLAUSE ]
-
2:10 - 2:14I do have to announce a small change
in our schedule. -
2:14 - 2:17Unfortunately, our guests do have
to leave immediately after the conversation, -
2:17 - 2:21and regret that they will not be able
to sign books as planned, -
2:21 - 2:26but I am very grateful that we're going
to still be able to enjoy the conversation. -
2:26 - 2:28So I have the honor of introducing these women,
-
2:28 - 2:32who I know for so many of us in the room,
truly need no introduction. -
2:32 - 2:38But then I am still very pleased to offer this reminder
of the accomplishment of our guest today. -
2:38 - 2:42bell hooks is among the leading public intellectuals
of her generation. -
2:42 - 2:48Born in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, in 1952, she grew
up in a working-class family with six siblings. -
2:48 - 2:51hooks received her B.A.
from Stanford University in 1973, -
2:51 - 2:55her M.A. in 1976 from the University of Wisconsin,
-
2:55 - 2:59and her Ph.D. in 1983 from the
University of California Santa Cruz, -
2:59 - 3:02with her dissertation on author Toni Morrison.
-
3:02 - 3:08Her use of a pseudonym is intended to honor both
her grandmother, whose name she took,
& her mother. -
3:08 - 3:14While her name's unconventional lower-casing
signifies what is most important in her works-- -
3:14 - 3:18"the substance of books, not who I am".
-
3:18 - 3:21hooks' writing cover a broad range of topics
-
3:21 - 3:28including teaching, gender, class, and race--
the idea of a white supremacist capitalist patriarchy. -
3:28 - 3:31She strongly believes that these topics
cannot be dealt with separately, -
3:31 - 3:34but must be understood as interconnected and linked
-
3:34 - 3:39in the production and perpetuation of
systems of oppression and class domination. -
3:39 - 3:43A prevalent topic in her most recent writing
is community and communion-- -
3:43 - 3:48the ability of loving communities to overcome
race, class, and gender inequalities. -
3:48 - 3:50hooks has written over 30 books,
-
3:50 - 3:55including personal memoirs, poetry collections,
and children's books, -
3:55 - 3:57as well as numerous scholarly
and mainstream articles. -
3:57 - 4:02She has taught in several colleges and universities,
lectured widely in public forums, -
4:02 - 4:06and appeared in several documentary films.
-
4:10 - 4:22Mmm. [ LAUGHTER ] It's a bell hooks bio, a lot
going on there! I gotta hydrate! [LAUGHTER ] -
4:22 - 4:29Melissa Harris-Perry is the host of MSNBC's
Melissa Harris-Perry. [ CHEERING ] -
4:29 - 4:33The show airs on Saturdays and Sundays,
which some of you seem to know, probably, -
4:33 - 4:36from 10 AM to noon, Eastern time.
-
4:36 - 4:40Harris-Perry is a professor of political science
at Tulane University, -
4:40 - 4:41where she's the founding director of
-
4:41 - 4:45the Anna Julia Cooper Project on Gender,
Race, & Politics In The South. -
4:45 - 4:48Harris-Perry is author of the well-received new book
-
4:48 - 4:54"Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black
Women in America", published by Yale 2011, -
4:54 - 4:55and the award-winning text
-
4:55 - 5:00"Barbershops, Bibles, and BET: Everyday Talk and
Black Political Thought", -
5:00 - 5:03published by Princeton University Press in 2004.
-
5:03 - 5:06Professor Harris-Perry is a columnist for
The Nation Magazine, -
5:06 - 5:10where she writes a monthly column,
also titled "Sister Citizen". -
5:10 - 5:12She lives in New Orleans with her husband,
James Perry, -
5:12 - 5:16and is a mother of a terrific daughter, Parker.
-
5:16 - 5:21While these bios offer considerable insight
into all they've done, -
5:21 - 5:24they can't fully represent the effect
they've had on so many. -
5:24 - 5:28Melissa Harris-Perry, Empress of Nerdland,
-
5:28 - 5:31check out her #nerdland hashtag on Twitter
if you don't know what I mean, -
5:31 - 5:35has used her show on MSNBC
to expand the notion
of what is political, -
5:35 - 5:41and to amplify the voices of those we rarely, if ever,
see represented on cable news. -
5:41 - 5:45She brings the full force of her passion, personality,
and intellect to her show, -
5:45 - 5:50and changed what we thought was possible
on a cable news show. -
5:50 - 5:55And bell hooks. [ LAUGHING ]
-
5:55 - 6:01There are many ways to determine the reach and
power of someone's work as a writer and academic. -
6:01 - 6:07Often we think about number of reviews, the number
of times one is cited by other scholars, etc. -
6:07 - 6:10But to understand the significance
of bell hooks' work, -
6:10 - 6:15you must think in terms of the number of
lives touched and world-views transformed. -
6:15 - 6:19While I navigate a society that offers
such a painfully narrow representation -
6:19 - 6:22of who can be a public intellectual,
-
6:22 - 6:25I take heart and remember that
it has been bell hooks' books -
6:25 - 6:30that I've so often seen in the hands of Black Women,
as they would ride the bus home from work. -
6:30 - 6:34And it was the insight from her books,
dog-eared, re-read, and well-loved, -
6:34 - 6:40that helped inform the work of a generation of
cultural workers, activists, and feminist scholars, -
6:40 - 6:42who are now impressive in their own right.
-
6:42 - 6:47So I just want to say, both personally
and on behalf of all of us assembled here, -
6:47 - 6:52a sincere thank you to both of these women
for all the ways in which they've served to help us -
6:52 - 6:58re-imagine what is possible at the intersection of
education, public life, and the struggle for freedom. -
6:58 - 7:03And thank you for giving us all the opportunity
to listen in to this conversation today. -
7:03 - 7:07Everyone, please help me welcome
bell hooks & Melissa Harris-Perry. -
7:07 - 7:10[ APPLAUSE & CHEERING... ]
-
7:27 - 7:32[ bell hooks ] I'm not used to being
with a celebrity. [ AUDIENCE LAUGHTER ] -
7:32 - 7:35[ Melissa Harris-Perry ] Oh! [ LAUGHTER ] Yeah,
I'm pretty sure in this crowd, you're the celebrity. -
7:35 - 7:36[ BOTH LAUGHING ]
-
7:36 - 7:38So we were trying to figure out how to get started
-
7:38 - 7:44and I wanted to start by just picking up on
that last insight about the fact that -
7:44 - 7:48none of us come to Black Feminism
except through you. -
7:48 - 7:57And it--I was just recently on the campus of
Bennett College, in Greensboro North Carolina, -
7:57 - 7:59and it was a kind of a wonderful moment like this,
-
7:59 - 8:04where I rarely get a chance--where I was standing
and looking out over the chapel and... -
8:04 - 8:11and it was all African-American women and girls
and all of the faculty, in their academic regalia, -
8:11 - 8:12was kind of a great moment.
-
8:12 - 8:15But one of the freshman came up to me afterward
-
8:15 - 8:18and put her hand on my arm
and fairly breathlessly said, -
8:18 - 8:22[whispering] "Have you read bell hooks?"
-
8:22 - 8:34[ AUDIENCE LAUGHTER ] Um--
and I thought, "Uh-huh. Yep." [ LAUGHING ] -
8:34 - 8:42[ b.h. ] I am 20 years older than this baby up here,
and one of the things that I thought about is, -
8:42 - 8:47my early work focused so much
on the question of finding our voice. -
8:47 - 8:51And I was thinking about how
Melissa represents a generational shift, -
8:51 - 9:01because she has this whole national voice,
and so part of what we want to talk about is, -
9:01 - 9:10has there been a meaningful concrete change in how
we hear, think & feel about the Black Woman's voice. -
9:10 - 9:17Because many of you may have seen the show,
where Melissa is talking--was she an economist? -
9:17 - 9:20[ MHP ] Uh-huh.
-
9:20 - 9:22[ b.h. ] And-- [ AUDIENCE LAUGHTER ]
-
9:22 - 9:25[ MHP ] --Yes, I think that is the official title
of what Ms. [Angela] Mehta is. -
9:25 - 9:30[ b.h. ] --and I was so impressed myself. It was
it was like a love moment for me, -
9:30 - 9:37when Melissa just, you know, really boldly
put out there, what we know to be real and true. -
9:37 - 9:44And then I was so stunned when I kept hearing
from people, "Oh, you know, she really lost it." -
9:44 - 9:48And I thought, kept thinking,
"oh if this was Charlie Rose, -
9:48 - 9:54if this was any number of white men
who would just boldly speak their truths?" -
9:54 - 9:56She didn't raise her voice in any way.
-
9:56 - 10:01There was for me no sense of aggression, so then
-
10:01 - 10:05but once again she was turned into
the "Angry Black Woman" -
10:05 - 10:08not the Insightful Brilliant Black Woman
-
10:08 - 10:15who just threw down in such a way
that it created a sense of awe. -
10:15 - 10:20And so that then gave me pause in thinking about
on one hand, has there been a shift, -
10:20 - 10:29or are we still pushing against a certain
characterization of the Black female voice? -
10:29 - 10:33[ MHP ] Am I meant to answer?
-
10:33 - 10:35[ b.h. ] You're meant to discuss.
-
10:35 - 10:42[ MHP ] I suppose yes. So I, you know,
I'm not sure how I ended up with a television show. -
10:42 - 10:46And I don't mean that to be joking.
I really am not quite sure how that happened. -
10:46 - 10:54Clearly it's about a set of very odd occurrences
that were part of this moment historically -
10:54 - 10:59where you end up with an African-American man
as president, -
10:59 - 11:04and you end up with the most popular commentator
on this African-American president -
11:04 - 11:11being a queer woman who is out and butch
when they don't overly make her up. -
11:11 - 11:16And you know, and so there's sort of a - there's sort
of a shift that occurs around representation, -
11:16 - 11:18and that shift that occurs around representation
-
11:18 - 11:23occurs at the same time that there's a
profit motivation to get an audience, right? -
11:23 - 11:29So I just don't want to miss that
there's no moment in cable news -
11:29 - 11:31where people are making any kind of decision
-
11:31 - 11:37that isn't based on a belief that there is audience
and income and something else out there. -
11:37 - 11:39So I assume--you know, you talk about
being twenty years younger -
11:39 - 11:43so I come of age in exactly the right moment.
-
11:43 - 11:45In fact, I pretty regularly say
-
11:45 - 11:49the smartest thing you could've ever done
was to have been born in the 70's. -
11:49 - 11:51If you were going to be born a Black girl,
-
11:51 - 11:56to be born in the 70's meant being born
right at the end of that Civil Rights struggle, -
11:56 - 11:58but before the backlash got really ugly,
-
11:58 - 12:02in the one moment when there were
integrated public schools in the South. -
12:02 - 12:05Just for that one second before white flight took all...
-
12:05 - 12:08took all the resources out of the public schools
in the South -
12:08 - 12:13right at that moment so that when I graduate from
college, we're in an economic upswing & there are jobs. -
12:13 - 12:16When I finished the Ph.D., people are getting
multiple academic jobs. -
12:16 - 12:24Not like, searching for an adjunct position,
like there's just structurally a set of realities. -
12:24 - 12:30But I don't think any of those structural realities
that let a little moment like me come through -
12:30 - 12:36represents an American shift
in who we want to hear from. -
12:36 - 12:40[ b.h. ] All right. [ AUDIENCE LAUGHTER ]
-
12:40 - 12:46Whereas I feel, you know, enormously blessed.
-
12:46 - 12:49I always get annoyed with my sister when she says
she's blessed and highly-favored, -
12:49 - 12:57but you know, I do want to say that I think of myself
as just of--you know, -
12:57 - 13:04Melissa has a mainstream image voice
that I came up really out of nowhere. -
13:04 - 13:08You know, little bell hooks writing "Ain't I a
Woman: Black Women in Feminism" -
13:08 - 13:12and that sometimes I do feel like, wow.
-
13:12 - 13:15You know, there is this audience
that reads bell hooks, -
13:15 - 13:19and tells me how my work has affected their life.
-
13:19 - 13:25And I think as a Black Woman writer,
that is so amazing. -
13:25 - 13:27I mean when I think about Audre Lorde,
-
13:27 - 13:28when I think about Pat Parker,
-
13:28 - 13:31when I think about Zora Neale Hurston,
-
13:31 - 13:33I think about all the Black women writers.
-
13:33 - 13:37I mean, my students already don't know
who Audre Lorde is. -
13:37 - 13:39They never knew who Pat was.
-
13:39 - 13:45You know, and I think that to be a Black woman
writer of non-fiction, and to be read, -
13:45 - 13:49is to be blessed and highly-favored.
-
13:49 - 13:57And so I think that just as there is space now
for your voice because it's a product. -
13:57 - 14:03It sells, it creates people like us running
to hear her and watch her. -
14:03 - 14:06There's also that other climate of people searching
-
14:06 - 14:16for truly dissonant ways of thinking and being and
trying to carve out different ways to live our lives. -
14:16 - 14:20And I think that's especially a tension
for Black women, -
14:20 - 14:28because we haven't, as a group,
really carved out different ways to live our lives. -
14:28 - 14:30[ MHP ] I wanted to ask you about that a little bit
-
14:30 - 14:37because there are things about the bizarro life
that I find myself living now, -
14:37 - 14:44that I sometimes feel as though I'm judging against
a set of Black Feminist Standards, -
14:44 - 14:50that I ultimately learned and decided
to believe in from your texts. -
14:50 - 14:57So if--if the lowercase letters of bell hooks
-
14:57 - 15:05are in part about a recognition that
the ego is less important than the content, -
15:05 - 15:10it was in fact very painful for me when MSNBC
named the show "Melissa Harris-Perry". -
15:10 - 15:17And I fought it and we--I had 4,000 other
really funny names [ LAUGHTER ], -
15:17 - 15:21but--and they were also--all sounded
like some other networks' shows -
15:21 - 15:26but in part because I thought, no
what we're supposed to be doing is not saying, -
15:26 - 15:34"Watch me! Me! It's all about me!" but instead spend
time in the content. So I don't--I guess part of what I- -
15:34 - 15:38[ b.h. ] --By the way, that failed. I mean,
people became as obsessed with bell hooks-- -
15:38 - 15:39[ MHP ] Yeah.
-
15:39 - 15:42[ b.h. ] --and the lowercase did not
[ AUDIENCE LAUGHING ] do-- -
15:42 - 15:45[ MHP ] --right, yes! This is what--
-
15:45 - 15:51[ b.h. ] --you know, it didn't do the work
that I felt as a spiritual -
15:51 - 15:57because for me it was not just a political--it was
a spiritual decision at the time, you know? -
15:57 - 16:01About who am I and where do I place myself?
-
16:01 - 16:08And I didn't want to place myself, my personality,
my ego, but other people placed it. -
16:08 - 16:14So they just reified and fetishized
the small bell hooks. -
16:14 - 16:21So I realized, you know, how much power we don't
have over how our representations are perceived. -
16:21 - 16:28And that kind of goes back to my saying that
when people think we're angry, or strident, or difficult, -
16:28 - 16:30when we may not have
that perception of ourselves at all. -
16:30 - 16:35When I first y'know published, Aint I A Woman,
the white women at South End Press said, -
16:35 - 16:37you know, it was such an angry book.
-
16:37 - 16:39And I didn't know what they were talking about.
-
16:39 - 16:41Because again, I felt it was a clear book.
-
16:41 - 16:46It was a book saying things
that hadn't been said before, but anger? -
16:46 - 16:47You know, I'm one of these Black women
-
16:47 - 16:54if I'm angry, you will know that I'm angry
and I'm gonna--I'm gonna own my anger. -
16:54 - 17:01And so I knew that that wasn't the case, and that
has been something that I feel is a constant battle. -
17:01 - 17:03I've been referring a lot to
"Sweet Honey in the Rock": -
17:03 - 17:06"when we work for freedom, we cannot rest",
-
17:06 - 17:10because people are constantly using
"anger" and "difficult". -
17:10 - 17:15I mean I have to admit I get "difficult" now
more than "anger". -
17:15 - 17:16You know, "bell is difficult."
-
17:16 - 17:18[ MHP ] Yeah.
-
17:18 - 17:20[ b.h. ] You know, when people drop you,
or when--from publishing, or something, -
17:20 - 17:26and they say "well, bell is difficult."
And it's because you raise certain kinds of images. -
17:26 - 17:36And once again, I think it's about, Melissa,
that interface between our radical political integrity -
17:36 - 17:42and the fact that we are in imperialist,
white-supremacist, capitalist patriarchy. So-- -
17:42 - 17:48[ MHP ] And you might be, I mean,
so I was angry at Ms. Mehta, -
17:48 - 17:52her inability to see that it was patently-
-
17:52 - 17:54[ b.h. ] Uh-oh, mess up all my theories.
[ AUDIENCE LAUGHTER ] -
17:54 - 17:57[ MHP ] --Right--no, no, but [ AUDIENCE
LAUGHING ] but not just her. -
17:57 - 18:02I was angry with the idea that we continue
to propagate this notion, -
18:02 - 18:05that to be poor is somehow relaxing.
-
18:05 - 18:10That people are chillin on public service,
like I mean, [ AUDIENCE APPLAUDING ] -
18:10 - 18:15and that, you know, that--that riskiness
is associated with wealth, right? -
18:15 - 18:20So I--the only thing I push back against
is the notion that I'm irrational. -
18:20 - 18:23I mean, I'm mad,
but I'm mad about something, I'm not... -
18:23 - 18:30I'm not mad as an inherent aspect of my Blackness,
or my womanhood, right? But mad about something. -
18:30 - 18:34And you know, I get difficult, but I am difficult.
-
18:34 - 18:41Like, but, but so do--I mean, like, [ WHISPERING ]
so are all the white guys. [ AUDIENCE LAUGHING ] -
18:41 - 18:46Right? And I mean, I'm legitimately not trying
to be funny, in the sense that I know... -
18:46 - 18:50so I know that I come to work
after my producers come to work, -
18:50 - 18:58and I'm a little bit, y'know, demanding
and a lot of times, so I--"difficult". -
18:58 - 19:05But all the white boys were difficult too in
everything from the academy to general life to -
19:05 - 19:08you know, right?
-
19:08 - 19:14And but it's as though that difficulty is presumed
to be legitimate whereas ours is illegitimate. -
19:14 - 19:16[ b.h. ] Of course, you know, it's funny.
-
19:16 - 19:19I don't think that I'm difficult.
I think that I'm exacting. -
19:19 - 19:21[ AUDIENCE LAUGHING ]
-
19:21 - 19:22And precise.
-
19:22 - 19:28And I mean, I think that words we use are very
important because I think that for me -
19:28 - 19:30I mean, let's face it, folks.
-
19:30 - 19:33You don't be a Black woman from a working-class
background in America -
19:33 - 19:37and write more than thirty books
'cause you sitting around being difficult. You know? -
19:37 - 19:39[ AUDIENCE LAUGHING, SOME APPLAUSE ]
-
19:39 - 19:45That work comes out of
the amazing discipline of my life, -
19:45 - 19:48which I don't necessarily attribute to my ego or me,
-
19:48 - 19:53but to the recognition of what it takes
to get a particular job done, -
19:53 - 19:57and that will, as many of you have experienced
in this room, -
19:57 - 20:05to write, to put other things aside to write,
to sit at my computer -
20:05 - 20:10and key in the "Beasts of The Southern Wild" piece
-
20:10 - 20:12while I am sitting there crying
-
20:12 - 20:17because I just can't take in another image
of an abused Black child -
20:17 - 20:21being represented as entertaining.
-
20:21 - 20:25And I am sitting there, and I am writing, but I'm
also hurting. [ VOICE STRAINED WITH EMOTION ] -
20:25 - 20:32I'm hurting because we can't get past the construct-
ion of Black children as little mini-adults -
20:32 - 20:37whose innocence we don't have to protect.
-
20:37 - 20:43You know, who we can consider "cute" if they're
being slapped around by an alcoholic father. -
20:43 - 20:46You know, not to mention all the other things
we could name. -
20:46 - 20:52[ MHP ] Well, and then the abuse not only of
the character, but actually of Quvenzhané Wallis, -
20:52 - 20:57by Black and white communities,
in the immediate aftermath of that film, -
20:57 - 21:01which I really, really disliked that film.
-
21:01 - 21:05And watched it in New Orleans, sat in a theater
in New Orleans and watched it, -
21:05 - 21:08and came home and read your piece.
-
21:08 - 21:12And in fact, like the moment of Bennett students
saying "Have you read bell hooks?", -
21:12 - 21:15coming back and reading your piece and saying,
"Oh bell, bell's back." -
21:15 - 21:22And in part, that the pain, the anger, but also that
-
21:22 - 21:25this was one of those movies
that we were supposed to like, -
21:25 - 21:29and we were supposed to say good and nice things
about, and was supposed to be "artsy" and "funny" -
21:29 - 21:31and you're supposed to be "deep" and "get it",
-
21:31 - 21:37and you're willingness to say, "Nope, the abuse
of a Young Black girl's body as--is not deep. -
21:37 - 21:39It's appalling."
-
21:39 - 21:47[ b.h. ] And also, why can't we teach other people
to recognize that this is traumatic, and not "funny", -
21:47 - 21:50and not "cute", and that's--that's that again,
-
21:50 - 21:54"when we work for freedom, we cannot rest"
because it's a constant struggle. -
21:54 - 21:58I mean, it's interesting because,
I can tell you right now. -
21:58 - 22:04Ms. Melissa liked "Twelve Years of Slavery",
and I really hated it. -
22:04 - 22:11I thought that, or I won't even say I hated it.
Nah, sentimental clap-trap. [ A FEW LAUGHS ] -
22:11 - 22:13But one of the things I felt about it,
-
22:13 - 22:20and--'cause we don't want to just sit here and act
like we schmooze and agree on everything -
22:20 - 22:25I felt that it actually negated
the Black female voice. -
22:25 - 22:34That she was given voice only in so much as she
gave expression to Black male emotional feeling. -
22:34 - 22:40That the Black male does not have to take
responsibility for his own emotional universe, -
22:40 - 22:43that Patsy takes that cross.
-
22:43 - 22:46So it's like, okay not only are you suffering,
-
22:46 - 22:55but you have to take on you the added burden
of articulating this Black man's pain to him, so-- -
22:55 - 22:57[ MHP ] So, so how much that though
-
22:57 - 23:03and this is part of why I've approached this film
so differently than the other slave films -
23:03 - 23:10how much of that is because it is the reading of
his autobiography, his slave narrative, -
23:10 - 23:12and so that is what he does to her?
-
23:12 - 23:16Like he does in fact create Patsy in that way,
in that text, -
23:16 - 23:18so the film reproduces the thing
-
23:18 - 23:24that he as Black patriarch -even in the context of enslavement- does to her?
-
23:24 - 23:26[ b.h. ] Yeah, honey, [ A FEW LAUGHS ]
-
23:26 - 23:32but if the film-maker can create for us
that scene with Mrs. Shaw that is not in the book, -
23:32 - 23:37then why can't he--I mean, one of the things that
I stand on all the time -
23:37 - 23:43film does not exist for the purpose of
giving us reality. -
23:43 - 23:48And I always say, like, if my life is shit, I don't want
to go pay $10 or $12 [ AUDIENCE LAUGHING ] -
23:48 - 23:54to see it displayed so that we have to ask ourselves.
-
23:54 - 23:59I guess what I want for us all the time, Melissa,
which some of us feel happens on your show, -
23:59 - 24:05is a pushing of the imagination--a broadening of
how we think about things, -
24:05 - 24:09and not this sort of narrowing-down of
how we think about things. -
24:09 - 24:15And I feel like, you know, I'm tired of the
naked, raped, beaten Black woman body. -
24:15 - 24:22I want to see an image of Black femaleness
that alters our universe in some way. -
24:22 - 24:27I mean, Melissa--which was a question I was dying
to ask her, so I can ask her tonight -
24:27 - 24:33in "Sister Citizen", she really writes critically
about Michelle Obama, for example, -
24:33 - 24:36as representing that kind of shift.
-
24:36 - 24:40That we have this transformative image
-
24:40 - 24:47and I feel like, yes, we started out with this
incredible powerful Black female voice, -
24:47 - 24:51Michelle Obama, and it got smallerand smaller,
-
24:51 - 24:59and I wonder if you think that. Or if you think that
it kept the momentum that it began with? -
24:59 - 25:05[ MHP ] So, for me, First Lady Obama
is navigating multiple spaces, -
25:05 - 25:11and in some ways, it has retained its bigness and
its value, and in other ways it has diminished. -
25:11 - 25:14Most importantly, for me, I think there was
an active, purposeful, -
25:14 - 25:18and I think she she has said it to us,
-
25:18 - 25:28desire to remove from public space that idea of
the Black woman who emasculates her husband. -
25:28 - 25:36That she very actively and purposefully moved back
from the partnership model that we saw initially. -
25:36 - 25:39Not only partnership, but actually,
an active critique of her husband. -
25:39 - 25:42So when Senator Obama is running in 2007-8,
-
25:42 - 25:46she has a variety of punch-lines,
one of which includes: -
25:46 - 25:51"Oh yeah, you know, Barack is stinky
in the morning, and he leaves his socks around." -
25:51 - 25:56She had another line that was about feeling like
a single-parent for much of their early marriage -
25:56 - 25:59because he was working down-state.
-
25:59 - 26:00And so she was taking on all the parenting.
-
26:00 - 26:05She was the primary bread-winner
and she was taking on all the parenting. -
26:05 - 26:08And then there was also a narrative about
her relationship with Mama Robinson, -
26:08 - 26:13and the importance that Mama Robinson had
in stepping in as the second parent -
26:13 - 26:16when state Senator Barack Obama was down-state.
-
26:16 - 26:20And that narrative went away after the primaries.
-
26:20 - 26:24So as soon as, basically they got through,
about South Carolina, -
26:24 - 26:30and it became clear that it was very possible that
Barack Obama could win the Democratic Primary, -
26:30 - 26:36Michelle Obama "the wife" became the
much more traditional political wife, -
26:36 - 26:39who supports in sort of a doe-eyed way,
her husband. -
26:39 - 26:41But that wasn't the totality.
-
26:41 - 26:44So on that hand, yes, I would agree,
I think she shrinks. -
26:44 - 26:47But the other thing I offer though,
is this possibility -
26:47 - 26:54that she's performing two other things that I do find
to be a sustaining pushing of the imagination. -
26:54 - 26:56One is about her body,
-
26:56 - 27:04and this initial desire to dissect First Lady Obama
in all the ways that we have dissected women, -
27:04 - 27:06Black women in particular,
since the Venus Hottentot. -
27:06 - 27:11And so rather than talking about Michelle Obama
as an embodied person, -
27:11 - 27:12we would talk about her arms.
-
27:12 - 27:16"I want Michelle Obama's arms."
"I want Michelle Obama's behind." "I want"--right? -
27:16 - 27:21And so it was a rhetorical and public dissection
of her into parts, -
27:21 - 27:24so that we weren't talking about her,
but talking about the parts of her body. -
27:24 - 27:30Now for me, the immediate rational reasonable
response to that is to stop performing your body, -
27:30 - 27:33to--when people are talking about your body
to cover. -
27:33 - 27:34I mean that's what our grandmothers taught us, right?
-
27:34 - 27:37"Girl, hold it--hold it in. Keep it tight," right?
-
27:37 - 27:41Because people--but instead, the First Lady did
this sort of extraordinary thing where she was like, -
27:41 - 27:44"Oh, so you want to scrutinize? Here I am."
-
27:44 - 27:46She went even more sleeveless.
-
27:46 - 27:48She had this amazing--I encourage you to go home
-
27:48 - 27:52and Google the--just put in "hula hoops"
and "First Lady Obama" - -
27:52 - 27:56there's this incredible series of her in the first spring
that they're in the White House of Spring 2009 -
27:56 - 28:02and she is running - she's this 6-foot-tall Black
woman, barefoot, hula-hooping, -
28:02 - 28:05and running across the White House lawn,
and it is... -
28:05 - 28:10Like when I say that, right, that sounds like
some kind of weird racist KKK movie, right? -
28:10 - 28:11[ AUDIENCE LAUGHING ]
-
28:11 - 28:14But instead, it's like, it is completely beautiful
-
28:14 - 28:20and not beautiful in some like "Jackie O."
"oh she's like Jackie O."--no. -
28:20 - 28:23She's embodied in this very different way,
-
28:23 - 28:28and the very fact that she goes into obesity politics
that in part invites scrutiny of her body, -
28:28 - 28:33and then undoubtedly of her daughter's,
is sort of an unwillingness to shrink. -
28:33 - 28:35So she shrinks in the wife role.
-
28:35 - 28:41I feel her stand up in the, in the sort of
"inviting the scrutiny of the body". -
28:41 - 28:44And the last thing I'll say is,
when there was this attempt to do -
28:44 - 28:47--and it's the one thing I loved about
"Twelve Years a Slave"-- -
28:47 - 28:51to me, "Twelve Years a Slave" was the first time
-
28:51 - 28:56that there wasn't a cinematic redemption
of the white woman slaveholder. -
28:56 - 29:05And instead, they are made absolutely complicit
and evil and attached -
29:05 - 29:12and there's no sense that there is some gender
equity that will--nope. [ SOME LAUGHS ] -
29:12 - 29:30[ b.h. ] And you didn't see that in "Django"?
[ PROLONGED LAUGHTER ] No I mean-- -
29:30 - 29:33[ MHP ] I can't--I can't talk about "Django", bell.
-
29:33 - 29:36[ b.h. ] Oh, okay, but I have to say
that one of my favorite scenes -
29:36 - 29:41is when the two very obedient Black female slaves
are on that stairway -
29:41 - 29:50and Django tells them to say "goodbye to Ms. Ann",
and they've been so obedient and subservient, -
29:50 - 29:52but it's like that open door of freedom,
-
29:52 - 29:56that when they have the opportunity to walk through
that open door of freedom, -
29:56 - 30:01that hold to me at that moment--the mammy image-
is totally deconstructed. -
30:01 - 30:05And they're like "goodbye" and he blows her away.
-
30:05 - 30:09I see that as also that reminder of complicity,
-
30:09 - 30:15that white women have been complicit in this
imperialist white-supremacist capitalist patriarchy. -
30:15 - 30:17[ A FEW CLAPS ]
-
30:17 - 30:21And not just these sort of passive observers
or victims. -
30:21 - 30:23[ MHP ] I feel you, I feel you. I feel you--
-
30:23 - 30:24[ b.h. ] -But let's not be--
-
30:24 - 30:26[ MHP ] But I can't--but "Django", but 'cause see...
-
30:26 - 30:28[ AUDIENCE LAUGHTER ]
-
30:28 - 30:31'cause for me what happened in those first moments
in the movie theater, in "Twelve Years a Slave", -
30:31 - 30:33when they're taken onto the ship
-
30:33 - 30:35and then the people who have been watching way
too much "Django" are like, -
30:35 - 30:40"I can't even believe you're just gonna--why ain't
you gonna fight back?!" [ FOOT STOMP ] -
30:40 - 30:42Because this is not a fantasy.
-
30:42 - 30:44Because this is a slave narrative--because there is
-
30:44 - 30:50because the scene then when he is lynched for days
is what happens when you fight. -
30:50 - 30:53Because they kill Omar with a shank
in like two minutes. -
30:53 - 30:55And he had been--because for me,
I guess the reason -
30:55 - 31:00the reason that that "Django" does not perform
that for me is because it's the fantasy. -
31:00 - 31:03[ b.h. ] But see, I think it's all fantasy.
[ SOME "YEAH'S" FROM AUDIENCE ] -
31:03 - 31:05[ MHP ] Okay.
-
31:05 - 31:07[ b.h. ] I think it's all fantasy.
It's all fiction. It's all- -
31:07 - 31:11-I mean I have to say the only slavery movie
that I can really say really touched me -
31:11 - 31:16was "Slavery by Another Name",
the fictive documentary. -
31:16 - 31:19Because it had those real Black people.
-
31:19 - 31:26I mean I had the good fortune to see it at Sundance
with Eric Holder and his wife, -
31:26 - 31:30whose family is part of the film,
and part of that experience. -
31:30 - 31:37I, myself, okay I'ma say that
what I'm tired of in general is sentimentality. -
31:37 - 31:39I mean, James Baldwin said that
-
31:39 - 31:45"sentimentality is the ostentatious parading of
excessive and spurious emotion. -
31:45 - 31:49It is the mark of dishonesty, the inability to feel."
-
31:49 - 31:53So I'm actually
we can go away from particular movies. -
31:53 - 31:56I'm concerned about why is it that
-
31:56 - 32:04there's a kind of collective response to the
plantation culture we as Black people are living in -
32:04 - 32:08that has primarily to do with sentimentality.
-
32:08 - 32:10With people, whether we're talking about
"The Butler", -
32:10 - 32:14whether we're talking about
some of Tyler Perry's stuff [ LAUGHING ], -
32:14 - 32:16it's like, you know?
-
32:16 - 32:21I mean, let's stand and weep
and let's weep and weep. -
32:21 - 32:29You know, and while we're weeping, the violence
against us globally, the global slavery, continues. -
32:29 - 32:33And I'm trying to analyze it,
and maybe you have some thoughts about it, -
32:33 - 32:40but why is there this obsession at this historical
moment with sentimentality and melodrama? -
32:40 - 32:43'Cause you know my favorite melodrama
is imitation of life. [ APPLAUSE ] -
32:45 - 32:51I'm old enough to have left [ MELODRAMATICALLY ]
"Maaaaama! I diiiiid love you!" -
32:51 - 32:52[ AUDIENCE LAUGHING ]
-
32:52 - 32:54"I diiiid love you!"
-
32:54 - 33:00But again, mama don't get to hear that
'cause she dead. -
33:00 - 33:03[ LAUGHTER ] And so, what are your thoughts
about that? -
33:03 - 33:10This sort of upsurge, I feel,
in sentimental portraits of Blackness. -
33:10 - 33:14Not--and we don't have to just talk about slavery,
'cause "The Butler" certainly, you know. -
33:14 - 33:19[ MHP ] Yes. [ A FEW LAUGHS ] Okay so,
so I mean, all right. -
33:19 - 33:26So, okay, so there's "Django" on the one hand, then
there's "The Butler" and God help me, "The Help". -
33:26 - 33:35[ AUDIENCE BOOING AND THEN BREAKING INTO LAUGHTER ] I guess--
-
33:35 - 33:37[ b.h. ] All of which are sentimental.
-
33:37 - 33:38[ MHP ] Yes, right, right.
-
33:38 - 33:42And so I'm just kind of running in my head what
you're saying & trying to think through this a little bit. -
33:42 - 33:53It certainly felt to me like the "The Help" and
"The Butler" are popular culture -
33:53 - 33:55responding to the angst of the possibility,
-
33:55 - 34:00not only of Black empowerment
in the personhood of President Obama, -
34:00 - 34:06but also, the desire for the magical negro
to reappear to make things better. -
34:06 - 34:10So that the economic downturn itself, right?
-
34:10 - 34:18And the sense of white America experiencing,
for the first time in 50 years, -
34:18 - 34:23the unemployment rates that Black folks
have been living with for 60 years, right? -
34:23 - 34:28So that the Tea Party can actively,
just weeks after President Obama's inauguration, -
34:28 - 34:34can sort of take to the mall in anger about a
10% unemployment rate, and [ LAUGHING ] -
34:34 - 34:39we know like 10% unemployment rate for Black
people would be cause for like, Juneteenth. -
34:39 - 34:41[ AUDIENCE LAUGHING ]
-
34:41 - 34:42Right? We'd be happy.
-
34:42 - 34:46And I--so I presume that part of what happens then,
-
34:46 - 34:50why we need "The Butler", why we need
"The Help", and so maybe- -
34:50 - 34:54and I'm gonna pause and think about maybe
this is also why we need to bring back slavery. -
34:54 - 34:56But I'm not sure--I'll think about it.
-
34:56 - 35:06But maybe the reason we need to go engage
with them in our fictional emotional lives is -
35:06 - 35:11because those negroes gave-
they solved the problems of America -
35:11 - 35:17through their willingness to sacrifice
for the American project. -
35:17 - 35:21And so, I mean the fact that,
I will say at the end of "Twelve Years a Slave", -
35:21 - 35:25what happens--he goes to the American court
system, right? There is no "Django" fantasy, -
35:25 - 35:28like the "fantasy" is that. Right?
-
35:28 - 35:32What the actual enslaved man does is he goes
and takes these men to court. -
35:32 - 35:39There is a presumption, even in that moment,
that somehow there will be justice available. -
35:39 - 35:43The thing that we actually did
in the years following emancipation -
35:43 - 35:48was to run for office, and buy land, and I mean it's
-
35:48 - 35:53so maybe there's a desire to reconstruct
that version of Black folks -
35:53 - 35:56so that we could fix what is currently wrong.
-
35:56 - 36:00Because that's always been our magical capacity.
-
36:00 - 36:02[ b.h. ] Or so that we can simply grieve.
-
36:02 - 36:06We can have a vehicle for the expression
of the depth of our grief. -
36:06 - 36:09Because I do believe that for some time now,
-
36:09 - 36:13Black people collectively have been caught
in a profound grief. -
36:13 - 36:20I've been working on writing about justice & using
Martin Luther King's "Where Do We Go From Here?" -
36:20 - 36:24And I'm just amazed that Dr. King
was talking about fascism. -
36:24 - 36:31He was talking about the--he was so prescient that
there will be things like the Tea Party. -
36:31 - 36:34And the thing that he says that's so amazing is that
-
36:34 - 36:39there will be this growth--"a native form"-
these are his words--"of fascism", -
36:39 - 36:43as Black people press forward for equality.
-
36:43 - 36:45And then he says that awesome insight
-
36:45 - 36:54that white people would rather destroy democracy
than have racial equality. -
36:54 - 36:56[ AUDIBLE AGREEMENT FROM THE AUDIENCE ]
-
36:56 - 36:59And I think we know that that's not true
of all white people, -
36:59 - 37:06but we really see that in those of us who live in very
depressed white areas, like Appalachia. -
37:06 - 37:14I mean, we see it so clearly that people would rather
have white supremacy and hierarchy -
37:14 - 37:16than any kind of justice.
-
37:16 - 37:20That people really think "Justice? You know,
those negroes have had enough." -
37:20 - 37:23"We've given them enough!"
-
37:23 - 37:29And so I think that that's what troubles me, Melissa,
about the sentimentality. -
37:29 - 37:35Because I feel it shifts us away
from the forms of analysis. -
37:35 - 37:38Like, I mean, I am myself-
I've been a reader of King, -
37:38 - 37:41but I've been away from
"Where Do We Go From Here?" -
37:41 - 37:49and so when I read it again, and I thought, boy, King
was talking about fascism, about what we had to do, -
37:49 - 37:52and so much of what he puts out we haven't done.
-
37:52 - 37:54The critical consciousness.
-
37:54 - 38:01It just, kind of, in a way, saddened me so deeply
because I think that we do live in this space- -
38:01 - 38:04Black people--Brown people-
of cognitive dissonance. -
38:04 - 38:07That we know white supremacy is real.
-
38:07 - 38:11But at the same time, we would like
to walk through our daily lives -
38:11 - 38:16as though justice is real, democracy is real,
equality is real. -
38:16 - 38:22I mean, if anything that I could say about
"Twelve Years of Slavery", is that it depicted that. -
38:22 - 38:27That we see them walking through their lives,
thinking they've made it. -
38:27 - 38:35That they can live as--as assimilated Black people
in this bourgeois white world. -
38:35 - 38:40And there is something so, almost unbelievable,
-
38:40 - 38:46about his level of innocence about the horrific nature
of white supremacy, -
38:46 - 38:52because he really believes that there is a whiteness
that will protect him. -
38:52 - 38:56Like you know? And that to me is like, wow.
-
38:56 - 39:02If someone can come from that time period
and believe that whiteness will protect them. -
39:02 - 39:10Then I think about our son, our brother Trayvon
Martin, what did he think would protect him? -
39:10 - 39:15Did he think that he was in danger of losing his life?
-
39:15 - 39:21Or did he have that innocence again,
about whiteness? -
39:21 - 39:25That many of us carry?
And many of our young people carry it, especially. -
39:25 - 39:29I mean, both here at The New School,
everywhere I go, -
39:29 - 39:35it is young people especially who will argue
that race has ended, that we're in the post-racial- -
39:35 - 39:37go ahead, jump in.
-
39:37 - 39:41[ MHP ] Yeah, yeah, so I would push back
against that just a little bit. -
39:41 - 39:47That young people primarily--so I do think that
millennials may think about race in ways -
39:47 - 39:52that are different and more complicated, but they
ought to, I mean, 'cause the world is different. -
39:52 - 39:56But that Cathy Cohen's research
out of the Black Youth Project, -
39:56 - 39:59and the writings of The Black Youth Project,
100 and all of them, -
39:59 - 40:04do suggest actually that because of their very close
contact with the police state and with incarceration, -
40:04 - 40:06and with the ways in which this-
-
40:06 - 40:11so again, the racial naiveté of the kids of the 70's-
all right I'ma give that to you- -
40:11 - 40:14because we were sort of in this moment, right?
-
40:14 - 40:20And then, even as Reagan was happening, y'know,
Bill Cosby was the, y'know, #1 rated show on TV. -
40:20 - 40:24So there were--there were ways in which-
I'ma take that critique for the X generation. -
40:24 - 40:35But I'm not quite willing to say that of young people
of color in their 20's, the generation one under me, -
40:35 - 40:42only because the material realities of their
vulnerability are so present for them. -
40:42 - 40:47Now it may be true that that population
is even more stratified-- -
40:47 - 40:49[ b.h. ] Yes, yes.
-
40:49 - 40:51[ MHP ] --so for the wealthy children,
there is a different reality. -
40:51 - 40:54But I don't want to give it to the whole generation-
I don't want to say young people don't know. -
40:54 - 40:57And my bet is that Trayvon may not.
And so, in fact... -
41:02 - 41:10So in fact so I want to come back in a minute
to using King as a source. -
41:10 - 41:12Especially around an understanding of justice
-
41:12 - 41:16and whether or not there's also a sentimentality
that occurs around-- -
41:16 - 41:17[ b.h. ] Uh-oh.
-
41:17 - 41:20[ MHP ] --King [ AUDIENCE LAUGHTER ],
-
41:20 - 41:25and particularly when we're unwilling to interrogate
and push King on his homophobia and sexism. -
41:25 - 41:30[ APPLAUSE ] And you know, it's been-
-
41:30 - 41:35as much as there has been this kind of sentimentality
around race produced by mass popular culture, -
41:35 - 41:38and "The Help", and "The Butler",
-
41:38 - 41:41there's also been a sentimentality about King
from the critics of President Obama, -
41:41 - 41:46who want to say "President Obama is no King"-
true. [ A FEW LAUGHS ] -
41:46 - 41:48But then they want to say,
-
41:48 - 41:54"President Obama is no King because he
makes alliances" and "because he does"- -
41:54 - 41:58you know, "makes compromises", and I'm like,
do y'all have any idea who King is? -
41:58 - 42:01And the kinds of compromises and alliances and
-
42:01 - 42:07ask Fannie Lou Hamer if in fact King doesn't look
just like the critiques that we have of President Obama. -
42:07 - 42:10So it's not--let me be clear--I'm not saying
we shouldn't critique President Obama, -
42:10 - 42:12what I am suggesting is that when we do so,
-
42:12 - 42:16by holding up a vision of King that is this version
that they created on the Mall -
42:16 - 42:22where he steps out of stone, that we can reproduce
that sentimentality, particularly when we don't-- -
42:22 - 42:24[ b.h. ] But that's one King. That's one King.
-
42:24 - 42:25[ MHP ] Yes.
-
42:25 - 42:30[ b.h. ] I mean, I'm sorry, but most Americans
don't even know The King ever said anything about fascism. -
42:30 - 42:32They don't know that he ever said anything
-
42:32 - 42:35about a mounting white supremacy
that would endanger our lives, -
42:35 - 42:39so I mean, I'm forgetting his name--I think it's Gary
Young-- [ IN BACKGROUND: "THE GUARDIAN" ] -
42:39 - 42:44who has done the "I Dream" speech book,
-
42:44 - 42:49but he talks about how there's this period where
there is the sentimental King who's loved, -
42:49 - 42:54but then as King begins to talk about imperialism,
and to talk about other things, -
42:54 - 42:58that then he's talked about as a traitor,
he's talked about- -
42:58 - 43:05I mean, so I think part of what we're all being called
to is a more complex understanding of King. -
43:05 - 43:07Because I totally agree with you.
-
43:07 - 43:11I mean I was--hate to say it but in my budding
militant feminism, I had no use for King. -
43:11 - 43:13[ SOME LAUGHTER ]
-
43:13 - 43:15And I barely had use for Malcolm X,
-
43:15 - 43:20because of what I felt to be their refusal to see
-
43:20 - 43:26the way patriarchy was hurting and wounding
to Black males and females, -
43:26 - 43:35and keeping us from the love that we deserve
to be able to give one another. And so, you know-- -
43:35 - 43:38[ MHP ] But I don't mean to throw King out at all.
In fact, actually, he was- -
43:38 - 43:40[ b.h. ] I didn't think you were...
-
43:40 - 43:45[ MHP ] But I just worry about the ways--so this is
your same concern about sentimentality, -
43:45 - 43:47just to echo it back,
-
43:47 - 43:51that even as we engage the great ideas
and the thinkers -
43:51 - 43:55and the nuggets of understanding
of justice and philosophy, -
43:55 - 44:06that because we're so absent, Black women are
so absent from the story, we're willing to give a pass. -
44:06 - 44:11[ b.h. ] I don't think that anybody would ever say
that about bell hooks. -
44:11 - 44:12[ MHP ] No, not you. Not you.
I'm talking about us. -
44:12 - 44:14[ b.h. ] Yes.
-
44:14 - 44:18[ MHP ] I'm talking about an American vision
of who counts as a hero. That's what I mean. -
44:18 - 44:20[ b.h. ] That's right.
-
44:20 - 44:26But I think that, you know, we are still in
the construction of a world -
44:26 - 44:31where people don't want to accept
that it is patriarchy that is killing Black men. -
44:31 - 44:33[ AUDIBLE AGREEMENT FROM AUDIENCE ]
-
44:33 - 44:41That it is an imperialistic patriarchy that threatens
the life of Black men of all ages--Black males. -
44:41 - 44:46I mean, all this week I've been talking about
my little 7-year-old Black male friend, you know, -
44:46 - 44:51who is having tremendous problems
in predominantly white world, -
44:51 - 44:57and I try to talk to his biracial mother and say, "You
know, I think his problems have to do with race" -
44:57 - 45:01That he looks out in the world and not only does he
see nothing that mirrors him, -
45:01 - 45:05these other little white kids are telling him
he's a monster. -
45:05 - 45:07You know, he's "ugly",
-
45:07 - 45:11and so he finally gets--she says, "Oh I think you're
just totally misguided." You know? -
45:11 - 45:20And then he finally gets into a fight at school and
he says, "You know, white people are just mean." -
45:20 - 45:26And so, there's this articulation of
a racialized narrative, from a 7-year-old -
45:26 - 45:30that knows he's already on the "outs",
that there's no "in" for him. -
45:30 - 45:34And I wonder about the trajectory of his life,
-
45:34 - 45:40that he can feel already the depths of that angst
and despair, that there's no "in" for him. -
45:40 - 45:44And I thought about that when you
were talking about Trayvon Martin, -
45:44 - 45:49and talking about birthing a girl, a Black girl,
as opposed to a Black male child. -
45:49 - 45:58Because I do think that Melissa and I both represent
that very oppositional reality that I write about. -
45:58 - 46:04That we both have, against various odds in our life,
invented ourselves. -
46:04 - 46:12And I don't think that that radical self-invention
is as present for Black males in their life. -
46:12 - 46:15Because for us, there is no seduction of power.
-
46:15 - 46:20There is no idea of, "oh well, if I just do
the right thing with my dick, [ AUDIENCE LAUGHS ] -
46:20 - 46:24I will be able to enter into the power of patriarchy."
-
46:24 - 46:32And so I think that that--those things are just
so intimate and deep in our lives right now, -
46:32 - 46:37this sense of also the distance that's growing
between Black females and Black males, -
46:37 - 46:40around, I think, these very issues.
-
46:44 - 46:46[ MHP ] So, this one's hard.
-
46:46 - 46:50[ b.h. ] I know, we just need hours together.
-
46:50 - 46:54[ MHP ] I know. I mean, it's so hard because
I simultaneously--you know, -
46:54 - 47:00I felt it so much on the night of the Zimmerman
verdict, and throughout that week, -
47:00 - 47:04and throughout the month that have passed.
-
47:04 - 47:08But when I hear you say the extent to which we've-
-
47:08 - 47:11that you and I have had a set of challenges over which we've-
-
47:11 - 47:15but I'm sitting here thinking, okay now if I'm
real honest about that, -
47:15 - 47:23some of the most difficult, very personal barriers,
were placed there by Black men. -
47:23 - 47:28Purposefully, actively, maliciously,
cruelly, continuously, -
47:28 - 47:33whether it was my sexual assault as a teenager
by a Black man, who's an adult, -
47:33 - 47:38whether it was my [ DISTRACTION IS INAUDIBLE ]-
we're live streaming--there are-- -
47:38 - 47:42[ b.h. ] She's gonna have to talk about [INAUDIBLE ]
-
47:42 - 47:45[ MHP ] Right, no. No, I, psh. Yes.
-
47:45 - 47:51And that, by the time that one came along,
there had been so many that had- -
47:51 - 47:56and, so for me--it's interesting for you to say this-
-
47:56 - 48:00because I'm light-skinned,
-
48:00 - 48:11and cis, and straight, and have a white parent,
and have access to all kinds of privileges from birth, -
48:11 - 48:13my bet is that I have been seduced by power.
-
48:13 - 48:17Now I don't think that mine comes
at the end of my penis, -
48:17 - 48:19but my bet is that my proximity to whiteness
-
48:19 - 48:25has in fact allowed me over and over again
a level of racial naiveté, -
48:25 - 48:30and a willingness to believe that if I could just get
the right white folks to give me cover, -
48:30 - 48:36that it will be okay. [ AUDIENCE CHEERING ]
-
48:36 - 48:41And I think that has everything to do
with being embodied in this body, and not in- -
48:41 - 48:44so, that even as we talk about
"The Black Woman's Experience", -
48:44 - 48:47that like, the different kinds of Black women's
bodies in which we end up-- -
48:47 - 48:51[ b.h. ] But then let's talk about the point at which
you realized that angle happened. -
48:51 - 48:53And then you have--
-
48:53 - 48:55[ MHP ] Oh, and I don't know that that is true.
-
48:55 - 48:58I mean, I show up on TV and say words
-
48:58 - 49:01because at the moment I have the cover
of a powerful white man. -
49:01 - 49:04Like at the moment a white man is like,
"okay you can sit on TV and say words" -
49:04 - 49:09and the moment that that powerful white man
no longer wants me to sit on TV and say words, -
49:09 - 49:11I will not be allowed to sit on TV
and say words anymore. -
49:11 - 49:14[ b.h. ] But every time you speak,
you have a choice. -
49:14 - 49:19And I think that part of this huge following that's
here tonight for you, and that's out there in the world, -
49:19 - 49:23is because you have exercised that choice,
in a way puts you at risk, -
49:23 - 49:27in a way that makes it seem that yes,
-
49:27 - 49:31that power force larger than you
could shut you down at any moment, -
49:31 - 49:33but you don't allow that to happen.
-
49:33 - 49:37And that's the strength that I'm talking about,
that's a different kind of- -
49:37 - 49:40it's what it means to be in resistance.
-
49:40 - 49:43I mean, all week I've been quoting
my beloved Paulo Freire: -
49:43 - 49:49"We cannot enter the struggle as objects
in order to later become subjects." -
49:49 - 49:59So you exercise the power of a redemptive
subjectivity, an oppositional subjectivity right there, -
49:59 - 50:05in the belly of the beast, knowing all the time
that you could be stopped at any moment, -
50:05 - 50:07but you don't not do it.
-
50:07 - 50:13You don't express the views of the covering person
that you described. -
50:13 - 50:17You're challenging yourself, and we challenge you.
-
50:17 - 50:24[ MHP ] But I still think of the riskier thing,
of the braver thing, as- -
50:24 - 50:30because you write,
because television killed my writing. -
50:30 - 50:34I haven't written since the show,
because you write it exists forever. -
50:34 - 50:37It's not ephemeral in the same way that broadcast is.
-
50:37 - 50:41And it feels to me so much more risky to write it,
-
50:41 - 50:45both because once you've written it,
I can then quote it back to you. -
50:45 - 50:48I can challenge you on it.
I can hold you accountable to it. -
50:48 - 50:52I can--but also because there will come a point
when you are gone -
50:52 - 50:57and the 18-year-old will still pick it up, and
still read it, and still discover Black Feminism, -
50:57 - 51:05and then you did something, bell, that is--strikes me
as extremely dangerous to one's ego, -
51:05 - 51:13which is you walked away from the brightest glare
of public life. -
51:13 - 51:15You returned to community,
-
51:15 - 51:24and the work that you are doing now feels to me like
it gets rewarded in all of the ways that this system -
51:24 - 51:30the capitalist--the system that you named so we can
see the water that we're swimming in- -
51:30 - 51:34isn't--like, the rewards won't be those rewards.
-
51:34 - 51:42[ b.h. ] But it gives me that ground to stand on from
which I can sustain my oppositional self. -
51:42 - 51:47I mean, all throughout this week and last night,
we had an amazing Sister Circle of women of color, -
51:47 - 51:55but a lot of those women were articulating
how hard it is to remain oneself. -
51:55 - 51:59Working in these systems,
working here at the New School. -
51:59 - 52:04And so I think partially, I mean, when I left
New York City, I will just never forget that day. -
52:04 - 52:07I'd been thinking suicidal thoughts.
-
52:07 - 52:12I was standing on the corner, with two shoes that
didn't match, and all this other stuff. -
52:12 - 52:15I knew that it was time to go.
-
52:15 - 52:24And to return to some type of foundation that could
allow me to sustain myself. -
52:24 - 52:27You know, when you've written a book that sells,
and it's selling really well, -
52:27 - 52:30but then suddenly you're told, "well we don't want
to publish you anymore". -
52:30 - 52:34But no reasons given, no explanations,
-
52:34 - 52:40and all of those things that as Black women testified
throughout this week--they make you feel crazy. -
52:40 - 52:47They make you feel like "okay I did the things that
I was supposed to do, I arrived at the destination." -
52:47 - 52:51And all of the sudden I come to work one day
and I'm locked out. -
52:51 - 52:53[audible compassionate reaction from audience]
-
52:53 - 53:01And so I think that for me, it's this decision to
constantly think about what nurtures that radical self, -
53:01 - 53:03what holds me up?
-
53:03 - 53:06You know, Shirley Chisholm holds me up.
[ A FEW CHEERS ] -
53:06 - 53:09I mean, when I-
her "Unbought and Unbossed" taught me, -
53:09 - 53:13much as Melissa and other people are saying that
I taught them things- -
53:13 - 53:20she taught me that I could be whoever I wanted to be
without having to lie down, -
53:20 - 53:26without having to be vulnerable and naked
to the oppressor. [ SOME CLAPS ] -
53:26 - 53:31But what I also learned from her was that
the rewards would be lesser, -
53:31 - 53:34that one would have to give up something.
-
53:34 - 53:37You know when I read, a year or so ago,
-
53:37 - 53:41and bell hooks talks--is talked about in "Ms."
as "missing in action", -
53:41 - 53:45and I think, what are they talking about?
I'm sitting here writing. [ AUDIENCE LAUGHTER ] -
53:45 - 53:48You know?
-
53:48 - 53:50And there are things again-
I talked with the students- -
53:50 - 53:55and Melissa will respond and will begin to close--
open it up for questions- -
53:55 - 54:00that when you are committed,
you often have to do things you don't want to do. -
54:00 - 54:07I am not interested in "Lean In," okay? You know?
[ APPLAUSE ] -
54:07 - 54:16But I wrote a piece about it because I was very
disturbed by what I felt was its overall impact. -
54:16 - 54:21And because I wasn't particularly interested,
writing the piece was torturous. -
54:21 - 54:26I was so unhappy. And people kept telling me,
"Well why don't you stop? Why don't you" -
54:26 - 54:31And all of you who know me know
that I don't use, myself, much of the Internet, -
54:31 - 54:37so it's always in collaboration with other feminist
sisters and brothers, -
54:37 - 54:41that things bell hooks get on the Internet.
-
54:41 - 54:43And so I had my colleague,
Stephanie Troutman, saying, -
54:43 - 54:49"bell, you agonized over this. You did it.
Let me put it on the Internet for you." -
54:49 - 54:57But that has been my story in writing from
the beginning, that I have to say some things, -
54:57 - 54:59but I am not always somebody
who wants to say them. -
54:59 - 55:05I want somebody else to jump up and say them,
and take the heat. [ AUDIENCE LAUGHING ] -
55:05 - 55:07[ MHP ] Yeah.
-
55:08 - 55:15[ b.h. ] And so, I mean, she said things.
She takes the heat. -
55:15 - 55:19And I just don't want you to downplay that,
despite our privilege. -
55:19 - 55:22I mean, I have an enormously privileged life,
and y'all know. -
55:22 - 55:26Y'all up in here hear me talk about my cars and
my houses and different things, my cheerio privilege, -
55:26 - 55:35leisure, solitude, but that doesn't mean that
it doesn't require courage, sacrifice. -
55:35 - 55:42It doesn't mean that there isn't a bell welter of pain,
because there often is. -
55:42 - 55:55So that we carry on precisely because of those
people who we stand looking out at them- -
55:55 - 56:03Lorraine Hansberry--so many people we could name,
who remind me what I'm here to do. -
56:03 - 56:09You know, it was Lorraine Hansberry who first
taught me to start thinking critically about love. -
56:09 - 56:18When she asked "Are Black People loving people?"
Or are we so damaged and so traumatized? -
56:18 - 56:25So that those issues of who we are and how we
make our voices heard continue because, you know, -
56:25 - 56:33it's funny how, Melissa, I feel very strongly
because I have lost family to death young recently. -
56:33 - 56:35[ VOICE BREAKING ]
-
56:35 - 56:43I feel very strongly that I can't count on a white racist
world to keep the bell hooks book going. -
56:43 - 56:47You know, and I laugh to people when say,
"Oh bell, why don't you digitalize all these books?" -
56:47 - 56:54and I say, "Yeah, the moment they're electronic, a
delete button can take them out of the universe," -
56:54 - 56:56[ APPLAUSE ]
-
56:56 - 57:01and so there is this way in which I'm struggling with
how do we protect our legacies as Black females? -
57:01 - 57:05How do we protect our voices? [ APPLAUSE ]
-
57:05 - 57:09Because y'know there's a hundred, some hundreds
of men, Black and white and whatever, -
57:09 - 57:12who we don't know anything about
what they ever did, -
57:12 - 57:16but they have their institute,
they have their whatever, [ AUDIENCE LAUGHTER ] -
57:16 - 57:21and so I am asking myself
at this critical juncture of my life, -
57:21 - 57:27what am I doing to care for the legacy of my work?
-
57:27 - 57:34I am not assuming that that work, despite all of you
wonderful people that are here tonight, will live, -
57:34 - 57:39if I don't do the necessary things to continue its life.
-
57:39 - 57:43I'm going to close. Melissa's going to say stuff
and we're going to have a few questions. -
57:44 - 57:49[ MHP ] I think we can go to questions. I think...
-
57:49 - 57:52[ AUDIENCE LAUGHTER THEN MORE APPLAUSE ]
-
57:52 - 57:56I think there's a couple of mics in the audience.
-
57:56 - 57:58[ b.h. ] And you know, ask your question quickly
-
57:58 - 58:03'cause with Buddhist compassion I will tell you
not to give that speech. Your name? [ LAUGHTER ] -
58:11 - 58:14[ KALIMA DE JESUS ] So my name
is Kalima De Jesus, -
58:14 - 58:18and I have a question regarding the push-back
around "Twelve Years a Slave". -
58:18 - 58:25And I would like to have a conversation about-
bell hooks, you said you talked about feeling like -
58:25 - 58:30you've seen enough of the Black woman body
who's been sexually assaulted, and I'm wondering -
58:30 - 58:34how do we find a balance about telling that history
-
58:34 - 58:41of the sexual assault that Black women have endured
years & years up until 2013, at this particular hour, -
58:41 - 58:47while white women have stayed complacent?
And imagine it beyond that? -
58:47 - 58:52Holding that balance in a time when
we are not being taught that at all. -
58:52 - 58:56[ b.h. ] But we are so much more than that,
and that's really more the question. -
58:56 - 59:00The question is not how we can't image that
or that it's not imaged. -
59:00 - 59:06It's all of us and who we are that's not imaged.
And why are we not? -
59:06 - 59:13Why is there no world that wants to see the life
someone like me leads as a Black female? -
59:13 - 59:19Economically self-sufficient, solitary,
disciplined, writing? -
59:19 - 59:22Why is that not interesting,
-
59:22 - 59:30not as interesting as images of if I were
being beaten, raped, if the scars were on my body? -
59:30 - 59:36That's what concerns me more than even
the sentimental slavery or whatever- -
59:36 - 59:40is, why are we not--where's our decolonized image?
-
59:40 - 59:45[ MHP ] So, you know, it's interesting because
part of what I liked about it -
59:45 - 59:49was that we got to see Patsy making the dolls,
and we got to see her even in the context of-- -
59:49 - 59:51[ b.h. ] I even hated the little dolls.
-
59:51 - 59:56[ MHP ] Well, [ AUDIENCE LAUGHING ]
so for me what the dolls meant, -
59:56 - 60:02and even her ability in the context of the horror
was those late-night performative dances, -
60:02 - 60:07that in both of those contexts, she nonetheless finds-
she's still human in them, right? -
60:07 - 60:11And that her humanity isn't entirely oppositional.
-
60:11 - 60:15So we see her humanity
in her oppositional moment about the soap, -
60:15 - 60:20but there's also that she can just be playful, or that-
-
60:20 - 60:26that social death is in fact a falsehood
in understanding what slavery was, -
60:26 - 60:28that there was still humanity in it.
-
60:28 - 60:30I mean, so we have a reading of the film differently.
-
60:30 - 60:36That said, this notion of the
abused Black woman's body as becoming- -
60:36 - 60:43so I started fairly early on in the show talking
about being a sexual assault survivor. -
60:43 - 60:47And, you know, I've been doing campus work
around sexual assault forever. -
60:47 - 60:48I mean, it's not like it's a new thing.
-
60:48 - 60:52No one in my family, you know,
it wasn't a new discovery. -
60:52 - 60:58But I'm not sure that the people at the organization
where I work knew it one way or another, -
60:58 - 61:01but they sort of like it.
-
61:01 - 61:07Not that they like that I was abused, but they like me
when I'm the sentimental person. -
61:07 - 61:12So they like when I write the letter to Trayvon
Martin's mother, to Sybrina Fulton, -
61:12 - 61:21which is legitimately how I felt, Black mother
to Black mother, but is, as bell was saying earlier, -
61:21 - 61:25but what it takes both to write it,
and to deliver it on air, -
61:25 - 61:30and then to live with the consequences of having it
delivered on air, is a lot. -
61:30 - 61:33It's very costly. It's very expensive.
-
61:33 - 61:38So, it is both something that is meaningful to do,
and very expensive. -
61:38 - 61:41And so because it's very expensive,
I don't want to do it a lot, right? -
61:41 - 61:43I want to do it, but I don't want to do it every week.
-
61:43 - 61:45It's just because shit hurts.
-
61:45 - 61:49And then like, I remember when I did one of
the letters around sexual assault -
61:49 - 61:54and then we had done it at like 10:30,
so I had an hour-and-a-half of show left. -
61:54 - 61:56So you know I sat down and I said to myself,
-
61:56 - 61:59okay sexual assault survivor, now it's time
for dissociation. -
61:59 - 62:02Now we're going to practice
our dissociation practice... here we go! -
62:02 - 62:06All right, half-and-a-half of now talking about Syria
and something else. -
62:06 - 62:08So it's costly, so I don't like to do it a lot.
-
62:08 - 62:10[ b.h. ] Yes. And you shouldn't do it a lot.
-
62:10 - 62:16[ MHP ] Right, but that's what--but, back to the
market--that's the market. -
62:16 - 62:24People like that Melissa. When Melissa is angry,
yelling at the economist, right? -
62:24 - 62:27[ b.h. ] I'll say "clear", and "exact".
-
62:27 - 62:32[ MHP ] Exacting. When Melissa is goofy,
as I pretty often am, -
62:32 - 62:35and sometimes kind of goofy over-the-line,
-
62:35 - 62:44sometimes goofy over-the-line wearing
feminine products in my ears. [ AUDIENCE LAUGHING ] -
62:44 - 62:51The desire not to see me--I mean people say to me,
"That's not you. You're not that. Don't do that." -
62:51 - 62:55Well of course I'm that. Of course I'm silly
and goofy and crazy and over-the-top, -
62:55 - 62:59and sometimes I'm kind of, you know,
sexy and bad and fly and all that. -
62:59 - 63:04And sometimes I am mad, and sometimes
I am very sad, and hurt, and in pain. -
63:04 - 63:09Like, because, well, shit. I'm human.
[ AUDIENCE LAUGHING AND CLAPPING ] -
63:09 - 63:13But I do think--and on this one, bell-
this notion of range- -
63:13 - 63:16like not only in our consumption in popular culture,
-
63:16 - 63:20but our desire to consume
"The Strong Black Woman" -
63:20 - 63:24who overcomes the worst circumstances,
-
63:24 - 63:26is the thing that we like the best.
-
63:26 - 63:32And I say "we" like both the broad American public,
Black people, "we like strong black women". -
63:32 - 63:36But we pitiful Black women, funny Black-
we already know we don't like funny Black Women- -
63:36 - 63:40but you can't get a job, right?
[ LAUGHING AND APPLAUSE ] -
63:40 - 63:44We are live streaming--I keep forgetting
we are on the air. [ LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE ] -
63:44 - 63:48Right? [ OVERLAPPING WORDS, APPLAUSE ]
No job and I get really get bad-- -
63:48 - 63:52[ b.h. ] So what we're really talking about
is that whole- -
63:52 - 63:58the whole question of what does it mean
to have optimal emotional well-being? -
63:58 - 64:03'Cause when you have optimal emotional well-being,
you can be whole. -
64:03 - 64:08You can be the diversities of who yourself is,
and so you're saying... -
64:08 - 64:17you know, we have to resist again and again, people
trying to deny us that space of emotional well-being, -
64:17 - 64:23by keeping us trapped into the plantation culture
that says "this is who we are". -
64:23 - 64:26Your name, your quick question?
-
64:26 - 64:32Ariel Rojas: Oh! [ LAUGHTER ]
You caught me by surprise. -
64:32 - 64:37No, I was thinking about your, the finishing optimal...
-
64:37 - 64:39[ b.h. ] Well-being.
-
64:39 - 64:42[ AUDIENCE MEMBER ] Well-being. All right,
so my name is Ariel -
64:42 - 64:46and I'm the president and founder of a non-profit
organization called Transdiaspora Network. -
64:46 - 64:50And I work with inner-city kids.
-
64:50 - 65:00I always participate in these forums in a very candid
way because I do believe that dialogue -
65:00 - 65:06and communication is a good way to create ourness.
-
65:06 - 65:10Yeah, yeah I'm getting there. [ LAUGHTER ]
-
65:10 - 65:14But I'm putting this in context, because for me,
-
65:14 - 65:17as the leader of a non-profit organization
working with inner-city kids, -
65:17 - 65:29it's kind of--to see the disconnection between the
high cultural elite of Black people producing culture, -
65:29 - 65:37with what's going on in the inner-city Black
sort-of-plantation neighborhoods. -
65:37 - 65:41That sometimes you see girls that
even when they turn 17 -
65:41 - 65:49they haven't even been on the Brooklyn Promenade
to see that view of Manhattan, that is very popular-- -
65:49 - 65:51[ MHP ] You gotta ask a question though.
-
65:51 - 65:53[ ROJAS ] No, no, I'm going to ask a question.
-
65:53 - 65:54[ MHP ] Okay, okay, yeah.
-
65:54 - 66:00[ ROJAS ] Okay so how we--how we the Black
Leaders, can create a contrast, -
66:00 - 66:05not to white men, but how we can create
a colorful palette, -
66:05 - 66:12in order to educate the young generations with
these powerful contents that you create, -
66:12 - 66:15in order to fight injustice.
-
66:15 - 66:21[ MHP ] I just--I gotta disagree with you
that culture is made by the Black elite. -
66:21 - 66:27You know, I live in New Orleans.
The culture is made actually by the inner-city kids. -
66:27 - 66:35The most powerful diasporic cultural tradition
currently operating in the world -
66:35 - 66:40was made by Black and Puerto Rican kids
in the inner cities of this city. -
66:40 - 66:43Now what I will say is, living in New Orleans,
-
66:43 - 66:47in a place where poor people are the people
who create the culture that is then-- -
66:47 - 66:48[ b.h. ] --marketed.
-
66:48 - 66:50[ MHP ] --that is then sold.
-
66:50 - 66:57It's like so then now the consensus on both the Right
and the Left is that--what's happening, for example, -
66:57 - 67:00the New Orleans school systems is good.
This is improvement in the schools. -
67:00 - 67:02And of course one of the most important things
-
67:02 - 67:05is that we ripped out all music education
from the schools. -
67:05 - 67:07So I actually don't think we need to go
teach kids culture. -
67:07 - 67:11I think we just need to give young people--
wealthy and poor-- -
67:11 - 67:13the tools, and they will create the culture.
-
67:13 - 67:15[ ROJAS ] That's what I'm talking about.
Creating the tools. -
67:15 - 67:19[ MHP ] I mean, well yeah. Resources. Resources.
I mean, for me it's resources. Like I don't-- -
67:19 - 67:21[ b.h. ] I just--
-
67:21 - 67:22[ MHP ] --I don't think we need to go tell them
what to do-- -
67:22 - 67:24[ ROJAS ] No, no, I'm talking more about tools
and ways-- -
67:24 - 67:26[ b.h. ] --I--I want to add--add to this--
-
67:26 - 67:28[ ROJAS ] to defend themselves because
what happens when they ... -
67:28 - 67:30[ OVERLAPPING / INAUDIBLE...
AUDIENCE BECOMES UNSETTLED ] -
67:30 - 67:32[ OTHER AUDIENCE MEMBER ] Brother,
we don't talk while she was talking. -
67:32 - 67:35We should answer up someone else's questions.
[ AUDIENCE LAUGHTER AND ANNOYANCE ] -
67:35 - 67:41[ b.h. ] I want to say that plantation culture
is not just the culture that the poor lived within. -
67:41 - 67:45We are all living within plantation culture.
-
67:45 - 67:50Our roles, our resources,
are maybe radically different, -
67:50 - 67:57but it's part of some false notion of privilege
to believe that we are somehow not touched -
67:57 - 68:03by the plantation culture that the very very people
on the bottom are living. -
68:03 - 68:13Harsher lives, riskier lives, but the plantation culture
is what the U.S. is making in the world, -
68:13 - 68:18and it is what is sustaining here.
Your question, my sweet, your name? -
68:18 - 68:23[ TANYA FIELDS ] My name's Tanya Fields.
I was actually on Melissa's show last month. -
68:23 - 68:25[ b.h. ] Yes, I saw you.
-
68:25 - 68:27[ FIELDS ] I'm a low-income mom living in New York,
-
68:27 - 68:29and my daughter's first board book was
"Happy to be Nappy". -
68:29 - 68:31[ b.h. ] All right. [laughing]
-
68:31 - 68:34[ FIELDS ] And the words that you guys are
saying right now are so sustaining. -
68:34 - 68:38As a low-income Black mother,
I have been struggling to find my voice, -
68:38 - 68:40and so I've been using my platforms:
Twitter, Facebook, -
68:40 - 68:43and talking about this being a whole person,
-
68:43 - 68:47what it means to be unmarried with three baby
daddies and four kids. [ AUDIENCE AGREEMENT ] -
68:47 - 68:53The pushback that I am often feeling
is not from the white folks in the community, -
68:53 - 68:57it is from the other sisters who tear me down,
[ AUDIENCE: "MMHM", APPLAUSE ] -
68:57 - 69:01tell me that the reason I am low-income is because
I didn't have the insight to choose good men, -
69:01 - 69:06that I should have kept my hand out and my mouth
closed, and my legs closed, and kept my hand out. -
69:06 - 69:10And so I'm trying to figure out as we talk about
this plantation culture, -
69:10 - 69:12as I try to rise above my circumstances
-
69:12 - 69:16and literally create meals that the babies
in my community can eat, -
69:16 - 69:20how do we--it stops you from wanting
to have that voice. -
69:20 - 69:22I have people who tell me,
-
69:22 - 69:25"When you talk about being low-income, don't talk
about feeding your kids on food stamps. -
69:25 - 69:29You don't need an audience for that.
Suffer in shame and in silence. -
69:29 - 69:35The situation that you are feeling is your own,
and is a product of your own bad choice." -
69:35 - 69:39I am pregnant with my fifth child
and just had this man walk out on me. -
69:39 - 69:41How do you wake up every morning and-
-
69:41 - 69:46I consider myself a Black Feminist but some days
it's just so hard to get out of the bed -
69:46 - 69:49and face other Black people. [ APPLAUSE ]
-
69:57 - 70:01[ b.h. ] Take it, mom. I said "take it."
I actually said, "take it, mom." -
70:01 - 70:13[ MHP ] So that is, that is exactly what the whole
thing is designed to do. -
70:13 - 70:19The language you used--
"sit alone in your shame and suffer alone". -
70:22 - 70:25So, um--[ VOICE BREAKING ]
-
70:30 - 70:34[ APPLAUSE ]
-
70:34 - 70:47[ SPEAKING INAUDIBLY AWAY FROM MIC, COMFORTING TONE]
[ SNIFFLING, MORE APPLAUSE* ] -
71:11 - 71:14[ SPEAKING INTO MIC AGAIN ]
Um--so it's just to say that- -
71:14 - 71:16-so, you know, I could turn into my academic self
-
71:16 - 71:20which says that the reason that people who are most
vulnerable to being in your exact same circumstance -
71:20 - 71:24are the ones who most want to shame you,
is because--it's the same reason that- -
71:24 - 71:26it's the sorority girls on campus who say
-
71:26 - 71:31that you gotta keep yourself from getting raped
by not drinking. -
71:31 - 71:37It's because--it's the same reason that the churches
that are growing among Black folks -
71:37 - 71:43are the prosperity health-and-wealth ones, instead of
liberation and theology churches, right? -
71:43 - 71:48And it is because it is much easier to believe
that we can solve inequality -
71:48 - 71:51by pulling up our pants, or keeping our legs closed.
-
71:51 - 71:59Right, so it allows you to wipe away all of the
structural realities that require collective action, -
71:59 - 72:03and that require work that goes over
and past your own life. -
72:03 - 72:07So if it's just your individual decision-making-
that I'm safe from it. -
72:07 - 72:09So as long as I make a different decision,
-
72:09 - 72:14I will never be vulnerable to poverty,
or to heart-ache, or to pain. [ APPLAUSE ] -
72:14 - 72:17And I will just say, you know, that your point about
making all the right choices--right? -
72:17 - 72:20So I can remember the point at which
I became a single parent, -
72:20 - 72:23and I was like, okay but whoa wait a minute.
-
72:23 - 72:29I did everything right, and I got my degree first,
and then I got married, and- -
72:29 - 72:34no, actually, I got my degree first, then I got married,
then I bought a house, then I got pregnant. -
72:34 - 72:39I'm supposed to be all good, and that motherfucker
be like "Peace out". -
72:39 - 72:41And went, and just was-
and there I stood, with a baby. -
72:41 - 72:44Now I stood there with a baby and a degree
and as a home-owner. -
72:44 - 72:50So the shame? I didn't have to--so because it's not
really about being a single-parent. -
72:50 - 72:55It's about being poor. The thing you're supposed
to be ashamed of is being poor. -
72:55 - 73:01And so it's as though--I will just say that that
shaming--it is a defense mechanism -
73:01 - 73:05to keep people from having to do
the hard work of organizing, -
73:05 - 73:08and it is the most dangerous thing
in marginalized communities. -
73:08 - 73:12It is the most dangerous thing,
because then we do not organize, -
73:12 - 73:15because we can just say that
"if only you had made different choices", -
73:15 - 73:18then everything would be fine". [ APPLAUSE ]
-
73:27 - 73:29[ b.h. ] I think we have to remember constantly
-
73:29 - 73:37that shaming is one of the deepest tools of
imperialist white-supremacist capitalist patriarchy, -
73:37 - 73:40because shame produces trauma.
-
73:40 - 73:43And trauma often produces paralysis.
[ AUDIENCE: "YEAH"s ] -
73:43 - 73:47So when that sister said that there are days
when she can't get out of bed, -
73:47 - 73:52lots of us experience that sense of paralysis.
-
73:52 - 74:00So that that healing--I have to go back to--I'm not
going to belabor it--but to emotional well-being, -
74:00 - 74:06because we've got to have some mechanisms
to resist what is out there, -
74:06 - 74:08to resist the constant shaming.
-
74:08 - 74:09Your name?
-
74:09 - 74:12[ CHARMIN ] Hi I'm Charmin. I go to CUNY
-
74:12 - 74:15and I just want to say that this was one of the most
beautiful audiences I've ever seen. -
74:15 - 74:17[ b.h. ] Hello, yay!
-
74:17 - 74:20[ CHARMIN ] And I'd like to extend my invitation
to more public universities and institutions, -
74:20 - 74:24where people that look like us
are wanting your presence, -
74:24 - 74:28especially because you guys don't come here too
often, so just want to put that out there. -
74:28 - 74:33And I also wanted to say that as a political organizer
that is looking to demilitarize CUNY, -
74:33 - 74:37kicking Petraeus out of CUNY, [ CROWD CHEERS ]
kicking militarism out of CUNY, -
74:37 - 74:42how do we deal with those hyper-masculine
personalities that have values of anti-imperialism -
74:42 - 74:48and anti-racism but end up making me feel
uncomfortable in spaces of radical organizing, -
74:48 - 74:52where we're talking about
these really, really important issues -
74:52 - 74:56but understanding that imperialism is in your blood,
brotha, and that's exactly what you're showing me -
74:56 - 74:58when you're shutting me up to cut the mic, right?
-
74:58 - 75:04So I just want a healthy way to deal with that sis,
'cos I cant do anti-military organizing right now, -
75:04 - 75:09just 'cos of the hyper-masculinity and the way that
it's going but I am invested, you know. -
75:09 - 75:11[ b.h. ] Okay--okay. [ LAUGHTER ]
-
75:11 - 75:13[ CHARMIN ] I'm sorry. I just got interrupted,
that's all. -
75:13 - 75:16[ b.h. ] Well, I don't--I'm not going to have a long
answer to that, but I also want to encourage us, -
75:16 - 75:20as we talked about in my undergraduate class today,
-
75:20 - 75:25when we talk about hyper-masculinity, if what
we mean is patriarchy, that is what we need to say. -
75:25 - 75:27[ CHARMIN ] Okay.
-
75:27 - 75:32[ b.h. ] Because we have to have a space to love,
to revere, and to honor that which is masculine, -
75:32 - 75:35but is not patriarchal.
-
75:35 - 75:38And if we are constantly equating the two,
-
75:38 - 75:44then we are part of the assault
on masculinity on Black males. -
75:44 - 75:48[ APPLAUSE ] Are you--do you want to speak to that?
-
75:48 - 75:52[ MHP ] So I appreciate you dividing up
the masculinity and the patriarchy. -
75:52 - 75:56I think that's a critical one that we don't do
and part of what I would say is, mhmm. -
75:56 - 76:05[ AUDIENCE LAUGHING ] Yep. And... true.
-
76:05 - 76:17[ MORE LAUGHTER ] And y'know, in very public ways,
bell hooks and I have both encountered that- -
76:17 - 76:21the entire history of Black women's organizing.
-
76:21 - 76:26But then I'll always say that Black women have
performed that, particularly straight Black women -
76:26 - 76:31have performed that around queer women of color.
-
76:31 - 76:38Privileged women of color have performed that
around undocumented and poor women. -
76:38 - 76:44And even within LGBT movements, cis women,
even cis gay women, -
76:44 - 76:46perform that around trans women.
-
76:46 - 76:48[ A FEW CLAPS ]
-
76:48 - 76:53And so that, I think it's part of the importance
of pulling out hyper-masculinity, -
76:53 - 76:58because you can be quite femme
and be performing the same-- -
76:58 - 76:59[ b.h. ] Patriarchal bull.
-
76:59 - 77:02[ MHP ] --patriarchal bull, taking the mic, right?
-
77:02 - 77:04So it's just to say that that "uh-huh"?
-
77:04 - 77:10That's why it's easier to say "pull up your pants
and close up your legs", because organizing is hard. -
77:10 - 77:15Because people--I mean, who doesn't love people
like in theory? But the actual people? -
77:15 - 77:19[ AUDIENCE LAUGHING AND CLAPPING ]
-
77:19 - 77:24I mean, the actual people are very annoying,
and hard, and difficult, -
77:24 - 77:32and you have to give a little and get a little
and it's aaahhh. [ LAUGHTER ] So, welcome. -
77:32 - 77:35[ EBONY MURPHY-ROOT ] Hello, my name is Ebony
Murphy-Root, -
77:35 - 77:40I'm a middle-school English teacher from Hartford,
Connecticut, currently working here. -
77:40 - 77:42[ SOME CLAPPING ]
-
77:42 - 77:46And Dr. hooks, you've talked a lot about Black
and white female schoolteachers. -
77:46 - 77:49[ AWAY FROM MIC ] You obviously cover
a lot of ed reform in your show, Dr. Harris-Perry. -
77:49 - 77:55Where are the Black female voices? The Black
female working, schoolteacher voices in ed reform? -
77:55 - 77:58Because I feel like oftentimes, working as a public-
school teacher in Hartford Connecticut, -
77:58 - 78:03working now, that we are being blamed for a culture
that we did not create, -
78:03 - 78:07for problems that come in every day at schools
that we didn't--we didn't create. -
78:07 - 78:13And yet we are being dehumanized and excluded
from this conversation. [ APPLAUSE ] -
78:13 - 78:17[ MHP ] Well, I mean, you asked where you are.
You are the targets, dear. -
78:17 - 78:24You are the reason that there is a powerful
anti-union, anti-teacher -
78:24 - 78:29"go get the TFA Ivy Leaguers
to teach the babies instead". -
78:29 - 78:38I mean, it is not a mistake that the sector that
is dominated by educated women of color -
78:38 - 78:43performing a task of reproduction
-
78:43 - 78:50is the one where there is bipartisan consensus
to destroy it. [ AUDIENCE AGREEMENT ] -
78:50 - 78:55So that's where you are. You've got the target on
your back, and it is the very reality -
78:55 - 78:59that those are the bodies most impacted by
the dehumanization movement, -
78:59 - 79:05by the chartering movement, and by the movement
to bring TFAs into and actually staff-hold. -
79:05 - 79:09So, TFA is a lovely program at its initiation,
-
79:09 - 79:13which is the idea that wealthy, Ivy-League,
privileged children, -
79:13 - 79:18should go and spend a little time in the world
before they run off to run the world, right? -
79:18 - 79:20[ AUDIENCE LAUGHING ]
-
79:20 - 79:25It's actually a really--and I mean I know I'm saying
that sort of sarcastically--but it's a smart idea, right? -
79:25 - 79:29Before you go off and make policy, before you go
to Wall Street, before you go and run for office, -
79:29 - 79:31spend two years in the classroom.
-
79:31 - 79:36Because what that does is it was a program
whose focus was on the young person, right? -
79:36 - 79:38Not the student,
you aren't going in to save the student. -
79:38 - 79:45You're going in to save yourself, right? And that's
good. Like, yes! Great idea. We should do that. -
79:45 - 79:47Because then you would go get a little humility,
-
79:47 - 79:51and you would sit quietly and listen to a teacher
who would tell you things, and you would learn, -
79:51 - 79:52and you would observe, and you would walk away.
-
79:52 - 79:57The problem with TFA came when it stopped being
about the salvation of the privileged, -
79:57 - 80:01who needed a little saving of their full humanity
in order to be better policy-makers, -
80:01 - 80:08and instead, became that somehow they would
save the children and the classrooms -
80:08 - 80:13from professional teachers who'd committed their
lives to working for very little pay, -
80:13 - 80:19very few resources, in schools. [ APPLAUSE ]
-
80:19 - 80:23So, yeah, that's why you're not at the table.
-
80:23 - 80:29Because you're the thing that we are seeking
to destroy in education reform. -
80:31 - 80:38[ b.h. ] Okay we are going to hear these questions
and try to answer. -
80:38 - 80:41We'll hear the three of them because
our time is coming to a close. -
80:41 - 80:44Your question, sweetheart, your name?
-
80:44 - 80:47[ ZEYNAB ] My name is Zeynab, and
my question is, was there a moment for both of you? -
80:47 - 80:49Was there a moment when you realized that this is it-
-
80:49 - 80:52I need to write, I need to say something-
I need to talk? -
80:52 - 80:59And how did you push back against the urge?
I mean, like, if you had the urge to silence yourself? -
80:59 - 81:03[ b.h. ] Okay, so we'll hold that. Your question?
-
81:03 - 81:08We're going to hear all these four questions
and--yes, darling? -
81:08 - 81:10[ NIKISHA LEWIS ] Hi, my name is Nikisha
Lewis, and you talked about the gap -
81:10 - 81:14that currently exists between men and women
in the Black community. -
81:14 - 81:18And so, as I'm thinking about Renisha McBride today,
and the outrage that doesn't -
81:18 - 81:21I feel, doesn't yet exist over her life
-
81:21 - 81:25the loss of her life,
as it existed over the loss of Trayvon Martin's life. -
81:25 - 81:28I'm really angry and fighting back tears
in my work every day. -
81:28 - 81:33So how do we bridge this gap, this divide, in our
community, so that we can value all of our lives, -
81:33 - 81:38Black women's and girls' lives, as much as we value
the men and boys that we love dearly? -
81:38 - 81:40[ b.h. ] Okay, and--?
-
81:40 - 81:43[ VIRGINIA ] Hi My name is Virginia, I'm here
with Public Allies, and my question is, -
81:43 - 81:47how instrumental is the male and/or white ally
in the movement against patriarchy? -
81:47 - 81:58[ MIXED AUDIENCE REACTION
OF TALKING AND LAUGHING ] -
81:58 - 82:02[ AUDIENCE MEMBER ] Hi, I have a question
about African-American imperialism, -
82:02 - 82:08and the mode at which we are privileged
in our idea of Blackness, -
82:08 - 82:13and we throw Blackness around
as if we all understand what that is, -
82:13 - 82:18and we travel the world--there is a world out there,
a global world out there that we exist in, -
82:18 - 82:21that identifies with Blackness as an othering.
-
82:21 - 82:24so how do we leave room for that conversation
-
82:24 - 82:28when we start to inflict capitalist ways of thinking
on other people? [ APPLAUSE ] -
82:30 - 82:36[ b.h. ] Well, I'm going to start with that question
of "Why can't we value Black female lives?" -
82:36 - 82:44Until we challenge patriarchy, there is going to be
no valuing of Black women's lives -
82:44 - 82:52over the small valuing of Black male lives that takes
place, because the very structure militates against it. -
82:52 - 82:59So, I mean, one of the things I've always felt so
strongly, and really express in "We Real Cool", -
82:59 - 83:04is the depths of Black male woundedness
by patriarchal terrorism. -
83:04 - 83:08And until that--those wounds get addressed
in some way, -
83:08 - 83:14I don't think we're going to get the respect,
the recognition, the care, -
83:14 - 83:20because I was thinking about how even Oscar
Grant's mother is portrayed at the end of the film, -
83:20 - 83:22as blaming herself.
-
83:22 - 83:31She should not have, you know, not that we get a
full-on calling-out of the system that destroys him. -
83:33 - 83:39[ MHP ] So, yes, and, I think part of what happens is
-
83:39 - 83:44so I assume when you say "we value",
I assume you mean "Black communities" -
83:44 - 83:49part of what I would suggest is that what works for us
-
83:49 - 83:52is tropes that are connected to
something that we understand. -
83:52 - 83:57And this is something--I'm still thinking about
your critique of "Twelve Years a Slave". -
83:57 - 84:03And so, one of the tropes that we understand
about Black women's suffering -
84:03 - 84:07is the idea of a Black woman raped by the white
male slaveowner, right? That one we get. -
84:07 - 84:11So, if you go back to the case,
the Duke lacrosse case, right? -
84:11 - 84:14You had immediate community mobilization.
-
84:14 - 84:18I mean, that day,
that night called for action [ SWOOSH! ] -
84:18 - 84:25because that trope--"Black woman sexually assaulted
by white man, in South, on old plantation"- -
84:25 - 84:28like, we--that one we understood.
We had a thing to hang it on. -
84:28 - 84:31We know the story that it is, and we can tell it.
-
84:31 - 84:34Now, so pause for me on that a moment on that,
and let's go to all... -
84:34 - 84:38various stories about Black men's victimization,
-
84:38 - 84:45and the ways in which those stories often hang on
the trope that we know that is the lynching trope. -
84:45 - 84:49So we like to forget, because it's
painful to remember, -
84:49 - 84:53that in the week after Supreme Court Justice
Clarence Thomas, -
84:53 - 84:58during his hearing about Anita Hill said,
"This is a high-tech lynching", -
84:58 - 85:02that the public opinion polls showed that greater than
50% of African-Americans -
85:02 - 85:06supported Clarence Thomas' confirmation
to the bench. -
85:06 - 85:11Now I think that's because he used the trope of
lynching, and that we're like "oh yeah, right! -
85:11 - 85:15"Black man, white"--you know--"Joe Biden and the
other white guy saying mean things" -
85:15 - 85:18"that looks like lynching--I know that trope."
-
85:18 - 85:21And of course, no one's ever been lynched
for what they've done to a Black woman. -
85:21 - 85:25White men don't posse up to go get a Black man
for what he did to a Black woman. -
85:25 - 85:33But that story is why there was increased radio play
of R. Kelly after he raped a child in our community. -
85:33 - 85:38It's why people don't want to believe
Mike Tyson did it, right? -
85:38 - 85:44Because we get the "vulnerable Black man
facing white lynch mob" -
85:44 - 85:48that's the story that the Trayvon Martin story
fits into for us. -
85:48 - 85:52Marissa Alexander doesn't fit our story
-
85:52 - 85:57because she is shooting a gun at
an abusive Black husband coming at her. -
85:57 - 86:01We don't have--we may know that...
we may intimately know that story, -
86:01 - 86:08but we don't have a "story"--a trope, a thing--that is
the abuse of Black women's bodies by Black men. -
86:08 - 86:12And in the case of Renisha,
I don't think we yet have coped with. -
86:12 - 86:16Because when the Trayvon Martin moment
happened, and the Zimmerman verdict happened, -
86:16 - 86:21all of us were saying, "these are the conversations
that we have with our sons, -
86:21 - 86:22about our sons' public safety".
-
86:22 - 86:28And I think we have missed how much our girls
are equally vulnerable in that space. [ APPLAUSE ] -
86:28 - 86:31So we don't have a good...
we don't have a good trope. -
86:31 - 86:36We don't have a thing to call why a white man
opening the door--right, -
86:36 - 86:38so allegedly what we think we know at this point,
-
86:38 - 86:43is that he opens the door
and sees her as a physical threat to him. -
86:43 - 86:48We don't--like, what is the story? So we know "white
man creeping down and raping the Black woman", -
86:48 - 86:51but we don't know "white man
afraid of Black woman knocking at his door". -
86:51 - 86:57Like, what is that story, right? So part of it is, I think
just a general devaluation, but the other part of it is, -
86:57 - 87:01I think if it doesn't fit a story
that we have easily available to us? -
87:01 - 87:05And there aren't very many stories about
our victimization that are easily available, -
87:05 - 87:09that we can employ and use, and so we're going to
have to generate those. -
87:09 - 87:13I do think that's part of it, at least.
-
87:13 - 87:18[ b.h. ] So there was the question about writing.
Was there a moment? -
87:18 - 87:22And for me those moments are just
ongoing and endless, -
87:22 - 87:27but they began for me as a girl in
Virginia Street Baptist Church, -
87:27 - 87:32when I was encouraged to write for our
church magazine and stuff like that. -
87:32 - 87:34[ AUDIENCE LAUGHING ]
-
87:40 - 87:42[ MHP ] Are you--dear, are you a writer?
-
87:42 - 87:45[ ZEYNAB, BARELY AUDIBLE, NO MIC ]
Yeah. [ LAUGHTER ] -
87:47 - 87:49[ MHP ] Do you feel that impulse to write?
-
87:49 - 87:51[ ZEYNAB ] Yeah.
-
87:51 - 87:54[ MHP ] And you feel it even when
there's other stuff to be done? -
87:54 - 87:56[ ZEYNAB ] Nah, I don't think so.
[ LAUGHTER ] -
87:59 - 88:01[ MHP ] So I wonder, 'cause you asked
about the silencing. -
88:01 - 88:04Do you self-edit when you're writing,
like you're pulling back? -
88:04 - 88:06[ ZEYNAB ] Yeah.
-
88:07 - 88:09[ MHP ] Only when you're writing for yourself,
-
88:09 - 88:12or when you're also writing...
so if you're writing for yourself, it's all there. -
88:12 - 88:18But if you're writing for an audience, you're pulling
it back? Who's the audience typically, teachers? -
88:18 - 88:20[ ZEYNAB ] Yeah. Or like--
-
88:22 - 88:23[ b.h. ] I'm going to have to speed you on.
-
88:23 - 88:27[ MHP ] Yes, okay I'm sorry. I just--my bet is
that question wasn't about us, right? -
88:27 - 88:32Who cares what I think about writing? My bet is that
question is about you and that you're working on it. -
88:32 - 88:38But if you ask that question, and the real question is
"Am I a writer?", the answer is "Yes, of course you are." -
88:38 - 88:40If you ask that question, of course you're a writer.
-
88:40 - 88:44And if you are, if you're self-editing,
at least find some friendly audiences, -
88:44 - 88:49some safe audiences where you can write without...
it's okay to self-edit to feel fearful of your audience... -
88:49 - 88:52I think that's okay.
Particularly when you're a young writer, -
88:52 - 88:55but also just make sure you have some audiences,
someone who's reading for you, -
88:55 - 88:58who is a safe place for you to write.
-
88:58 - 89:03[ b.h. ] Okay, are you answering the
imperialism question? [ A FEW LAUGHS ] -
89:04 - 89:08[ MHP ] No, you want to answer that one?
[ AUDIENCE LAUGHING ] -
89:08 - 89:12I get in too much trouble behind this, yeah.
[ LAUGHING AND CLAPPING ] -
89:18 - 89:22[ b.h. ] I'm going to be honest. Part of my silence
is I've forgotten parts of the question. -
89:22 - 89:24I didn't--I didn't forget the imperialist--
-
89:24 - 89:26[ MHP ] No-no, it's the [ INAUDIBLE ]
of Black versions- -
89:26 - 89:29American versions of Blackness, right?
And capitalism, right? -
89:29 - 89:32[ b.h. ] There was the patriarchal allies,
which was the woman behind you. -
89:32 - 89:34[ MHP ] Yeah, yeah, we're coming to that one.
-
89:34 - 89:36[ b.h. ] Yeah.
-
89:36 - 89:38[ AUDIENCE MEMBER ] I think that it happens
within both men and women, -
89:38 - 89:41and it does happen to men and women.
-
89:41 - 89:44But but the implications of privilege
with our ideas of Blackness, -
89:44 - 89:49being that Blackness has changed over time, like
you're talking about the President in office right now, -
89:49 - 89:53and him being an African-American
imperialist essentially, -
89:53 - 89:57and subconsciously that affecting all of us
who do that as well, when we travel. -
89:57 - 90:01So there's a world out there that
we don't identify with all the time. -
90:01 - 90:05[ b.h. ] Well I think you've stated it.
I mean that's what's real. -
90:05 - 90:10I mean what's scary is why people
don't want to face that reality -
90:10 - 90:16why they want to still pretend that there's
some solidified Blackness, and not--I mean, -
90:16 - 90:19that there's tremendous crisis in Blackness
-
90:19 - 90:25because our class differences and separations
grow more intense daily. -
90:25 - 90:33And we're asked to believe that there's still some
kind of R&B Blackness that unites us. -
90:33 - 90:39[ AUDIENCE LAUGHING ] Will you take the
patriarchal question? And then we're going to close. -
90:41 - 90:43[ MHP ] Yeah. Right, well, I think--we remember
the patriarchy question. -
90:43 - 90:46So, I guess the one thing I would say is--
-
90:46 - 90:49[ VIRGINIA ] I'll just say it again.
-
90:49 - 90:55So how instrumental is the male and/or white ally
in our movement against patriarchy? -
90:55 - 90:59[ b.h. ] I've actually been questioning
this use of the word "ally" [ SOME LAUGHTER ] -
90:59 - 91:03because I think that if someone is standing
on their own beliefs, -
91:03 - 91:13and their own beliefs are anti-patriarchal, anti-sexist,
they are not required to be anybody's ally. -
91:13 - 91:18They are on their front line in the same way
that I'm on my front line. -
91:18 - 91:24And I can tell you, women, when you find those men
in patriarchy--gay, straight, trans*, whatever... -
91:24 - 91:29that are on the front line, we recognize them.
The sad truth is that there are so few of them. -
91:29 - 91:32[ AUDIBLE AGREEMENT FROM AUDIENCE ]
-
91:32 - 91:39Okay. [ AUDIENCE LAUGHING AND
APPLAUDING ] Are you saying something? -
91:39 - 91:46[ MHP ] Yeah, I mean, I guess I--so one thing
I would--so this is maybe my--this is my academic -
91:46 - 91:48this is my professorial self.
-
91:48 - 91:55I worry anytime we expect--so sometimes one of the
pieces of language used, particularly in the academy- -
91:55 - 91:59-maybe it's also used in media--I'm not so sure-
is this idea of role modeling. -
91:59 - 92:05"We need you to be there in that body to role-model
to other people who have bodies similar to yours, -
92:05 - 92:08that these things are possible."
-
92:08 - 92:12And I have very--I have very mixed emotions
about that role-modeling idea, -
92:12 - 92:17in part because I think that the imagination
of Black Americans is... -
92:17 - 92:22our sort of critical, moral, creative imagination is one
of our great accomplishments in the U.S. context. -
92:22 - 92:26Our ability to imagine freedom in the context
of intergenerational chattel bondage, -
92:26 - 92:30our ability to believe God loves us when there is no
empirical evidence that God does love us, -
92:30 - 92:35our willingness to engage. [ LAUGHTER ]
-
92:35 - 92:39Right, so I actually don't know that we need to cease-
-
92:39 - 92:44-I mean, I think part of our genius is that we don't
need to see it to nonetheless believe it & pursue it. -
92:44 - 92:50And in fact, even in as much as that is, I think a
unique--as Cornel West would say... -
92:50 - 92:55a unique gift of Black people
to the American Project, right? -
92:55 - 93:00I mean that's the language that he uses. It's one of
our gifts, particularly in the post-9/11 moment. -
93:00 - 93:09That as much as that is true, it's also been true of
even the nastiest low-down racist patriarchs of our nation. -
93:09 - 93:12So my daughter--and I promise I'm going to end-
-
93:12 - 93:15my daughter is in 6th grade and she had to learn
the Declaration of Independence, -
93:15 - 93:18the little, you know, "We hold these truths to be self-
evident, that all men are created equal, -
93:18 - 93:20and endowed with their Creator
with certain inalienable rights, -
93:20 - 93:22that among these are Life, Liberty,
and the Pursuit of Happiness, -
93:22 - 93:28and governments are instituted among men
to protect these rights"--right, okay? -
93:28 - 93:31She was hot. Mad. [ AUDIENCE LAUGHING ]
-
93:31 - 93:36She was like, "This is some old bull. That was
not true! 1776, we were slaves, we couldn't vote." -
93:36 - 93:44She was mad, she was walking around the house,
mad! [ AUDIENCE LAUGHING ] Mad! -
93:44 - 93:48Now part of this 'cause she's in sixth grade, so
she's mad that the sun comes up, so she's just mad. -
93:48 - 93:55But she was mad behind this, and--but, so Thomas
Jefferson is vile. Like he just is vile, right? -
93:55 - 93:58He owns his own children at various points.
-
93:58 - 94:04But--and this is the final ally--but he didn't write
a document that says, -
94:04 - 94:10"We think that maybe, possibly, old white men
with money are equal, in a few kind of ways, -
94:10 - 94:12and maybe they could get a gut"
-
94:12 - 94:16that's what the Constitution says, [ LAUGHTER ]
-
94:16 - 94:20but the Declaration of Independence
has a moral imagination -
94:20 - 94:24beyond the empirical reality of
the 1776 Monticello Mountain. -
94:24 - 94:29And so I don't know that I need
patriarchs and white men and... -
94:29 - 94:33but what I do... what is possible
on that kind of allied position, -
94:33 - 94:38is for them to imagine something bigger
than what is in this moment. -
94:38 - 94:42And so as much as I've had my little, you know,
critiques about--like, you know, -
94:42 - 94:45the people who work at MSNBC, in the leadership,
those old white guys, -
94:45 - 94:47who are rich and powerful and sit around a table,
-
94:47 - 94:52and maybe someday... maybe today... will fire me,
and everyone else [ LAUGHTER ] -
94:52 - 94:54they nonetheless did... they could say,
-
94:54 - 94:58"oh well, what if put a little gay girl on here
and what if we put a little Black girl on here." -
94:58 - 95:01"And maybe--oh and let the Asian girl"...and how...
-
95:01 - 95:07and so those are things that required a little bit of...
it's not revolution. -
95:08 - 95:11[ MHP ] It's the opposite of revolution,
but it is a little imagination. -
95:11 - 95:15[ b.h. ] ...at heart, also, our movement
away from binaries. -
95:15 - 95:18So we would like to leave you with this whole notion
-
95:18 - 95:24that if you work for freedom,
one of the ways that you can work for freedom, -
95:24 - 95:31is to change your mind and to move away from the
space of binaries, of simplistic either-or, both-and, -
95:31 - 95:37and to be able to look at the picture
that offers us complexity. -
95:37 - 95:43I want to thank Stephanie Browner, Heather
and Jennifer, for all their work, -
95:43 - 95:51and my sister, my soul sister, [ LAUGHTER ].
Melissa Harris-Perry, thank you for being here. -
95:51 - 95:54[ MHP ] Thank you, bell. Thank you, bell.
-
95:54 - 95:57[ PASSIONATE APPLAUSE AND CHEERING... ]
- Title:
- Black Female Voices: A public dialogue between bell hooks and Melissa Harris-Perry | The New School
- Description:
-
bell hooks' week-long residency at The New School (http://www.newschool.edu) culminates with this momentous event: Black Female Voices: Who is Listening - A public dialogue between bell hooks + Melissa Harris-Perry.
bell hooks and Melissa Harris-Perry, founding director of the Anna Julia Cooper Project on Gender, Race, and Politics in the South, Professor of Political Science at Tulane University, author, and host of MSNBC's "Melissa Harris-Perry," join in a conversation about race, black womanhood, politics, media, and love.
bell hooks (née Gloria Watkins) is among the leading public intellectuals of her generation. Her writings cover a broad range of topics including gender, race, teaching, and contemporary culture. According to Dr. hooks, these topics must be understood as interconnected and linked in the production of systems of oppression and class domination.
bell hooks Scholar-in-Residence at The New School is an opportunity to directly engage Dr. hooks and her commitment to education as a practice of freedom.
Eugene Lang College The New School for Liberal Arts, based in New York City, is one of very few liberal arts schools in the country fostering critical thinking, social justice, and cross-cultural understanding | http://www.newschool.edu/lang
Location: Tishman Auditorium, Alvin Johnson/J.M. Kaplan Hall, Friday, November 8, 2013 at 3:30 pm to 5:00 pm
================
Original transcript kindly created by Nadia, available in the public Facebook group Community Access: Captions, Transcripts, Image Descriptions here:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1376494605921382/1417568115147364/Amara captions courtesy of the Radical Access Mapping Project, Un-ceded Coast Salish Territories of the Skwxwú7mesh, Musqueam, and Tsleil-Waututh peoples.
http://radicalaccessiblecommunities.wordpress.com/subtitled-videos/
================ - Video Language:
- English
- Duration:
- 01:36:19