Live with Ashara Ekundayo, Esteban Kelly & Syrus Marcus Ware! (EP.40)
Last Updated
July 1, 2020
Work. Shouldn't. Suck. LIVE: The Morning(ish) Show with special guests Ashara Ekundayo, Esteban Kelly & Syrus Marcus Ware. [Live show recorded: June 8, 2020.]
Guests: Ashara Ekundayo, Esteban Kelly & Syrus Marcus Ware
Co-Hosts: Tim Cynova & Lauren Ruffin
Guests
ASHARA EKUNDAYO is a Detroit-born independent curator, creative industries entrepreneur, cultural strategist, and founder working across arts, community, government, and social innovation spaces. Through her consulting company AECreative Consulting Partners, LLC she designs and manages multidimensional international projects and fosters collaborative relationships through the use of mindfulness and permaculture principles to bring vision to life and create opportunities “in the deep end,” often with unlikely allies. Her creative arts practice epistemology requires an embodied commitment to recognizing joy in the midst of struggle. // In 2012 Ashara co-founded Impact Hub Oakland and Omi Arts and served as the Co-Director, Curator, and the Chief Creative Officer who designed and bottom-lined the brand messaging and creative practice programming of the entire company. In December 2017, she launched Ashara Ekundayo Gallery as a pilot-project social practice platform centering and exclusively exhibiting the artwork of Black womxn and women of the African Diaspora to investigate and inspire social and spiritual inquiry at the nexus of fact, the Black feminist imaginary, and Afrofuturism through visual and performance installation. // She currently holds Advisory Board positions with VSCO.co, Black Girls Code and the Oakland Public Conservatory of Music, and has served as a Fellow with the U.S. Dept. of State Bureau of Educational & Cultural Affairs, Green For All, Emerging Arts Professionals, Schools Without Borders, and Institute For The Future. Ashara is also a Certified Permaculture Designer, Certified Foresight Practitioner, and a Graduate of Thousand Currents Leadership Academy and Rockwood Leadership – LeadNOW: California. Additionally, she holds an “Embodied Justice” Residency at Auburn Seminary in NYC, and an M.A. in Gender & Social Change from the Korbel School of International Affairs at the University of Denver. // Ashara’s commitment to social transformation is informed by an intersectional framework that aims to expand the influence and impact of arts and culture on racial equity, gender + justice, and environmental literacy. She is a womanist, a meditator, a mentor, and the mother of two sons and three granddaughters. T/IG @blublakwomyn
ESTEBAN KELLY is a visionary leader and compassionate strategist who inspires organizers by drawing on science fiction, social theory, and collective liberation. Uniting close friends and long-time co-organizers, Esteban was inspired to co-create AORTA culling together his creative energy and organizational skills for expanding food sovereignty, solidarity economy & cooperative business, gender justice & queer liberation, and movements for racial justice. // Esteban’s work is vast. In addition to working for AORTA, he is the Co-Executive Director for the US Federation of Worker Co-ops (USFWC), and a co-founder and current board President of the cross-sector Philadelphia Area Cooperative Alliance (PACA). // Internationally, Esteban has advocated for workplace democracy through the ICA (International Cooperative Alliance) and CICOPA (the international worker co-op federation), and for land reform and other social movements from Canada to Brazil. // After many years as a PhD student of Marxist Geographers at the CUNY Graduate Center, Esteban has left academia with a Masters in Anthropology. Most recently, Esteban worked as Development Director and then Staff Director for the New Economy Coalition. From 2009-2011, Esteban served as Vice President of the USFWC, and a board member of the Democracy At Work Institute (DAWI) and the US Solidarity Economy Network. He is also a previous Director of Education & Training and Board President of NASCO (North American Students for Cooperation) where he was inducted into their Cooperative Hall of Fame in 2011. He currently serves on the boards of the Cooperative Development Foundation (CDF) and the National Cooperative Business Association (NCBA–CLUSA), and is an advisor to the network of artist-activist trainers, Beautiful Trouble. // Firmly rooted in West Philly, Esteban’s skills and analysis of transformative justice stem from his decade-plus of organizing with the Philly Stands Up collective. Similarly, Esteban worked through a major food co-op transition as a worker–owner at Mariposa Food Co-op, where he co-founded its Food Justice & Anti-Racism working group (FJAR) and labored to institutionalize the Mariposa Staff Collective. In light of these efforts, Esteban became a Mayoral appointee to the Philadelphia Food Policy Advisory Council (FPAC), and works to advance education, systemic thinking, and anti-oppression organizing into all of his food advocacy work. // You can contact Esteban at: esteban(at)aorta(dot)coop and follow him on Twitter: @estebantitos
SYRUS MARCUS WARE uses painting, installation and performance to explore social justice frameworks and black activist culture. His work has been shown widely, including in a solo show at Grunt Gallery, Vancouver (2068:Touch Change) and new work commissioned for the 2019 Toronto Biennial of Art and the Ryerson Image Centre (Antarctica and Ancestors, Do You Read Us? (Dispatches from the Future)) and in group shows at the Art Gallery of Ontario, the University of Lethbridge Art Gallery, Art Gallery of York University, the Art Gallery of Windsor and as part of the curated content at Nuit Blanche 2017 (The Stolen People; Wont Back Down). His performance works have been part of festivals across Canada, including at Cripping The Stage (Harbourfront Centre, 2016, 2019), Complex Social Change (University of Lethbridge Art Gallery, 2015) and Decolonizing and Decriminalizing Trans Genres (University of Winnipeg, 2015). // He is part of the PDA (Performance Disability Art) Collective and co-programmed Crip Your World: An Intergalactic Queer/POC Sick and Disabled Extravaganza as part of Mayworks 2014. Syrus' recent curatorial projects include That’s So Gay (Gladstone Hotel, 2016-2019), Re:Purpose (Robert McLaughlin Gallery, 2014) and The Church Street Mural Project (Church-Wellesley Village, 2013). Syrus is also co-curator of The Cycle, a two-year disability arts performance initiative of the National Arts Centre. // Syrus is a core-team member of Black Lives Matter-Toronto. Syrus is a co-curator of Blackness Yes!/Blockorama. Syrus has won several awards, including the TD Diversity Award in 2017. Syrus was voted “Best Queer Activist” by NOW Magazine (2005) and was awarded the Steinert and Ferreiro Award (2012). Syrus is a facilitator/designer at the Banff Centre. Syrus is a PhD candidate at York University in the Faculty of Environmental Studies.
Transcript
Tim Cynova:
Hi, I'm Tim Cynova, and welcome to part two of our special two part series of Work. Shouldn't. Suck. LIVE: The Morning(ish) Show. On today's episode, Lauren Ruffin and I are joined by Ashara Ekundayo, Esteban Kelly, and Syrus Marcus Ware. Let's waste no time getting into the conversation. Ashara, Esteban, and Syrus, welcome to the show. Morning.
Lauren Ruffin:
It's good to see all of your faces. I'm going to kick it off with the question we've been asking people just to check in, which is, how are you doing right now? We've got a pandemic happening, in addition to, it's not even a resurgence because the movement for Black lives never went away, however we've been thrust back into the forefront. Really curious just to check in and see, how are y'all doing? Whoever wants to go first. It's hard to navigate on the screen.
Ashara Ekundayo:
I'll go first. My name is Ashara Ekundayo, and I'm really clear that it is morning, it's heck of early for me, how am I? I'm living right now, on the land called Oakland, California, which is the unceded land of the [inaudible 00:01:12] Nation, here in Northern California. We've been in the streets all weekend. When I think about how am I, I'm rejuvenated, and exhausted, and still angry. I'm still mad about the level of injustice that we're taking in right now, and consuming. But so inspired, by the artists and the creativity, and the brilliance of Black people right now. [crosstalk 00:01:38]
Lauren Ruffin:
Okay, good [inaudible 00:01:39], thanks.
Esteban Kelly:
So yeah, I'm Esteban and I'm based in Philadelphia on the Lenape people's land, and I feel I've been yo-yo-ing a lot the last week, not even [inaudible 00:01:54], within a given day, but really just at any point I can go from feeling really hopeful and inspired, and called to action, or to believe in a possibility that things can really change. And other moments, really sitting with grief for exactly those reasons that you were starting to say, that there's this layering of all the different things that we're living through.
Esteban Kelly:
It's not coincidental. Some of those conditions are agitating and exasperating, or heightening the intensity of some of the other ones, particularly as experienced by Black people. Not just in Philadelphia, or in the US, but around the world. I think where I land is, I think today I feel pretty good, I'm feeling very connected to my people all over the world, by which I mean my very close friends who happen to be a mini diaspora themselves, but also to Black people all over the world, and to that I aspire.
Esteban Kelly:
Just seeing, as far away as New Zealand, and in Bristol, and in Berlin, just all over, [inaudible 00:02:57] where part of my diaspora community is of friends. Just seeing how many people are leaning into this question of what it means to love Black people, and to show up for us, and to reckon with the conditions of how we're treated, not just voyeuristically, in Minneapolis, but Black people are everywhere, and we are suffering in similar ways all over the world.
Esteban Kelly:
I'm just sitting with all that.
Syrus Marcus Ware:
Hey everybody, I'm Syrus Marcus Ware, I am... How am I? I'm exhausted. I'm overjoyed by this moment of activism because I feel like activism is life giving, and quite joyful even when we're in the streets, even when we're raging, even when we're sobbing, the act of activism can be very life giving for me. On the one hand, I feel exhausted because as an organizer with Black Lives Matter Toronto, it's been non-stop. But on the other hand, it's when we come to the streets, when we resist from our homes, when we say, "Enough is enough." When we say that Black Lives Matter, when we do this organizing and fighting, it's a beautiful, beautiful, magical thing, and to have human beings coming together and screaming in unison a chorus of voices standing up for Black lives. That's a beautiful thing.
Syrus Marcus Ware:
I'm feeling tired, but energized from this moment. I also have been involved in a lot of direct action, and there's more to come. There was a police killing here in Toronto that we've been organizing around. These are heartbreaking times too, but also my heart is so full of listening to family members, listening to people tell stories about the anti-Blackness they experienced in their day to day life. We've heard a lot of that over the last week, and it's heartbreaking. It's so much to hold all of that.
Syrus Marcus Ware:
I'm just sitting here with a lot of complex emotions, but in general, I'm energized by this conversation being such a public one, and I'm energized by the fact that the conversation has shifted from bandaid reform to all out revolution. I'm here for it.
Lauren Ruffin:
Awesome. All three of you hinted, and I should say y'all are our first triad of guests, so moderating is a little different. You hinted at doing different work, or your work has shifted a little bit during this time, can you tell us a little bit, just basically about what you're doing right now, and where your focus is. And a background bio if you're interested in doing so. Again, whoever wants to go first can. I feel like y'all are staring each other down. [crosstalk 00:05:26]
Syrus Marcus Ware:
I think we're just kind of in awe of each other. I'm like, "Wow."
Lauren Ruffin:
I'm just so excited for y'all to hear this bit, and then really spend time together and fellowship a little bit.
Syrus Marcus Ware:
I can start, I just was speaking, I might as well just keep going. I'll say, I'm an artist and an activist, and an organizer. Oh my Gosh, I'm blanking on the question. I just totally lost it.
Lauren Ruffin:
You started, it was an I am, where do you work, what are you thinking on how you shifted your [inaudible 00:05:56], if it shifted at all.
Syrus Marcus Ware:
Yeah, I'm an artist, and an activist, and an organizer, I'm also just finishing a PhD specifically in prison abolition, and disability justice. My work shifted from everyday making art, working on my PhD a little bit, and doing some activism, to being full on 24/7, all hours of the day, responding to media requests, responding to the needs of the moment, supporting family members. It's just shifted dramatically, and that's what happens when these things ramp up, is that suddenly the demands become around the clock, and there's just so much.
Syrus Marcus Ware:
So, right now my work day shifted from being sort of a pandemic-ish 11 to 7, to now being 24/7. That's what I've been working on a lot, we're very involved in this conversation around defunding the police, and prison abolition, and trying to make justice for Black people by finally ending this system of police violence control, that extends from slave labor camps. We've been really engaged in this conversation around defunding the police. That's what I'm spending a lot of my day, that's my work right now.
Ashara Ekundayo:
I just said that, because I'm feeling all that and I'm really thinking about what it means to be a curator right now. My work is art curation and cultural strategy work and being a body, a person who's in a Black body, in a body that identifies as she, as well as they. My work as generally been about research, documentation, and archiving the stories of Black people through organizing work, art-ivism, if you will, and I would say in this shelter in place, in this time of this COVID pandemic, in this time of this uprising.
Ashara Ekundayo:
First of all, my mind has been blown so quickly into the reality that we are living in the future, that we have been looking forward to, for some of us. Reading about, watching, experiencing through literature, through film, through stories from our grandmothers. All of that spoke to we always thought, "We're not going to see that in our lifetime." And so, I've gone I think, from being someone who is directly organizing exhibition, to someone who has had to expand, and decentralize the so called power inside the, I wouldn't say the mainstream art sector, but inside the independent art sector, to looking at power. And to pulling this thread on a platform that I'm often called artist as first responder.
Ashara Ekundayo:
To see our work, and to know, and to understand that even the people who do not identify as artists, are pulling from their most creative divine self, to do this work. Also, this destination, this designation, this experience, and this platform really pulls the thread on amplifying the light, and the creative labor that has often gone unspoken, unthanked, unnoticed, by putting it right, and centering in the front. Putting it right in the front of our face. That is the artist that shows up first, when there's a catastrophe, a situation, any kind of idea that is operating the way we are right now, in a rupture, there is an absolute shift that has happened, that the artists are the ones who make it right for us, and speak for us, and redesign, and help us reimagine.
Ashara Ekundayo:
What I know is that my work has become pushed into the forefront of documenting and amplifying that work right now.
Lauren Ruffin:
Esteban?
Esteban Kelly:
Yeah, I can pick up from there. One of the things I've been noticing, especially in the last week is how my work and the different organizations, and communities, and the different spaces that I occupy are all starting to come together around this. In so many ways it's a relief to not have to pivot and be like, "Now I'm doing policy work. Now I'm doing transforming justice political education. Now I'm doing work around supporting labor organizers," which I mostly do through cooperatives with the US Federation of Workers Co-ops.
Esteban Kelly:
To see all these efforts coalescing, and it becomes easier to be who I am, and draw upon the stuff that I've been working on for a long time in community. I think that, above all else, is what is animating the moment. It's that, there's all this stuff that we've just been preparing for, but we knew this was coming, we knew the contradictions. It's been really interesting to see people who aren't part of my organizing life, get an opportunity or a window into things, this bread crumb trail that I've been leaving for years, and years, and years. I'm like, "Oh, look at this toolkit around anti Black racism, that my worker cooperative developed three years ago, that was just sitting in the wings." It's been hanging out on our website, some of you are downloading it, but people who are like, "Oh, I didn't even know that you guys created that, and I follow some of what you guys are doing." [inaudible 00:10:59]
Esteban Kelly:
Show and tell, is the book called Beyond Survival that actually just came out earlier this year, the subtitle is, "Strategies and stories from the transformative justice movement." And it goes back to organizing that I started doing 15 years ago, with a group called Philly Stands Up Collective. We have a couple chapters in here, but it's got contributions from this multi racial, mostly queer movement of people who have been experimenting, and testing out what a world looks like without prisons, without policing, because [inaudible 00:11:34] it's not just to insist upon, "Hey, we don't like this whole thing with the criminal legal system."
Esteban Kelly:
Knowing that that's going to hit a wall at some point, that it's going to have a crisis moment, what are the things that we can propose and explore, and say we recommend or test out? This starts to highlight some of those things, it just came out earlier this year. I think in terms of what I'm up to, it is straddling the political education, the resource sharing, be a cheerleader for people who are doing different kinds of organizing, and making sure that they're feeling replenished and encouraged. Especially for Black organizers to share their voice, and to lift up the white people in multi racial movements, who've been instructive, who've actually done their homework, who aren't like, "I got woke because I saw a meme two weeks ago."
Esteban Kelly:
But who actually are there to be a resource so that my phone isn't blowing up, because I've got a frontier to be pushing forward and I'm like, "You know what? Y'all can be connecting with these folks." Kind of making sure we're connecting those dots is an important piece of the organizing.
Lauren Ruffin:
One of the things I've been thinking about a lot, in particular over this weekend, is around just the rapid change in being the only person in rooms talking about, I grew up in a town without police, and people will be like, "What? Huh?" And I'm like, "So everybody should do that," [inaudible 00:12:53] all over the United States where there actually aren't police, where they straight up... you might have on police officer. I think there were, my township had none, the town itself had like two or three, maybe. And now everyone's talking about it, and what I think is so interesting that you all touched on is this is actually work that folks have been doing for so long, and we're at this perfect moment where white people who have never gone out to a protest, are going out to a peaceful protest with their kids, and finding themselves being tear gassed.
Lauren Ruffin:
Which immediately debunks the idea that Black people do something to deserve policing, and then there's this whole, you can immediately quickly plug into Twitter threads, or resources that movement workers have been building up over decades, to academic journals, there's a whole breadth of academic research, and it just seems like this watershed moment in terms of being able to rapidly radicalize a white population. Which is just crazy to me.
Syrus Marcus Ware:
Yeah, this is such an interesting time. Similarly, I've been a prison abolitionist for 25 years, I've been literally working on the ground, doing abolition work for 25 years. Now, to see articles in Cosmo about defunding the police, and about prison abolition, I wake up sometimes and I don't quite know what world I've woken up into. Except I know that I think I like it.
Syrus Marcus Ware:
Thinking about what it means right now, for this to be the [inaudible 00:14:25], for this to be the push that we've all been talking about. Ruth Wilson Gilmore talks about, and Julia [inaudible 00:14:30], so many scholars have talked about how the abolition of the police and prison system is just finishing the work of our ancestors, abolishing slavery. This is just a continuation of that work. Che Gosset made this beautiful Tweet yesterday that said, "Yes, pull down all of the monuments to slavery, starting with police and prisons." Recognize that those are monuments to slavery.
Syrus Marcus Ware:
I'm really interested in how this is being taken up. What I think about as an activist, of course, is that we know our messaging can be co-opted. We know our messaging can be watered down. We know our messaging can be shifted. What I don't want to see, is a reduction of the police budget by 10% for example, and then consider it done. That is not what we are fighting for, if we are in the streets right now in the middle of a pandemic, in the middle of a pandemic, we are going to fight for the entire percent, 100% of that budget.
Syrus Marcus Ware:
We're going to make sure that Black people are able to be in the streets, and be free. When we look at what's happening, Black people, in particular Black mad people, are just not safe in the streets because of policing. This is a system that is not working, it is not keeping our community safer and more secure. It is not creating a sense of justice for a whole bunch of people, it's instead brutalizing particular communities.
Syrus Marcus Ware:
The only way to live on this planet at this moment, with any human dignity at the moment, is to struggle against these systems of violence that are brutalizing Black and indigenous communities in particular ways. I'm here for this conversation, I am here for this moment, and I'm watching and seeing it unfold while also trying to push to make sure that it doesn't get watered down.
Esteban Kelly:
I think one of the dangers that I'm noticing, that I started seeing in real time last week over social media primarily, around that watering down, is around holding up on the one hand, the most extreme manifestation of these systems, that's very visible and that's very front of mind. Attendancy, particularly from white voices, to reduce things and say, "All we're asking for is to just stop murdering Black people."
Esteban Kelly:
Y'all, there's a whole system, there's a whole apparatus behind that, and this is what's happening on camera, of course it's errogenous that they're arresting CNN correspondents on live television for all the suburban moms to see. But that is not all we're asking for. Holding the line, making sure that the very people who are outraged about that, that we're bringing them along. That we're not necessarily alienating them, but that we're continuing to do the political education to say, "No, it's actually not enough to have the police be gentler, or to shrink their budgets a little."
Esteban Kelly:
Their budgets have tripled just in the last decade, so even a reduction of 75% is not adequate. What we need to talk about is the more fundamental structures of what is powering the systems, what are our models of justice? To make sure that every time we're saying, "Actually, it's about abolition," that everyday that gets de centered. It's almost like mindfulness meditation. We're like, "No, this thing," and they're like, "Totally, totally." And then [inaudible 00:17:28] like, "No, no, no. Come back, this thing. This is our intention, please return to it. And here's also why, here's some [inaudible 00:17:35] understand about why more surveillance and body cameras, and larger budgets is not the solution, it is not what's working.
Esteban Kelly:
It's also not about how we shrink an incarceral system, or how we make it friendlier, or gentler, that actually from the roots of the system itself, it is all messed up. In fact, the criminalization of Black bodies has everything to do with our economic system. Black people don't have wealth, don't have means, and this pandemic has only heightened the desperation of that. This can't be reduced to just being about the most egregious thing that you saw that woke you out of your stupor of being comfortable with the white supremacy system, it needs to be about actually reckoning with what is going on with Black people?
Esteban Kelly:
There is not going back to normal, normal was dispossessing Black and Indigenous people for centuries. What we need to do is come out of this reorganizing a lot of things. I'm so here for that journey, I'm not here to help educate white ladies about how to conduct themselves in their non profits.
Ashara Ekundayo:
Say that friend. Say it.
Esteban Kelly:
[crosstalk 00:18:38]
Ashara Ekundayo:
I am so done.
Esteban Kelly:
[inaudible 00:18:42] system. I will have those conversations with white people, totally. I am here for that.
Ashara Ekundayo:
I'm here for you. I'm here for you, I'm here for you. There's a meme going around, defund the police as a strategy, abolish the police is the goal, and fuck the police as an attitude. Okay, I resonate with that. That works for me.
Syrus Marcus Ware:
Could you say that again? Could you say that again?
Ashara Ekundayo:
Defund the police as a strategy, abolish the police is the goal, and fuck the police is an attitude, it's thee attitude. That's what we're thinking about, that's what we're moving through, and my comrades in New Zealand, [inaudible 00:19:20] brilliant art-ivist, poet, and author, was on her IG the other day, was talking about the slumber of white folks. Just slumber is not free, it came at the cost of Black lives. That's the truth.
Ashara Ekundayo:
What you're saying is really like, "Okay, y'all got here and now you want us to be embraced," it's like they're going out to some activity, like you said, take your babies to it, let's go and raise our fists. They're not able to really understand the intersectional oppression and systems that are interpersonal, intergenerational, internal, all of these things are at play. It's a trip.
Ashara Ekundayo:
My work is really about bringing back to the center, the lives, the creative labor of Black women, specifically. Who was at the center of queer women? Who is at the center? Who's ideas, and work is fueling this, and continuing to keep us afloat? We're able to be buoyant, and take a rest and come back, because Black women are always working. As they said, "Mama's always on stage," that old Arrested Development joint, and it's on all of the time. There has to be an on read of that, there has to be something in terms of creative labor, and artistic labor that centers our stories, Black people telling our stories.
Ashara Ekundayo:
One of the situations that's unfolded here in the Bay area, maybe some other places as well, is white artists, white creative collectives getting paid money to write Black Lives Matter, to actually put Black bodied art on all of the boarded up windows in downtown Oakland. I see you holding your face, because it's really something to behold. Over the weekend, one of the things that happened is that the strip in downtown Broadway in Oakland became a walking gallery. It's kind of glorious. You see a lot of white artists outside, and you have organizations and artists who went to those organizations and said, "Hey, can I get somebody to do some mural art?" They're putting up flowers, and fairies, and gnomes, and it's like, "No, this is an opportunity, we must center the radical imagination of Black lives right now. You being up here with one brown body, and 22 white folks painting.
Ashara Ekundayo:
There's a sister who has been championing this over the weekend names [Sequoyah 00:21:38] and I'll have to find her Instagram so that we can share it in the chat. Looking at this, it's called Paint the Void, this organization Paint the Void as though there was some void here in the Bay area. There's no void in our communities. Our communities are vibrant and rich in centering our creative labor. This idea, "Let's show this pain over," we just want y'all to stop killing Black people, there is a conversation that has to happen around power and privilege, and fear, and rage, and what that means for all of us who have some modicum of privilege, even being able to sit in front of a screen for an hour and talk about this.
Ashara Ekundayo:
What are we willing to give up? What does that mean to actually decentralize the power, and what does it mean to be in revolution? Not actually white culture, mainstream capitalist extractive culture in the sense of, "Oh, that's the dream," but actually not have that in Black face, but actually have a true evolution. What does that mean for us? Make a plan and lay it bare, because it's been laid bare.
Lauren Ruffin:
Yeah, I think all of you are touching on between the watering down, and movements being co-opted, just how easy it is for a general population to drift away from a mission, it's like, "Oh, shiny thing over there," and sometimes the calls coming from inside the house. Can we talk about 8 Can't Wait? Can we explain the problems in that proposal that's being put forth, which is it seems at it's face to not be diametrically opposed to I think, what all of us are aligned with, which is prison abolition and police abolition work.
Esteban Kelly:
Maybe I'll start with just a tiny piece of that which is one, I think that part of what is important about the role of artists, organizers, poets, creative people, is making sure, and it's not your responsibility if you're a creative, do your thing. That's your role as an artist. You're not charged with doing this, but I think what it helps us do, is pop open our capacity to expand and imagine so that when my folks are proposing these mind blowing things, ideas that we can de center white supremacy, that we can live in a world without prisons, that workers can own their own jobs and workplaces, that all different bodies, body types can be liberated, that disability injustice can be at the center of how we reconstruct our society.
Esteban Kelly:
That all has a place to land, that it's like tilling the soil so that when those seeds sprinkle in and land, all we're waiting for is that nice little rain to come in, and be the thing to help to catalyze the growth of those seeds. Artists help to make that case, including within our own communities. Including for Black people who have internalized, as a survival strategy, there's no way to get through your day to day without being like, "What are my strategies to just get through, and to get by?"
Esteban Kelly:
Some of that needs to be having some sort of faith in the education system as it is, in our public spaces as they are, and all the different forms of, at least in the US, a lot of elective Democratic officials, under who's watched this is all happening, this is happening in places like Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New York, Philadelphia, so don't try to turn this into a Trump thing or a red state thing. All of those things need to be taken into consideration when we're strategizing not just about who we're calling in in a multi racial movement, but how internal to ourselves? We have to do this work for each other even within movements. That's what accountability is, is being accountable to our ancestors, and finishing that work as you were saying, that Dr. Gilmore pushes us in some of the most, I think, powerful ways.
Esteban Kelly:
To insist upon, we're not just saying, "A world without prisons because of minor drug offenses," and blah, blah, blah. Ruth Wilson Gilmore insists upon us saying that we got to start with rapists and murderers and think about, "What are our strategies for solving those problems around domestic violence?" A lot of my work in this area comes from working with sexual assault situations within my community, without in any way, relying on police and systems. Kind of experimenting with community accountability.
Esteban Kelly:
I think that's part of what artists are able to do, is to keep us open to that world of possibilities, and I think we then train that on these moments where some reformance moves start to come, because of course they're going to come. Someone always wants to say what is quick and easy. When you have mass global mobilization, we're all conditioned to have something that's cathartic. Something that feels good, that feels like a win.
Esteban Kelly:
I think that's an important lesson to our movements. Are we setting people up to feel disappointed because the thing that we're telling everyone we're fighting for, is so unattainable, and therefore everyone is right to be scooped into, "Hey, we painted Black Lives Matter on the street, so we're all good now." Actually training people, whether it's Instagram influencers, or well meaning multi racial people, training them that we need to listen to the right voices. That we can't be tokenizing just any Black people. We can't be tokenizing any political platform that seems like it's achievable in a win therefore, but that we actually need to...
Esteban Kelly:
In fact, this past weekend, the statement that I made on Instagram, that I think was reposted the most, especially by white people, was one where I was saying, "Listen, you're not going to know, something is going to feel cathartic in your body, and you're going to be like, 'Great, this thing feels great. I see a cop kneeling,' or whatever." You're not going to know what Black liberation looks like, so just trust. Retrain yourself to start listening to us, and not in a tokenizing way, start listening to movement leaders, who've been doing this work and this organizing for decades.
Esteban Kelly:
We will tell you. Trust that we will tell you. We will tell you when things are helpful and are winning. What's happening in Minneapolis with their city council saying, "Actually, we've done a full hard look at re accessing law [inaudible 00:27:33], 8 Can't Wait style policies," and we're like, "No. The only way to actually do business is to defund the police." That is really helpful and important.
Esteban Kelly:
When we look at cities that have three out of four, six out of eight of those platforms that have been put forward from 8 Can't Wait campaign, and still extreme police brutality and impunity from police unions especially, allows for the murder and the violation of the rights, and the bodies of Black people in those communities, than we know that that's not what's going to get us free. That it needs to be something that is more fundamental.
Syrus Marcus Ware:
I'm so picking up on what you're putting down, I've been really moved by that Tony [inaudible 00:28:10] quote that the role of the artists from a repressed community is to make revolution irresistible. To literally make revolution irresistible. I'm an artist, and that's been my driving goal is, "How do we use our creative practice to make revolution irresistible?" I think that's what we're seeing, we're seeing creative activism right now that are helping us.
Syrus Marcus Ware:
I think as you say, it helps to break down a very complex idea, into a digestible format, because people are able to take it in in a different way through an artistic media. I'm very, very interested in that, and that action of making revolution irresistible. I think right now what we're seeing, we need to take leadership, just turn to any of the incredible Black artists who are making... when we think of the work of Emery Douglas, and what he was doing for the Black Panther party, as a revolutionary artist for the movement, he was putting out work weekly, daily, posting it in the streets, trying to address the social issues that were happening to people in their communities.
Syrus Marcus Ware:
I think we're seeing artists doing that now. Creating a massive amount of things, even, yes, painting on the streets as a creative activism. It's a way of sharing a message in a way, rather than giving a lecture, or hosting another webinar, it's a direct way to do it. I'm very, very interested in the activism arts that's coming out of this movement, and this movement.
Syrus Marcus Ware:
When we think about abolition, I think it's so important to recognize, yes, I think you touched on that, there are literally ancestors, generations that have been working towards abolition. We need not reinvent the wheel, we don't need white people to co-opt this, and say, "Here's what we need to do." We've already laid the foundations, turn to the amazing and incredible work, of again, Dr. Gilmore, [inaudible 00:29:54] The amazing work of Vivian Salama, and Giselle Diaz coming out of Canada. There's incredible writing and art, and music and stuff about abolition that we can turn to right now.
Syrus Marcus Ware:
Artists have been monumental and influential in shaping this movement for decades. We need just to turn to them and say, "Hey, how do we amplify your message right now?
Ashara Ekundayo:
That's right, listen to artists. There isn't any movement on the planet that hasn't been led, and fueled by artists. There's always going to be a chant, a song, a movement piece, there's going to be a poem that empowers this move. It's how we remember ourselves, our humanity starts in that place. We all come out as artists, and [inaudible 00:30:35] all who can feel a genuine dance to it before they can walk. Any child who can make sound, will sing before they can form sentences, and speak, and communicate. We all come out this way.
Ashara Ekundayo:
This whole idea that, "Let's be artistic and cool. Let's all learn how to make murals, and do art." That's good, and there's actually strategy behind that, there's actually process behind that. It's not like, "Oh, I'm feeling really angry, I'm going to go paint up the wall, tag the wall," there is actual strategy to graffiti art. As you say, I'm picking up what you're putting down, and appreciating that, and calling the names, organizers, Dr.Gilmore, Dr. [Opara 00:31:18], folks here in the Bay area. Shout out to [inaudible 00:31:21] who provost here at Mills College in East Oakland.
Ashara Ekundayo:
But also shout out to the revolutionary artists, you mentioned our beloved baba, Emery Douglas, but also Joan Tarika Lewis who was the first artist of the Black Panther party, a Black woman who's work was not co-opted and not amplified in the way in which Emery's work was. But that she is still alive, and living, and is also a musician who put down her instrument, and picked up a pen, and picked up a paintbrush, and picked up desk work, and then put it back down so she could be on the front lines of the revolution with the other women who were leading the Black Panther party, and this legacy that we have that they laid out for us of love, of radical revolutionary love, and how to take care of each other. How to take care of ourselves, throughout the communities, throughout the United States, and throughout the world.
Ashara Ekundayo:
Those models are what we're picking up right now. Just want to honor her work, and honor the work, see Black women, protect Black women, trust Black women, hear Black women, and pay Black women. I don't want us to lose this opportunity to really center the economic implications of being a cultural worker, and being an artist. Sometimes they are not the same thing, but right now there is an opportunity for those of us who are cultural workers, and who are cultural activistic organizers to actually be able to participate at a high level in economic security, and sustainability of our communities, of this movement.
Ashara Ekundayo:
There isn't any movement that happens on this planet without money. That has to be part of this conversation as well.
Syrus Marcus Ware:
The Combahee River Collective in the 1970's, they said if we make the world safer for Black women, we are necessarily making the world safer for everybody. I would expand that to a 2020 imagining and say, "If we make the world safer for Black trans women with disabilities, honey, this world would look radically, radically different, if the world was actually safe for those people."
Syrus Marcus Ware:
Thank you so much for bringing in the incredible amount of underfunded, unfunded labor of Black women in this movement, in this organizing for decades. Thank you.
Lauren Ruffin:
My last question before we land the plane is, we talked a bit about sustainability and movement work, like how do we sustain ourselves to do this work? As I said earlier, the thing that has been front of my mind all weekend is how long people have been doing this work. How do we sustain people's activism over a long hot summer, into a fall election, in the states anyway? Without having them get distracted. What are some concrete strategies that we can use? That's something that's been top of my mind.
Syrus Marcus Ware:
So much of my artistic practice is about sustainability of activist lives, I write love letters to activists, I draw giant portraits of activists, I do things to try to help make sure that they can continue the work. One of the things I would say as an artist but also as an activist who's been on the front lines, is we need to remember that we need breaks. We need lots of breaks. I've been following the NAT Ministry, that Black account on Instagram that reminds us that [inaudible 00:34:21] are part of our reparations, part of our justice [inaudible 00:34:25].
Syrus Marcus Ware:
So making sure that activists are taking times for breaks, and for rejuvenation, having people that they can check in with on a regular basis, maybe a weekly basis, maybe a standing call where you can just be like, "Oh, by the way. Here, this is what happened this week, this is what I need to process, this is what I need to age with." Making sure that they have supports around them to be able to continue doing the work.
Syrus Marcus Ware:
There's an activist here in Toronto named Tooker Gomberg who passed away, who just before he did wrote an open letter to all activists, and in it he says, "You have to build up networks of care and support while you're well, around your activism so that then if things get too much, if you start to get pulled down, you have supports ready to help you in that moment." Take care of yourself, we take care of each other.
Esteban Kelly:
Yeah, I think it's also recognizing that there's a diversity of tactics, and there are certain tactics that are more sustainable or easier to sustain than others. It is very difficult to sustain tens of thousands of people on the street, all summer long, year after year. We know that we're in crisis, we know that our movements will call for that level of turnout, and much more frequently than in recent US history. That's good. We do need moments of that, but in between...
Esteban Kelly:
First of all, on an individual level, assess where you're at, and sit it out if you need to sit it out. But in between, it's actually really easy to sustain things like political education. It's really easy to stay plugged into listening, to Black leadership, and Black voices. To educate yourself, there's reading lists all over the place, especially nowadays. And even for people who have the privilege of being able to work remotely, or be part of workplaces that they can return to safely with PPE, some of what we've done at [inaudible 00:36:08] my worker co-opt that does political education and training, are around toolkits and trainings, and curriculums for designing sustainable workplaces. So that, it is not one set of work to create a just feminist, work environment with workplace democracy and a separate set of work to work on your mission.
Esteban Kelly:
You can bring those things together, the work itself should not be draining. You don't need to figure it out all on your own. That's there, and it includes things like, "Here are some suggested readings for non Black people of color to be in solidarity, and to be engaging with movements." You can always learn about history, I'm constantly having my mind blown about just recovering our own political histories that have been lost to me because of the cultural particularity of being a historical United States all the time. Just being like, "Reconstruction? What?" Or like, "The Civil Rights movement in the 20's and 30's did what? Ella Baker, what?"
Esteban Kelly:
There's a lot, just find whatever you are passionate about, there's something that will not be boring to you, particularly, but that is still an important contribution in your own consciousness elevation in the movement, and I think that's something we can do to sustain ourselves in between these moments of things popping off.
Ashara Ekundayo:
I would add, some of the sustaining work that has been going on, is around relational aid, also called mutual aid. I believe that that is something that we can continue to do in different ways for each other. We take care of each other, as we have all said. I've had the experience as a cultural worker who works as a consultant most of the time, I've had the gift of other artists, actually Black women artists say, "Hey, I sold a piece of art, and I got a check, if I have money, then you have money as a curator." You create space, that's your superpower, and we are relational in how we sustain our financial well being.
Ashara Ekundayo:
Taking care of each other, when you see somebody put up their Cash App, or their PayPal or whatever, cash them out. It doesn't have to be a lot of money, it can be a little bit of money, it's like, "Hey, I've got $100, I can give you 10, maybe that 10 will buy you a meal this week." Thinking about how to share our resources that are financial as well as you have a circle of folks that you can touch, maybe you all give each other foot rubs. Whether you need to ping your homie, your comrade and say, "Hey, did you take a nap today? Can I bring you some greens from my box garden outside my window? What can I do?"
Ashara Ekundayo:
Those kinds of things I think help to sustain our humanity with each other, and it's really about showing love to one another, showing each other that we care, that we're listening deeply, and that small is all. As our comrade Adrienne Maree Brown has gifted us, with emergent strategies and remembering that everything does not have to be big, and grand eous, it doesn't have to be a giant mural on the street. It might just be a little tag on the bus stop, that I saw walking by on my way, with my fist in the air, and my sign in the hand. I have the opportunity to notice those small things, and see beauty. And to be able to remember that there is joy and pleasure that is also necessary and part of this movement making, part of this revolutionary body, part of us understanding and knowing each other.
Ashara Ekundayo:
That joy has to be part of this movement.
Lauren Ruffin:
That was beautiful. We're going to close on that, that was just really... Thank you, thank all of you for your time today.
Tim Cynova:
This concludes our special two part series of the Work. Shouldn't. Suck. LIVE. Morning(ish) Show. If you're new to the podcast, you can download all 25 season one episodes from your favorite podcasting platform of choice, and re watch Work. Shouldn't. Suck. LIVE. Episodes over on workshouldntsuck.co. If you've enjoyed the conversation, or are just feeling generous today, please consider writing a review on iTunes so that others who might be interested in the topic can join the fun too.
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