[drum beat]
[guitar comes in]
[organ comes in]
♫ From the Indian reservation ♫
♫ To the governmental schools  ♫
♫ Well, they're going to educate me ♫
♫ To the white man's golden rule ♫
♫ And I'm learning very quickly ♫
♫ For I've learned to be ashamed ♫
♫ And she comes when they call her Billy ♫
♫ Though she's got an Indian name ♫
♫ And there are drums beyond the mountain ♫
♫ Indian drums that you can't hear ♫
♫ There are drums beyond the mountain ♫
♫ And they're getting mighty near ♫
[ ♫ Music ♫  ]
♫ There are drums beyond the mountain ♫
♫ Indian drums that you can't hear ♫
♫ There are drums beyond the mountain ♫
♫ And they're getting mighty near ♫
>> JULIA LOIZA GUTIÉRREZ-RIVERA: Greetings, and good afternoon.
What a powerful way to start our session,
watching Martha Redbone perform "Drums" at the 2018 Folklife Festival Sistefire concert.
Thank you to Roadwork for collaborating with us.
My name is Julia Loíza Gutiérrez-Rivera.
I am a community engagement manager at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival.
I am also a dancer and teacher of Afro-Puerto Rican traditional expressions.
I am my parents' daughter, I am my elders, I am my ancestors, I am my community.
Real-time Captioning and ASL Interpretation are being provided for today's program.
To access these services, please follow the links in the comments below.
We recommend that they be opened in a separate browser window or on a separate device,
alongside the event broadcast in order to view the program simultaneously.
I'd like to welcome everyone to this week's Smithsonian Folklife Festival's
Story Circle: Arts of Change, Resistance, and the Common Good.
Today's session is a slightly different,
as it was duly prompted by a national conversation that is currently echoing through our streets.
Today we return to our foundation, the roots of the Folklife Festival,
as we turn to the voices of artists who come together in frank and open reflection and
dialogue on how they, and we, as creatives and cultural bearers
channel despair, inspiration and transformation.
We hope that by turning inwards and towards our essence,
we can then think outwards towards this outlook of change and transformation.
But first, a few words.
Earlier this week, the secretary of the Smithsonian, Lonnie G. Bunch,
released a statement addressing the travesty and outrage
felt by thousands across this country as a result of the murder of George Floyd,
the latest of countless injustices committed to our communities and people of color.
In his statement, the Secretary said --
"Although it will be a monumental task, the past is replete with examples of ordinary people
working together to overcome seemingly insurmountable challenges.
History is a guide to a better future and demonstrates that we can become a better society,
but only if we collectively demand it from each other
and from the institutions responsible for administering justice."
As I read his statement, we were getting ready to launch an event for today,
one that explored movement and the beauty and strength behind dance and Brazilian expressive culture.
It was not lost on me or my colleagues that this discussion,
one centered on celebrating the preciousness of our bodies,
the strength of our black bodies and the resilience of our breath,
was poised to happen while at the same time, just outside our homes,
on our streets, thousands perhaps hundreds of thousands, of bodies --
black, brown, and more -- have been taking to the streets for over a week.
Yes, perhaps this was an important conversation to have today,
as it could have very well helped to counteract a dominant narrative
that has been quick to condemn the volatility and rage of our communities,
those -- our collective body -- taking to the streets, to move, to breathe,
to yell out in justifiable anger and grief.
And still, we have paused.
With a deep inhale, we breathed in the angst and
exhaled a clearer understanding that the conversation
we need to have first is a different one.
One that holds us as individuals, cultural producers, and as practitioners
accountable to the sensibilities, sensitivities, and struggles of the communities we say we represent.
We ask now --
How can we use our voice, our breath, and our privilege
as creative thinkers, as practitioners, and as change makers
to freely move in these contexts to uphold
resilience, strength, and broaden the conversations being put forward?
We will have our original intended discussion, but at a later date.
Because what rings truer now, and echoes Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "the fierce urgency of now,"
is for us to simply hold breath for,
and open a space for these burning conversations,
to try to stay true to our mission of amplifying those voices that have already
been speaking for so long -- the voices of our ancestors and of our contemporaries.
Today it's for George Floyd.
Yesterday it was Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Philando Castile, Sandra Bland,
Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Trayvon Martin,
and on and on and on.
Tomorrow, who will it be?
We shall breathe on behalf of them, and on behalf of
those who continue becoming casualties of this insidious and systemic struggle.
This is not only our burden, but our responsibility.
With that, we take deep breaths.
Now, we talk.
Today's session is hoped to be an open and fluid conversation.
And as with all dialogues none of this can happen alone.
I'd like to welcome a few brothers and a sister in art and thought,
an inspiring group of cultural warriors whose work, lives, and experiences
have all been dedicated to using creative agency
to speak and help amplify the voices of many others.
Their roads have been long shaped by many accomplishments and they've broken many a barriers.
Make sure to read their full bios in the comments.
First I'd like to welcome Kojo X. Johnson.
Good morning, Kojo, good afternoon.
>> KOJO JOHNSON:  Good morning, good morning.
>> JULIA GUTIÉRREZ-RIVERA:  I'll just read a little bit of your bio,
so folks know how amazing you are.
Kojo was born and raised in Washington, D.C.
He's a mestre of Capoeira, a musician, educator, researcher, and community organizer
with more than 15 years coordinating arts enrichment, education, and other projects
across the United States, Caribbean, Brazil, and South Africa.
He's one of the first four African Americans to be officially recognized as a Capoeira master by the FICA,
and has been leading efforts to document the 30-year historical and cultural contributions of FICA
at its home at ECAC on D.C.'s U Street corridor as part of the Remembering U project.
From our D.C. backyard, an activist, a mentor, working on so many crossroads and intersections.
Kojo, it's great you're able to join us today.
>> KOJO JOHNSON:  It's an honor to be here. D.C., stand up.
>> JULIA GUTIÉRREZ-RIVERA:  That's right.
Next up, Maria Isa Perez-Hedges.
She's a singer, songwriter, actress, rapper, activist,
youth organizer, recording artist born in Minnesota
and raised in Saint Paul's west side barrio.
She was raised by the influences of many different  rhythms of Afro-Latino Indigenous culture
and has channeled those into performing arts and activism from a very early age.
She studied with master musicians, including [Spanish names]
whom all have influenced her to develop her Afro-Latinx and hip-hop lyricism and performance style.
She's the recipient of the 2019-2020 McKnight fellowship for musicians
and since 2009 has served as CEO for her independent SotaRico label.
She has performed with countless top artists including Bad Bunny, The Roots, WuTang Clan, and more.
And honestly there's a lot more I could say about this woman right here,
but I'm sure she'll share that better than I can so welcome Maria Isa.
>> MARIA ISA PEREZ-HEDGES: Love. Gracias.
I'm honored to be a part of this conversation with all of y'all forces and powers of the ancestors.
>> JULIA:  Yes, yes. And last but not least,
acting as our compass for today's discussion is Mark Gonzales.
Mark is a futurist.
He develops tools, tech, and narratives to ignite civic imagination and shape human existence.
He is the chair of the Department of the Future and a 2019-2020 Kennedy Center fellow of the citizen arts.
With 20-plus years of experience spanning over a dozen countries,
his pathway has included connecting artisans, investors and urban planners to tell the
future story of space, pairing kid lit creators with architects to create more child inclusive cities,
convening public trust tables disguised as dinner table conversations, and more.
It's our blessing and privilege to have you joining us today, Mark,
and with that, I'll send it off to you.
>> MARK GONZALES:  Thank you.
Saludos, salam alaikum, hello to all tuning in,
and thank you for being here and thank you for being alive to join us in this moment.
I would actually like to start with a question to everyone.
Often in these types of gatherings, we're often asked
to speak directly to our heart, or direct to our culture, direct to our practice.
But not so much to who we are and how we arrived to the places that we live and we operate in.
And so with that, and perhaps you could whoever wants to kick it off, if you will, if you could just answer a
simple question, which is: Where and when were you born?
And what are the places you call home now?
And I'll stress to the audience that we say home versus
from, which has a lot of loaded connotations in many of
us who have grown up in places but been asked to prove
that we belong there or also the idea that one cannot
only be from one place, when many of the people on this
call actually have many families, maybe many identities and maybe even many commitments.
So whoever wants to lead with the conversation, we'll start with that question.
>> KOJO JOHNSON:  Okay, I'll start.
Again, I'm Kojo.
Son of the Chocolate City, maybe I should say formerly
the Chocolate City, Washington, D.C. You didn't say when.
I was born in the '60s, I was born in 1967 in D.C., so
I'm going to age myself right up front, but I call a number of places home.
I think most recently St. Croix and Puerto Rico, for a
number of reasons, one of which is just I don't know if
you've ever been somewhere and you feel like you've
been there before and you feel like you belong there,
but the people just embrace me with so much love in
Puerto Rico and St. Croix, and there's a synergy
between those two islands.
Places like Ghana, my ancestral home, and Bahia Brazil
which has become another anchor for me, where of course
is the home of Capoeira.
>> MARIA ISA PEREZ-HEDGES:  Where I call home, where I
was born, where I call home, where I was born was in
Hennepin County, St. Louis parks Methodist hospital and
taken immediately after my mother was released to the
barrio, the first Latino barrio in the state of
Minnesota, the west side of Saint Paul.
Home to me is the Twin Cities.
Saint Paul/Minneapolis.
The cities of Prince and the Revolution.
Home to me is SotaRico, the community that has migrated
here and raised children of the young lords to children
of Lu Loíza in the frozen tundra of the home state
Minnesota, the land of the Anishinaabe, Ojibwe, the
lands we share with tribes that has raised me and
shared their stories and resistance in unifying how we
braid together.
Home for me is where the heart and pulse of this
revolution of 2020 has started.
Home for me are the clubs and the stages that the late
brother George Floyd protected.
Home for me is the communities of the Somali refugee
children I work with, Hmong, Mexican nos, Colombians,
home for me is the two rivers that unify us.
Home for me is every barrio that plays Bomba drums is
where the heart is, and that's where home is for me.
>> JULIA GUTIÉRREZ-RIVERA:  Whoo.
I mean, whoever didn't think you were a likist really
believes that now.
That was beautiful.
My name is Julia Gutiérrez-Rivera and it's important to
me to say my full four names because that is really
what defines my home.
My home is where my family is.
Puerto Rican, DiaspoRican.
I was born and raised in New York, born in Harlem
hospital, on a 5:00 afternoon.
Rain all throughout the day.
And it was interesting because I think that was the
foreground to lead a pathway into being a Bomba which
are Afro-Puerto Rican traditions cemented on a spirit
of Brazilian resistance, protest and empowerment and
that's a path that's often led with a lot of fire and a
lot of energy so it's very important to be walking that
with water and coolness.
As I said, born and raised in New York, home, many
places.
As Maria stated so eloquently, yeah, it's on the stages
where I have the privilege to share the amazingness of
our cultural expressions, the beauty that our ancestors
had imparted unto us, to many people that probably
would not have even thought of what is Puerto Rico,
what is Latino, what is afro Latino?
We can represent that with our bodies, with our skin,
with our sounds, with our drums.
Literally right now home is also the DMV, Washington,
D.C., Maryland, Virginia, it's an honor to form part of
chocolate city.
Kojo, thank you to your city for welcoming me.
Actually today June 4th marks the first year, the
anniversary of my starting my official journey with the
Smithsonian Folklife Festival.
So it's a lot of confluences coming together.
>> MARK GONZALES:  Wondrous.
Thank you.
I will add a little bit, my name is Mark Gonzales.
There's the old saying of home is where the heart is
and I think in this moment, where so many of us think
of home in terms of passport, or where we pay taxes,
I'm reminded how many of us have families and children
across borders and across nations and across
communities, and for us then home is not simple, and I
think we're a generation and a planet that is proving
that, even though sometimes our societies and laws are
terribly behind what we're actually living, but I spent
the last 9 weeks trying to get across three continents
to my children, because of the COVID shutdowns across
the world, from the borders to the airports.
And for me, home is wherever they're at.
I miss my second year old, or my daughter's
2-year-old's birthday, which greatly pained me and I
was like I'm not going to miss my 5-year-old turning 6
at the end of next month, even if it requires sleeping
in an airport at times.
And so, that is, we do what we do to get to the people
we love and we do what we do in order to protect and to
support the people that we love and I think in this
moment when both George Floyd was denied breath by a
police Officer putting his neon his neck for a span of
8 minutes and 45 seconds, when most of us can't even
hold our breath for 30 seconds, if we think about that
and Eric Gardner before that, when we think of Br oeon
Taylor and Trayvon Martin, the names go on and on, I
wanted to remind everyone that we're having this
conversation because we're thinking about the people we
love.
And how do we better take care, protect and preserve
the people we love?
And specifically the black people we love in our lives
in this movement to look at what it would mean for
culture, creativity and art to not only defend black
lives but also to affirm them in the places of black
joy and black excellence and so many other things.
So with that, I actually wanted to open up a different
conversation which is many of you on this call practice
Capoeira.
You've had the conversation of Bomba coming up
yesterday and today and it's interesting to me that in
the title of this group, it very much refers to art,
and the art of change.
But Kojo, yesterday you mentioned really something I
think was powerful, which is we often think of art as
spectacles, versus our practice as a lifestyle.
And I think these are very different things from when
we show up at a place to have an entertainment moment
and we show up to a place to have a deep commitment and
almost a communion if you will with culture.
And so perhaps Kojo, if you could kick off that from
what did you mean by that in terms of how can we do
more lifestyle and respect exactly?
And then maybe Maria and Julia if you could join in as
well is what are the ways you've seen that done well in
the space that you operate in?
>> KOJO JOHNSON:  Can you say the last part again?
>> MARK GONZALES:  So one is how can we do culture more
as lifestyle and less as spectacles?
And then to even think about what are the places you've
seen that happening.
Has that been done well or are we trying to do
something that's not yet been done?
>> KOJO JOHNSON:  Well, I think we've, I'll start
backwards.
I think we've seen a lot of positive examples here in
the U.S. through hiphop, through dance, definitely
through music.
I speak to you as a cap oris too and I came in the
early days of GCAP in the city, who really exposed me
to the idea of culture as not just a spectacle but as a
vehicle, not just as something to watch.
It's a western thing where you have the audience and
the participants and the audience sits there very
coldly and watches the performer but performance but
I'm so glad to have the sisters on here from other
African diaspora recommendations.
We have Capoeira, Bomba, I could go on, it's not about
there's the audience and there's the artist, the
community.
It's a synergy between performer and observer, you
understand.
So that's already, that barrier is already nonexistent
but what I've learned I think in my trajectory as part
of FICA, studying with the people I studied with, it
really, they really showed me how you can take culture
and engage people around issues that are pertinent to
them and give them a certain amount of solace.
Let them know that I see you.
I understand the issues you're going through, and give
them a vehicle for expressing themselves and really
with young people build that self-esteem and build the
cultural esteem.
I don't mind saying in most of the African diaspora,
most of the black diaspora, it wasn't necessarily be
cool to be black or identify with being black or with
being African, but we instilled in young black -- in
black youth, the idea that this is, you have a proud
ancestry.
You come from a beautiful and proud ancestry.
Yours is not a story of victimhood but of resilience.
Fast forward to the present context that's an important
lesson.
We're not victims.
We're not victims.
There's a story about resistance and resilience.
And that's where this is -- that's my experience with
it.
That's where I come to it from.
But there's so many examples.
Across the world it's become the norm really in the
world of Capoeira.
Capoeira is used as a vehicle to draw attention to
certain issues and to mobilize people, to give voice to
the voiceless, reach out to communities that have been
ignored and marginalized and empower them through this
vehicle we call culture, big C and little C.
>> MARK GONZALES:  Wondrous.
Thank you so much, and let's go to Maria next.
I will also say to our viewers tuning in, if there's
questions you have for anyone on this panel, for all of
us or even that's just in your heart at this moment
that you want to lift up to the world, please feel free
to drop it in the chat and comments and we'll try to
get to it towards the end.
>> MARIA ISA PEREZ-HEDGES:  I'm right there with you,
brother Kojo.
As a child of Bomba, you know, and Plena, what has
allowed me to have self-esteem since I was a child was
connecting with our ancestors communication through
those rhythms, and having, being blessed to have the
parents and the community of village to let us know of
who we are, and not to lose that identity of being
proud of ourselves and recognize our history that
wasn't taught in these textbooks especially not having
such a strong predominant community here in Minnesota,
like el barrio or Humboldt park in Chicago, having to
fight even more for our spaces through these racial
injustices.
I was born and raised in Minnesota and schools were a
lot different for me, the population, being the only
Puerto Rican, being the only Brown girl trying to
advance in other programming to bring back to our
communities, is very challenging still, as a woman and
a mother Bomba is my weapon and my best weapon of
peace, it really is, and that's what I tried to teach
these children.
Anybody who feels those drums, those rhythms, feel
their identity, feel their resilience to be saying,
this is how we change the poisons of the world into
medicine.
This is what our ancestors left us to keep fighting.
Our drums, that song that you opened up with, was so
powerful because that's been my connection to feel more
of a unification with the native brothers and sisters
that have grown up on this land.
My mother came from New York City as a young Lord to
work with the Mexican migrant workers who were here and
the next generation so the indigenous folks that are
fighting for the lands, the black unification of the
black and brown are saying we have to recognize our own
racial disparities in our Latino communities when it
comes to being black and have these discussions amongst
our families just as much as we are in these circles of
what Minnesota nice, that nice word, it's been
Minnesota horrible our whole life.
There ain't been no nice.
I wrote a song when I was 18 years old saying:
Minnesota nice, take the mask off, because it ain't
nice.
Those smiling faces of telling us, our leaders weren't
leaders.
I remember them saying that as a kid saying you made up
a woman named Melita Lebron.
Maria, that was nonsense.
As a kid who your mother calls you lo lit too, that
was -- Lolita.
That's heart breaking.
That's like saying to a sister that Angela Davis is
fake, and they try to break our history but when we
have centers that are led by our elders, that have been
these safe zones and spaces through the practices of
Bomba, Plena, Capoeira, and inviting other cultural
rhythms and other folks to say: Share what you know
from your ancestors and your survivors so we can all --
[ Speaking language other than English ]
It's not about their impression or your impression.
This a systemic colonized world that we're living and
breathing for our grandparents.
People go times are so hard.
Trust me, man, the names you've mentioned and some that
you haven't I've known who were killed by the police
here in our cities and the way we've been able to
continue to grow and even give birth had been through
those rhythms of Bomba and now within this COVID and
being trapped to not have those spaces to go to it's
even more important to remind ourselves that the space
is where the drum is.
And we have technology.
Our ancestors didn't have a way to communicate.
That's a privilege that we have to utilize as a tool in
this time of resistance.
We can do healing of Bomba with Julia letting us know
what's up in a FaceTime, or someone doing the Bomberas
and that's what the fuel is, to keep us going.
>> JULIA GUTIÉRREZ-RIVERA:  Yeah.
There's a lot that can be said.
The question of performance and performing especially
when we talk about cultural practice, heritage
expressions and things we do in honor and service of
our ancestors is a really charged question, right?
I think, and I would hope, that being on a stage is a
platform that we can use and recognize as a blessing,
so that we can educate others that are not necessarily
from our backgrounds or experience again as I mentioned
before, what this essence is, what this spirit is, so
for me it's all a question about intention, and
understanding that history, that fundamental, that
Foundation, has it been done well?
Absolutely.
These are expressions that are ancestral for Bomba,
over 500, 400 years old and the fact that we're
standing here today and still talking about it and
teaching people, yes, absolutely, it's been done well.
A face like police brutality, laws that have put us
down, people taking away our drums, people asking us to
dress up a certain way so that we look a certain way to
make it more palatable for people to do our music,
huh-uh, we are still here.
We're still here, we're still doing it.
Is it a learning process?
Absolutely.
Will we continue to grow?
Absolutely.
But we are still adamant and intentional about moving
forward.
Right?
I think what's been really interesting to hear when
Kojo was sharing and Maria Isa was sharing, is that as
practitioners we're also educators and that's the key
to be able to ensure that these traditions, these
expressions, this spirit, this intentionality goes to
another place that doesn't stick just within us.
It has to be transmitted to an other, to a child, to a
community, right?
And that is so much more powerful than performing even
though performing does have its place.
You know, again, there's so much more that can be said
and I feel like I need to stop and rise up with my
thoughts, we start talking, like oh, this and that, and
this and that, but especially in these times of
quarantine and COVID, one of the first things that kind
of struck to mind is like oh my God how are we going to
do this if we can't be with our brothers and sisters?
We can't go to the corner and perform?
Practice is in your heart, you know.
As Maria Isa said, we call each other, we do our little
chats on the side.
We post and share information with our other peers in
doing around the world.
That is part of practice, as well.
>> KOJO JOHNSON:  Julia, are you finished?
>> JULIA GUTIÉRREZ-RIVERA:  Yes.
>> KOJO JOHNSON:  I wanted to say one more little
comment about the beautiful fact there's a lot of
synergy that the viewers might not even be aware of
right here on this panel.
And I just wanted to speak to the idea that in times of
adversity like now, hardship, oppression how these
walls break down between these perceived cultural
barriers, you have Bomberas side by side with cooperies
toos, so you see a lot of people coming together that
previously might not have been together at the same
table in the same discussions in the same struggle.
We've all been in the same struggle but they realize
we're now in the same struggle, to that effect I
started a project I won't hear the end of if I don't
mention it which brings dance from Brazil to the people
on the island of Puerto Rico, St. Croix, hopefully D.C.
will have another iteration of the whole thing but
really important on the ground how these things come
together and we put down these barriers we cross
perceived cultural and linguistic barriers and we are
aligned I wanted to touch on this, how beautiful and
powerful this time is.
>> MARK GONZALES:  And maybe if we could use that to
springboard to a different question that both we had
originally planned and that I see surfacing up from
some of the audience.
If we think of shifting from art to culture, if you
will, as we we were talking about, and culture not as
performance but even just practice, but culture is the
DNA of a people, it is that which makes you unique, and
then we see, we've used the word violence, Colonialism,
injustice, oppression, we could say these are all
actions that violate inherent human dignity, that which
we naturally are.
And that culture is how we are piecing ourselves back
together.
It is the healing process for a person and for a
village, a tribe, a people, then in this moment across
the Nation, we see different headlines being used to
describe what people are doing.
We see there are mast protests happening across the
country and across the globe.
We are seeing, there are moments of rage, there are,
quote, riots, all these different terminologies, and we
talked a little bit about this yesterday, is that what
we see is collective grief, and grieving in public, if
you will.
And then with that, I think about while grief is not
the sum of all healing, there is no healing without
grief, and so maybe you could perhaps share a little
bit about how does your practice and how does your
specific engagement with culture, how does it help you
grieve?
>> MARIA ISA PEREZ-HEDGES:  Grieving, is -- heal, okay.
You know, being here and the world is saying George's
name, as they should.
Everybody say all the names, you know?
I have to say another name today of Ashley Johnson, a
29-year-old woman whose body was found shot in her car
last night after curfew, black woman, you know, 3
blocks away from where I live, where I can't be at
right now, to protect my daughter, who is the joy, so
the process of grieving so, it's hard to GroW because I
am a mother and I have my daughter and her form of
communication right now is emotion, and me trying to
just keep her to know happiness and joy as the emotions
and not anger and crying, and the frustration, I have
to decompress all of that by finding a space near to
those in my culture who are feeling the same way.
Mothers that are black and brown mothers of newborns
and infants and connecting through social media to make
sure that we're okay and our husbands are okay.
As a woman, you have to be -- they always say the man
is the household?
Huh-uh.
The woman has to make sure that everything is set forth
so that the man can be the man, right?
So that he feels safe and secured, and not fall into
the cycle and the chains.
Like, we're all trying to break the system before all
this, and now even more, and I find myself still yet
not having enough time to grieve for George, for
somebody that I knew.
It's been four years since Phil got shot and killed in
front of us.
Fer LAN do Castele to y'all but Phil to us who offered
free meals to our children in our Bomba summer groups,
so it's like the grieving has become calloused the way
my hands feel from banging on drums since I was 5.
The grieving for all of us is callous, so when you get
calloused, you feel that, hey, what else pain -- I
can't feel, so I'm ready to do whatever it takes.
And I'm feeling calloused at 33.
Y'all have been mentors to me through your work.
Our children have callouses that are the callouses of
destructions me lush Shah in the countries that
migrated to make this home.
The grieving process has been very difficult because we
haven't had time to grieve and find closure in our
healing.
How are we doing it?
Listening to our ancestors, feeling them, praying to
them, calling upon them to give us strength of our
creator and the elements of this world to be healed
amongst all of this destructio.
>> JULIA LOIZA GUTIÉRREZ-RIVERA: It' s interesting as
Bomberos and Plenas whenever there is a grave injustice
albeit on a worldwide level, a community level or in
your individual family home, one of the first things
that we do to kind of seek that sense of reprieve and
resolve through the grieving process is go to our
drums, is go to our music, to go to those ciphers that
we create to be able to manifest ourselves.
As a dancer, because that's principally what I do
within the Bomba world, it's a space for me to be able
to shut off the mind, and to let body and spirit speak
because just as with grief especially the way that
Maria was referencing it, it's not just George Floyd.
It's not just what happened yesterday.
It's what's been going on for thousands of years that
we carry within our blood lines and it's very hard for
us to articulate that and even to perceive that, right?
When we shout this out and let the heart and the spirit
soar that's when we can channel, that energy, that
essence, that release that we need because words are
never, never just enough.
So for us, for me, the grieving process, the space
where we can also find a place to stand and to rise and
to still get breath is through our drums, through our
music, through our community.
Hearing the songs that are written that capture these
hidden truths that people don't tend to recognize all
the time and when we sing unto them, when we repeat
those choruses, we give it new life.
We recognize it.
>> KOJO JOHNSON:  Absolutely.
Absolutely.
And a word that comes to mind is ritual, Mark, in
answer to your question.
I was listening to everybody talk, and certainly for
those of us who are practitioners of African spiritual
systems, ritual plays a very important part in grieving
and healing, and even in reconciliation and putting the
community back in balance, ritual is a very important
part.
And all of our, cultural expressions we're talking
about is ritualized.
Capoeira is right you'llized combat.
It's not just naked aggression, it's ritualized combat.
It's steeped in historical re-enactment replaying the
story which oftentimes a ritual is but it's really
about ritual and that's what for those of us that are
part of the diaspora traditions what happens when we
grieve?
We sing, we dance, we play.
What happens when we're celebrating?
We sing, we dance, we play.
When we're June lating, to celebrate life, marriage, we
sing, we dance, we play.
So it's brought up for a reason, talking to my good
friend Maria Torrez, and Melanie, we threw this idea
around and I said culture is this vehicle and the way
we handle our grief, as black people, the way we
handle, this was after hurricane Maria, the way we hand
2008 these things, the way we confront these, the way
we deal with them, what has always gotten us through
them is we sing, we dance, we play.
You Christian folk, too.
You go to a black Baptist church on Sunday they're
singing and dancing and playing instruments.
That's what goes on.
So that is at the heart of our resilience.
That's what's at the heart of our survival, you
understand, and that's how even in the face of
insurmountable or seemingly insurmountable conditions,
we always come through.
We even thrive, and I think it mystifies and even
terrifies those who are so afraid of us and seem to
hate us for no reason.
This is much bigger than George Floyd.
I agree with you.
>> MARIA ISA PEREZ-HEDGES:  I want to also make a note,
like and all of that fuses into hiphop, which is
important to see the young brothers and sisters who are
putting songs out from their phones and don't have
access to being around community, because like myself,
I have a chronic illness, being a type 1 diabetic.
I can't be amongst so large protests and because of the
COVID, and it is out there, and that's a whole other
enemy that we're fighting amongst the health
disparities in our black and Latin-X communities, but
being able to put the power to the pen, and the power
to the mic, has been -- that's been our medicine
throughout.
Like, what you said, it's George Floyd and beyond, you
know?
So music is an international language, and that is la
medicina.
[ Speaking language other than English ]
>> JULIA LOIZA GUTIÉRREZ-RIVERA:  Can you say that in
English?
>> MARIA ISA PEREZ-HEDGES:  Sorry.
[ Laughter ]
>> KOJO JOHNSON:  She said it all.
>> JULIA LOIZA GUTIÉRREZ-RIVERA:  I know, right?
>> MARIA ISA PEREZ-HEDGES:  Music can't heal
everything, but music can heal everything.
And --
>> KOJO JOHNSON:  Yes, indeed.
>> MARIA ISA PEREZ-HEDGES:  That's what it is.
Sorry, my Spanglish is my language.
That's where I come from, too.
>> JULIA LOIZA GUTIÉRREZ-RIVERA:  I hear you.
>> KOJO JOHNSON:  Yeah, we got you.
>> MARK GONZALES:  One of the things I'd just like to
elevate to the audience is, you know, grief comes out
in many ways, and that grief can be self-destructive at
times, and that it's also important to remember though,
we don't yell at people that you're grieving wrong.
>> JULIA LOIZA GUTIÉRREZ-RIVERA: Rig ht.
>> MARK GONZALES:  We step in and acknowledge the pain,
and look at ways to move it forward that is healing and
transformative, instead of yelling at those who are
hurting, and I think that's something that we all can
hold up in this moment, where everyone wants to debate
about what people should do before acknowledging pain.
[ Chimes in background ]
When we do get to the spaces acknowledgment, then there
gets to the: Where to from here, if you will.
Arendotti Roy had an amazing article at the beginning
of the COVID crisis which we're still in the middle of
globally, that we just literally passed 100,000 deaths
in the U.S. about 10 days ago, which now doesn't even
seem like the largest issue in the country, but
literally, more people died from COVID in 2 months than
in the nearly 20 years under the Vietnam war.
And that we know those who died were disproportionately
elders, black bodies and brown bodies, and those who
are previously called low-skilled workers but now we
understand are essential workers.
And in the middle of all of that, Arendotti Royce
writes the moment about the moment we get this great
pause, quote unquote where the earth is stopping and we
see carbon footprints and emissions going own.
We see people are having a moment to actually lean into
what matters and who matters and who do I sit with in
this time.
When I may be able to lose anyone.
And one of the things that I'm reminded of though is
that a portal starts in one area, and then it leads you
to another.
And both you have to go through the portal and then
also you emerge somewhere from a portal.
And I'm thinking about that other space, because we've
used in this conversation yesterday and again today
this word "resistance, " but linguistically and it Mo
logically it means the refusal of something.
I think about the people I sit with and my children and
my loved ones and I want to do more than refuse for
them.
I want to do more than resist for them.
I want to build a world for them.
You know?
And a world where they are affirmed, loved, embraced
and thrive and I think about that and so I want to know
from you all, on the other end of the portal, what does
that world look like?
The world after this moment, the world beyond
resistance, the world where the things we speak about
have begun to or have fully emerged?
If you could maybe spend a couple minutes, let's say
two minutes each to offer up that to the audience and
the world in this moment and then we'll close with
comments from Julia.
>> MARIA ISA PEREZ-HEDGES:  You, as a mother, I want my
daughter to be -- she's one years old.
I want her to be 5 years old, 10 years old, 5 years
old, 5 years old, to tell me: Mommy, what were the
police?
What's the police?
And they were an Army that killed people that looked
like my dad and you, and our family members.
You know, kids not even having to remember the
injustices that we have faced as ePeople of color and
indigenous folks amongst a war with police brutality.
And that's what we're facing -- it's beyond police
brutality.
This is systemic brutality, and that's where I want to
see the growth of resistance, resilience,
revolutionary, to evolutionize and to abolishing these
systemic injustices in a whole clean lympia.
We know how you feel when you need to get your head
right, right?
That feeling of purity and being able to breathe,
making sure that we don't hear those "I can't breathe "
anymore because somebody is taking our breath away.
As much as we're here breathing, the stomach that I
feel, what I feel inside, it's hard to breathe.
Because the reality of it all is that that's what it
is.
The law has the ability to take away your breath and
your life, and hopefully this is the moment where we're
not allowing our children to have to worry and be
scared of the police, to be worried of a system that is
going to take away their innocence and their breath.
>> KOJO JOHNSON:  Mark, first of all, I love the
imagery.
I like to speak and think in proverbs, and one of
the -- I learned from Ghana, it's a concept called
Sankofa, which is go back into your past to retrieve
something that's useful for your present and your
future^, and I think again interesting enough we are
representing traditional art forms that are brought
forward from our antiquity and if you've ever been in a
traditional culture, if you've ever been, you know, in
a village, let's say, be it in Africa, Asia, whatever,
one thing you'll notice, there's not a Bunch of police
maintaining order, you know, in traditional societies.
You didn't have police roaming around bopping people
over the head to maintain some kind of social order.
Social order was within people.
It's within us.
A sense of right and wrong is within us.
So what I'd like to see is, let's dial it back to that
where we do right to one another because it's right.
In this future on the other end of that portal, we
co-exist with each other, and difference is a good
thing.
We learn and we benefit from our differences, be it
racial, ethnic, gender, you know.
On the other end of this portal you're describing, we
will listen to and respect our women, do you
understand?
On the other end of this portal, we'll within our
groups, you know, because rarely discussed point, this
colorism and anti-blackism within these cultures, owe
with unpack and deal with those kind of things.
But going back to what you said about even though we
express and respond to this oppression, to things
that -- the way people are protesting right now, you
know, it's almost like the issue out the hardship and
dictate to you how you're supposed to respond too: Be
time, show up at this time.
March on this route and that's how you're allowed to
express your grief and your anger at how you're being
treated.
In the future, like, I agree with Julia, there's none
of that.
Real freedom is being able to live in this world on
your own terms, as yourself, without having to
assimilate someone else's accent, hair style, you know,
without having to wonder if you're going to come home
alive from a trip to the bank.
That's a whole 'nother story.
To wondering about your kids when they go to school.
There's a post around somebody asked a young black
child, what do you want to be in the future?
He says: Alive.
We want our children to live to fulfill their
potential, so, you know, in this future portal, you
know, human beings expressing the height of their
capacity and the height of their potential should be
our concern, not how do we keep one person at the
bottom or keep some people in the bottom or how do we
avoid being utterly destroyed by one small minority of
people actually?
How do we -- and how do we bring this in -- we've got
the tools to do that.
We've seep the examples of it, and most of these
cultures that have been all but annihilated.
My sister is there is on indigenous land, those of us
that come from indigenous traditions we've gotten
examples already, we've learned, we've been taught,
let's go back to those lessons we learned.
There's so many in our antiquity, let's go back and
learn how to be civilized again.
And human.
>> MARK GONZALES:  Thank you.
And then I want to add one thing before I pass over to
Julia both for her answer and for the closing remarks,
one of the things to just lift up again that you
mentioned, Kojo, was we've outsourced social order and
I think that's something really powerful to think about
when we talk about individual agency and inherent
dignity and how to bring that back, to reclaim, to
recenter, to recalibrate that.
But also lift up we've outsourced it in a time where we
have both disposable plastic and disposable people,
where we've siloed generations, where we are asked to
imagine a future and how bold we can imagine is a
future where our children live, you know?
And for some people that I think would be just the
base, not even a bold, but just there's a future where
my children can live.
I did want to lift up one statistic I think that Maria,
when you had mentioned, our children and the callouses
they carry, so much like ours, I also want to remind us
all that our elders also carry many callouses and I
think that in some ways, we've siloed our elders and
we've side lined them and that I do wish in this time
where we, the world feared that in 24 months we may
lose half of the world's elders.
Like, that was a legitimate fear that would maybe we
can lift up a time to say that our elders deserve
softness as well.
And can offer them that.
They can be the ones to then weave it back to the
children so I'll leave it at that and last both answers
and remarks for Julia.
>> MARIA ISA PEREZ-HEDGES:  Sorry, I keep muting me.
There's a lot of tension that's happening, so if I
forget to unmute and mute, but our elders are
definitely calloused, having that conversation with my
mom who's with me and feeling defeated amongst
themselves because they put themselves at the line and
they've lost so many of their brothers and sisters in
the movement and they've sacrificed so much.
Like these buildings around us at our cultural centers
were funded by our people, selling tamales, fried bread
tacos, soul food Sundays, to now seeing places like
Nigizi, the Native American Arts Center right in the
heart of next to the precinct, being burnt down.
Our elders are feeling -- they're weeping, just as much
as the ancestors crossing the middle passageway, when
the blues note was created, because the blues note was
created by the weeping of feeling scared, feeling how
are we -- we can't be defeated, and feeling, where do
we survive?
So it's even beyond just the calluses, it's PTSD, and
it's a hatred that's coming out, as well.
Like, there's like how do we cure the hate?
Because they're killing black people.
There's Native American women missing on our blacks and
black women being killed and no one is talking about
that.
No one is talking about that.
They say we're investigating it.
Well, the hood doesn't need to investigate.
The barrios don't need to investigate.
We know what's happening.
Because we're scared, we're in danger and we have lost
our spaces but we haven't lost the Sowell of those
spaces because we -- soul of those spaces because we
know how to rebuild and our elders are teaching us that
even amongst their own confusion is we've rebuilt so
now it's on you guys.
>> JULIA LOIZA GUTIÉRREZ-RIVERA:  I feel like I have to
take a deep breath at this moment, because it's quite
apparent that there's a lot of energy that we're both
feeling and we're both receiving at this moment.
To I guess answer or try to answer your question, I
mean, the three of y'all have touched on a lot of
things that, you know, I've been thinking about, and I
think it's just clear that we share the same wave
lengths.
I think what I would like to add to that is if we can
start also expanding just that thought of that
spectrum, to really live by the truth of the circle,
right?
Many of our traditioning, of our practices, are
cemented on this idea of a cipher, of a circle, of
inclusivity, where it's an equal playing ground.
Everybody's voice is there and I don't mean to say it
like, you know, to try to sugar-coat or think about the
future in Rose colored glasses because that's not the
intention at all.
It's essentially to say: Yeah, you know, we're all
present, and to try to get to a place where if we had
to explain who we are, it is not in the intention of
having to justify who we are.
Simply to celebrate the differences and the beauty from
which we come from, right?
Because we all have a place in that circle.
We all have a place in that circle.
We can keep going.
I'm sure there's questions and comments that are being
shared by the audience, but if not, we can probably all
take a deep breath.
Can we all take a deep breath together?
[ Loud noise in background ]
Recognize that breath always.
It's a privilege.
It's a blessing.
So as we close today, I just want to make sure that we
all know that this is the close of today's
conversation, but it's just a pause for ongoing
discussions, dialogue, and questions that we all will
continue to have either as a group or individually,
internally, within ourselves.
Speak that truth, name those names, always reflect,
always talk, always, every day, every day.
Like that ritual that Kojo was talking about earlier
today.
I would definitely like to thank the voices that were
present here today.
Maria Isa, Kojo, Mark, the voices of the ancestors that
have been speaking through us.
Also definitely would like to thank everyone that's
logged on, watched, listened, commented.
We felt you.
We'll definitely be on those spaces again.
Would like to give a special thanks to the team that
made this discussion possible.
Takes a village, y'all.
It takes a whole crew of people.
>> KOJO JOHNSON:  Definitely.
>> JULIA LOIZA GUTIÉRREZ-RIVERA:  Let me name some of
these names.
A shout out to --
Cristina Diaz-Carrera, Amalia Cordova, Sojin Kim,
Sabrina Lynn Motley.
And the production crew --
Elisa Hough, Sarah Roffman, Diane Nutting, Alex
Taggert, and Ginny Maycock.
that have been holding it down behind the scenes.
Again we hope that this discussion has offered a seed
of inspiration, and a reminder of what our voices, our
intention, spirits and bodies can represent, and what
they can do.
Whether it is on our own, or together in collective
movement, we have the source of amazing empowerment and
liberation, and never forget that.
We hope we can all be part of this ongoing conversation
together, on Facebook, Instagram, or simply knock on
our doors, and we'll open and we'll talk.
Be safe, stay strong, thrive in resilience.
Thank you.
>> MARIA ISA PEREZ-HEDGES:  Thank you.
>> KOJO JOHNSON:  Thank you, it's been an honor and a
pressure.
I stand on the shoulders of those who came before us.
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