00;00;32;03 - 00;00;46;17
Onjale Scott Price
Welcome back to another episode of The Conversation here on Falmouth Community Television. Co-host Onjale Scott Price, along with the wonderful reverend Will Mebane Always a pleasure to be with you, Rev.

00;00;46;19 - 00;00;49;28
Rev. Will Mebane
Good to see you. Honorable one. Yes, that's.

00;00;49;28 - 00;00;51;04
Mwalim Peters

00;00;51;04 - 00;00;52;11
Rev. Will Mebane
But yes.

00;00;52;13 - 00;01;17;25
Onjale Scott Price
Oh, boy. All right. This is how it's going to go today, I see. Right. That's all right. Well, here at the conversation we discuss every month the topic surrounding race in our community, in our society. And so this month we decided we're going to talk about the arts and racism in the arts. So our first question today is where do we find racism in the arts?

00;01;17;27 - 00;01;29;18
Onjale Scott Price
So let's go see what our people on the street have to say about where we find racism in the arts.

00;01;29;21 - 00;01;59;10
Vasco Pires
But in the arts itself, we're all artists. We're all human beings, and we reflect the society that we live in and so, so, you know, there was sort of racism in the arts. You know, it's always, you know, we have you have human beings and, that are subject to this type of, system and you're going to have racism.

00;01;59;14 - 00;02;07;26
Vasco Pires
So it's, is something that's pervasive in the system. So it's nothing unusual.

00;02;07;28 - 00;02;43;27
Zyg Peters
First thing that I notice, and a lot of people know that's actually not just me, is the black students and brown students. They're more so encouraged to pursue athletics than the the, the more artsy things like going into the band like I was or, you know, like dog photography or whatever, or, you know, all the other arts things that they offer in school and, you know, and then you have the people like me who were in the arts, like I was in band, I was in jazz band, and I was in concert band and jazz man in middle school.

00;02;44;00 - 00;03;04;16
Zyg Peters
And you start to notice certain things like opportunities not being, well, certain, like the white kids, they get invited to these certain opportunities, but then it's like the black kids find out about it and it's like, oh wait, why was, why, why, why, why am I not here? And it's like, oh.

00;03;04;19 - 00;03;31;29
Vasco Pires
But one of the things that historically, like when you go to the museum and you see a lot of the African, from burning from Nigeria, from, lot of the, these, societies in Africa who are very artistic because that's part of life, you know, as a human being, we are creative. We are creative human beings.

00;03;32;01 - 00;04;25;27
Vasco Pires
So that's what we do naturally. And when someone goes and, takes your work, your expressions, and use it as an example of, society that's long dead or doesn't exist anymore, supposedly, but is still the, expression of that society. You know, that culture, like it would be the same thing as if, if it was the other way around and they would come and say, oh, this is, an example of this white society, you know, we'll we'll take this, we'll put it in a museum to show how it is, you know, these uncivilized people are, you know, so in that respect, you know, there's been a lot of racism,

00;04;25;29 - 00;04;27;10
Vasco Pires
any.

00;04;27;12 - 00;05;00;08
Onjale Scott Price
Welcome back. We have just heard from a few people on the street answering the question of where do we find racism in the arts? So I would like to welcome our two guests with us today. And start to have some conversation about racism in the arts. So first, I'd like to welcome Wally Performer teaching artists, curriculum development, consulting, keyboardist, resident songwriter, tenured professor of English, and former director of Black Studies at University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.

00;05;00;15 - 00;05;02;29
Onjale Scott Price
Really glad to have you here, Mwalim Welcome.

00;05;03;02 - 00;05;10;01
Mwalim Peters
Good. Now, you started off with former. Is it that you were informed that I was fired from that stuff and I didn't know or.

00;05;10;04 - 00;05;18;24
Onjale Scott Price
Yeah, I apologize, I wasn't me. I cut off your website, so maybe I. I still director of Black studies.

00;05;18;26 - 00;05;28;00
Mwalim Peters
I'm not the director of black studies. At first when you said former curriculum, I was like, I don't do that anymore. Oh no.

00;05;28;02 - 00;05;30;21
Onjale Scott Price
Please unpack that for us.

00;05;30;24 - 00;05;36;16
Mwalim Peters
I'm like, that's a terrible way to find out. I got fired right?

00;05;36;18 - 00;05;41;22
Onjale Scott Price

00;05;41;25 - 00;05;46;18
Onjale Scott Price
All right. My apologies. Clarify for us, a little bit, then.

00;05;46;20 - 00;05;55;19
Mwalim Peters
I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I should have also said, comic street artist also, but.

00;05;55;21 - 00;06;00;03
Onjale Scott Price
Yeah, clearly.

00;06;00;05 - 00;06;03;17
Onjale Scott Price
Well, nonetheless, we're glad to have you with us. Thank you for being here.

00;06;03;20 - 00;06;06;05
Mwalim Peters
All right. Thanks for having me. Thanks for having me.

00;06;06;08 - 00;06;12;14
Onjale Scott Price
Yeah. So, we actually, I believe we heard from your son. Correct on where do we find racism in the arts?

00;06;12;17 - 00;06;18;00
Mwalim Peters
Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Zyg One of our people on the street. Yeah.

00;06;18;03 - 00;06;27;27
Onjale Scott Price
He mentioned students being encouraged to pursue athletics rather than the arts, and it sounded like he. He felt that from personal experience. Could you tell us a little bit about that?

00;06;28;00 - 00;06;59;21
Mwalim Peters
Oh, yeah. Well, as you can probably tell from the video, he's a big boy. And, when he was in seventh grade, the, athletic director kind of started licking his chops and sort of encouraging him to consider football or consider, basketball in middle school. He did try playing baseball and ended up achieving a concussion as a result of, playing baseball.

00;06;59;21 - 00;07;25;05
Mwalim Peters
So he kind of decided to leave that alone. So he never got a concussion playing the drums. But what he noticed with a with a lot of his classmates where they were, they were being very strongly encouraged. And it was interesting that this wasn't just the, weren't just the, coaches of the gym teachers, but just the student attitude as well as, oh, you should be going out with sports.

00;07;25;05 - 00;07;45;11
Mwalim Peters
So you should be doing this. Oh, man, you're big. You should be doing this. You should be doing that. And it's funny because what he began to notice was this encouragement seemed to almost exclusively go to the black kids. You know, the obviously athletic white kids, but the black and brown kids, it was sort of like, well, why aren't you, you know, why aren't you doing this?

00;07;45;11 - 00;08;05;12
Mwalim Peters
Why aren't you doing that? And, so it was something that he noticed, you know, the fact that he never, you know, he did try out for basketball once, but the fact that he never really tried out for anything never seemed to indicate that, you know, I'm not interested in playing football.

00;08;05;15 - 00;08;06;28
Onjale Scott Price
Interesting.

00;08;07;01 - 00;08;33;07
Mwalim Peters
And, so that was something that he experienced. And when I asked his friends and some of his cousins, they all, you know, and didn't even think about it because it is so normalized that you're black or brown and you're big, so you're going to be sports, that this is the opportunity, you know, and the other piece they always try to tie it to this is going to be the opportunity for you educationally.

00;08;33;09 - 00;09;03;02
Mwalim Peters
And you know, he especially laughs about it now because he just graduated high school and got a number of arts related scholarship. You know, they don't tell you that you can get arts related scholarships, but it's always going to be, you know, your whole college is going to be your athletics. You know, this is the unconscious, again, thing that is that's basically taught to our children is, you know, communicated to our children consciously and unconsciously.

00;09;03;02 - 00;09;24;26
Mwalim Peters
So, you know, he picked up on a lot of things I noticed in school. I remember I think it was a summer reading. He decided to read. He picked up on the autobiography of your back, ruin your back. All right. You're back now. But,

00;09;24;28 - 00;09;40;29
Mwalim Peters
During his summer reading, he read the autobiography of Malcolm X. He. And, you know, through the summer at the end of the summer, one of the essays they always give you is you don't talk about a particular book or something that resonated with you. Why?

00;09;41;01 - 00;09;41;20
Onjale Scott Price

00;09;41;23 - 00;10;08;26
Mwalim Peters
And what he wrote about was, the autobiography of Malcolm X, and particularly the discussion that Malcolm X has with his teacher when he says he wants to be a lawyer, and the teacher instead encourages him to be a carpenter, he related it to an experience of, his seventh grade social studies teacher who all through the year was telling us how great he's doing in class.

00;10;08;27 - 00;10;39;12
Mwalim Peters
I would read he's doing in the class, and zig noticed that the same teacher yelled at the kid, a white kid who to having a B-minus average. But then keep telling me, you're doing great. You're doing great. Morgan gets his final grade as a C. He's like, that's great. And he sort of equated that, that same mindset to the mindset of the teacher, to Malcolm X.

00;10;39;15 - 00;10;46;23
Mwalim Peters
Well, yeah, that's unrealistic. You should be a therapist. And that was you know, that was his essay.

00;10;46;26 - 00;10;48;06
Onjale Scott Price
Right.

00;10;48;08 - 00;11;20;10
Mwalim Peters
In regard to that. So so he's always paid attention and notice that type of thing, about the system. It's interesting because he grew well, we, came to the Cape full time, when he was going into third grade. So he pretty much went through the school system on the Cape, but he didn't even really have, say, the comparative, the, you know, growing up in the New York City school system, I had the comparative between and recognize racism in both.

00;11;20;12 - 00;11;44;27
Mwalim Peters
But, in many ways, New York, even just on a pragmatic level, is leaps and bounds ahead of the concept of education of black and brown students in the Cape. But, you know, there are certain dynamics that don't change, and there are certain dynamics that that seem to remain here. You know, rather archaic. But he seems but he's a young man.

00;11;44;27 - 00;11;47;04
Mwalim Peters
Is that a sensitive to that?

00;11;47;07 - 00;12;08;21
Onjale Scott Price
Yeah. I see seems like a very bright young man. And I absolutely loved his shirt that he had on during the, the street portion as well. And I think the point of it, it's unfortunate how embedded and ingrained it is to just push the black and brown students to anything athletic related and not so much the arts.

00;12;08;21 - 00;12;13;24
Onjale Scott Price
So it's unfortunate that that we still see that today.

00;12;13;26 - 00;12;36;18
Mwalim Peters
But it is. I mean, it definitely is a funny little thing about that shirt he wore that he actually bought that shirt, especially for graduation. And when he crossed the stage to graduation, he first embraced his principal, which, by the way, I do have to say he's one of the positives of education, the Cape mark, those graduate.

00;12;36;20 - 00;13;02;01
Mwalim Peters
One of the reasons why I kept him in Nashville. But it was it was interesting because he stopped and he embraced Mister Ball and scratching, giving him that respect. But then when he got to the superintendent, that's the point. When you take your picture with your diploma and with the superintendent, with the school committee, he gave Mrs. de Boer a pound, a fist bump and then proceeded to with his robe open and had that t shirt under it.

00;13;02;03 - 00;13;18;22
Mwalim Peters
So you have a wonderful, graduation picture of him with his robe open with his t shirt, saying not to be colonizer, and the superintendent looking like this. So, you know, so I particularly loved that teacher.

00;13;18;25 - 00;13;40;13
Onjale Scott Price
Yeah. It's a it's a good one. Well, I'd like to ask, Robin for some comments. Robin, I know you're a retired educator, artist, poet, and public speaker who taught in the New York City school system for over 30 years and is currently presenting a Black Lives Matter series with the Cotuit Center for the Arts. Now to check is is all that information correct?

00;13;40;16 - 00;14;06;05
Robin Joyce Miller
That is all correct. Okay. I am retired New York City teacher living here on Cape Cod. When you when I heard the question and I heard Waskow, he said that there's racism everywhere in society. And that's absolutely right. This topic is so vast because when I first saw the arts as a person who worked as a facilitator for the arts, I know that there's the performing arts.

00;14;06;05 - 00;14;29;08
Robin Joyce Miller
And in the performing arts, we could break that down into drama and film and theater and music. And so and then we can go to and television and then we can go to the visual arts. And I think about going to the museum. So there's racism in all of those areas. There is no place in society like Waskow said, where there isn't racism.

00;14;29;11 - 00;14;53;03
Robin Joyce Miller
I have certainly seen it in the museums, going to a museum and not seeing myself when we don't see ourselves, we look for, I think, the arts, we tend to look for, reflections of ourselves in art when we watch television, when we watch a movie, we're looking for a reflection of ourselves. When we go to the museum, we want to see something that reflects us.

00;14;53;09 - 00;15;23;04
Robin Joyce Miller
And when we don't, we either. Well, we omitted which says that's a statement right there that we're not important, we're not valued. Or when we see negative situations, we also realize we're not valued. And right now, ever since, coronavirus and, I have been doing audible books right now I'm doing. I just finished yesterday. Cicely Tyson, what an amazing woman.

00;15;23;09 - 00;15;45;05
Robin Joyce Miller
She. I just want to to say I want to say that first of all, I'm so taken with her. She is a jewel that we will miss because she was very careful in the roles that she chose because she thought about how we are being viewed and when she did sounder. And I saw that in the 70s. That was the first really black movie.

00;15;45;05 - 00;16;12;22
Robin Joyce Miller
I saw sounder and The Love and what went on. The relationship. She didn't understand how whites viewed us. So watching those things are important. And I just want to read this because she said, in that a white man who did not see himself as the least bit prejudiced told Cicely that he was shocked as he watched sounder that the son called his father daddy.

00;16;12;28 - 00;16;45;10
Robin Joyce Miller
That's what my child calls me. So as if it that title is only reserved for white people. And a white woman said to her she was shocked by the relationship between Rebecca and Nathan, the characters, she said the love and caring that was not believable. So Cicely realized that she didn't realize so much ignorance abounded because journalists were asking her questions, and she was shocked because she took it for granted that they knew these things.

00;16;45;10 - 00;17;11;12
Robin Joyce Miller
So she decided that she would, go around, especially in the 70s, because she said that was the blaxploitation period and she was not interested in being in the blaxploitation. So she went around speaking at universities, talking about the roles and how important. And she also said why she felt blaxploitation movies came.

00;17;11;14 - 00;17;39;21
Robin Joyce Miller
Came so important to black people. Because after the Martin Luther King movement of passivity, black men in particular wanted to show their sense of power and that they're going to fight back. And so these blaxploitation movies gave people that opportunity to show a sense of strength and power and concrete. But her story has been amazing, and there's so many ways of looking at the arts and seeing where we're not there or we're disparaged.

00;17;39;23 - 00;18;02;22
Onjale Scott Price
So yeah, yeah, really, really good points. I remember seeing last year that there was, some movie coming out and it was basically a horror. I remember, I think it might have been on Amazon. It was a horror movie about a black family in the 60s, but supposedly has some twist to it. And I'm not really a horror film fan, but to some friends like, oh, you know, maybe we'll all watch this on zoom together or something.

00;18;02;25 - 00;18;28;02
Onjale Scott Price
And then I saw, you know, some of my friends like, well, you know, I'm sick of seeing movies where black people are dealing with racism and black people are being discriminated against, like, we can you can do something that's a horror film with black people where the antagonist is not racism. We can find something else to do. Like there's more to black people than just our plight of of being discriminated against and oppressed.

00;18;28;04 - 00;18;51;09
Onjale Scott Price
And so I think hearing about, you know, Cicely Tyson being so. Conscientious, I guess, of the roles that she takes, I think is, is really important to think about what the importance of how we are perceived in media, because that not only affects how we feel about ourselves and our reflection of ourselves, but how we're portrayed, you know, to to the greater masses.

00;18;51;16 - 00;18;58;12
Onjale Scott Price
Absolutely. Yeah. What are your thoughts, Rev? Where do you think we find racism in the arts?

00;18;58;14 - 00;19;52;29
Rev. Will Mebane
Well, the first thing I would share, and first let me say hello to William and to Robin. Good to meet volume and to see my sister Robin again. I'm thinking about, what happened to me in high school, thinking. Hearing what, Marlene was sharing about her son. I did play sports, and. But I also was, in music and also drama, and, so I was able to squeeze it all in, but the what I wanted to share is when it came time for the class play, it was all it was assumed by everyone in the school that, I would be the lead in the school play, and, and that

00;19;52;29 - 00;20;26;01
Rev. Will Mebane
was a annual school play that had been done for decades. Right. And it was assumed that, a white girl would be the female lead. And in the play and we did mostly musicals, you know, Oklahoma and, you know, musicals like that. And, and so as we were getting close to, you know, casting, Shirley, I got cast as the lead.

00;20;26;01 - 00;20;59;19
Rev. Will Mebane
And Meg, I'll never forget her. Meg Larabee. What's her name? Or is her name? I hope she's still alive. Was cast as the female lead and the school decided not to put on the play because they did not want a black male lead and a white female lead. On the chance that there might be a scene in the musical where they might have to express intimacy towards one another and, God forbid, maybe even kiss in the play.

00;20;59;21 - 00;21;28;09
Rev. Will Mebane
And so they canceled. The first time in the history of the of the school they canceled the school play purely because of that. So, again, that came back to me as I was listening to the violin. And then there's been a lot of discussion already about, television and film and my undergraduate degree from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill is in radio, television and motion picture production.

00;21;28;11 - 00;22;02;12
Rev. Will Mebane
And I fancied myself, becoming a big time, big shot Hollywood director or producer someday. Right. And to do films and, and, short films and all and think I was pretty good at it. Got a degree in it and, but then I discovered early on that, Hollywood at that time and I'm not sure is much different now, Hollywood is not really that interested in black folk being in the industry, as it's called.

00;22;02;14 - 00;22;03;14
Mwalim Peters

00;22;03;16 - 00;22;35;28
Rev. Will Mebane
There were very few black directors, very few black producers that Robin was talking about. You know, we need to be able to see people who look like us. So it makes it clear that, oh, yeah, I can do that. I can be that as well. Right. That's not reserved just for white people. And so I gave up after some years of trying to break into the movie industry because it was I needed to need it.

00;22;36;01 - 00;23;01;00
Rev. Will Mebane
One of three things I either needed to have a rich uncle that was willing to bankroll my movie productions, which I didn't have. I needed to have the money myself, right? To be able to to produce the movies. And obviously I didn't have that or I needed to be white, and there was nothing I could do about the fact that I wasn't.

00;23;01;03 - 00;23;31;07
Rev. Will Mebane
So that was enough to deter me from pursuing my career in the arts and, in film. And I did ultimately get into television, and I spent several years working in the television industry. Everything from, a grant, you know, a production assistant suite literally sweeping up the floor of the studio and dusting out of lights to. I became a producer, director, and executive producer.

00;23;31;10 - 00;23;52;01
Rev. Will Mebane
Then I got into management. But when I came on, became a manager on a TV station at the age of 21. I was one of only two black managers in a department in a television station in the country, and that wasn't that long ago. I mean, I, I know you think that I'm really old.

00;23;52;01 - 00;23;54;08
Onjale Scott Price
But that's not true.

00;23;54;10 - 00;24;15;24
Rev. Will Mebane
Not that I wasn't that long ago. So, Yeah. And, so those have been my, personal experiences and where I've seen, racism, in the arts. Have you had any experiences like that? And you have you dabbled in the arts at all?

00;24;15;27 - 00;24;41;04
Onjale Scott Price
Definitely dabbled. I did tap dance as a kid, and I did piano, but I had a really bad habit of, quitting something to try something else. So I did piano that. I quit that to play basketball. Quit that. To play drums, quit that. To do something else. I, I mentioned on another show is that I went to a lot of different schools growing up, switched schools every year from second grade to 10th grade and didn't move.

00;24;41;04 - 00;25;03;02
Onjale Scott Price
But just switched schools every year. So it's really hard for me to remember specifics, but I know that I was never really involved in anything in school arts related because I was always switching schools. I just knew there was no point in me being super active in something, because the next year I was probably going to leave until I got to high school and and I played basketball in high school, and I wasn't good.

00;25;03;02 - 00;25;14;00
Onjale Scott Price
So, you know, but nobody pushed me to the arts. Nobody said like, oh, you're not good at athletics. Maybe try something. Arts. They were just like, oh, well, you suck in basketball. I don't know what to tell you.

00;25;14;02 - 00;25;16;17
Rev. Will Mebane
So become a scientist instead. Just be a scientist, maybe.

00;25;16;22 - 00;25;41;21
Onjale Scott Price
Well, actually, actually, when I told my physics professor I wanted to be an engineer, he was like, do you really think you could do that? We should probably do a whole show on that. That's another show. Definitely. That's a whole nother show anyway. Right. But I think he wanted to say something. I wanted to say is the, as an art teacher, the first thing I wanted to do was make sure that students knew that they were black artists.

00;25;41;23 - 00;26;00;05
Robin Joyce Miller
You know? In fact. And that's what I want to do when I get to, you know, as I've been given that great position, K-2 it's a so for the arts to be on the board and to be developing these Black Lives Matter series. But when I started teaching, the first thing I did was look up African-American artist Jacob Lawrence.

00;26;00;09 - 00;26;26;15
Robin Joyce Miller
We can rattle off this Monet, Picasso, you know, Michelangelo, da Vinci, you know, just Renoir, you know, people. Can I ask some people, can you name a black, a master black artist? And people can. So I made a point to learn to teach myself about the artist, to bring them into the classroom and to make children understand not only black artists.

00;26;26;17 - 00;26;53;06
Robin Joyce Miller
But since I had the whole world in my school, it was important to teach about the Asian artists, to teach about, you know, if I had Native American, if I had, children from whatever country Mexican artist, you know, a Frida. So it was important to show because our focus in the blueprint for the Arts was to show that the every culture participates in the arts, of course, in everything in the world, but certainly the arts.

00;26;53;06 - 00;27;19;24
Robin Joyce Miller
And another thing, here's just I had to just bring this up. Been in when I heard, Waskow talk about Benin. Excuse me, but when I did my DNA, that was my number one. And I was walking around saying, okay, I'm from the kingdom of Benin to the point where my husband said, oh Lord, here we go. Because in the bathroom I have a DNA bathroom, and he calls it my dynasty of Negro ancestry bathroom, because that's what he said, DNA.

00;27;19;26 - 00;27;36;27
Robin Joyce Miller
Oh, that's obviously because I said I'm from the Kingdom of Mali and the kingdom of. And he was like, oh, here we go with her and her kingdom. So and this other thing that happened, a white man in Zion came to me the day after I found out that my highest percentage was Benin. He said, are you familiar with Benin?

00;27;36;27 - 00;28;07;20
Robin Joyce Miller
All of us. Excuse me, sir, but you looking at Benin, I found. This piece right here. Okay. This Bosco was saying something about how when they show our old art. I am so proud of Benin art. Because this metals, these metals. In the 1400s, when the Portuguese went to Nigeria, they thought that white people created because they did not know how to create these moles and these pieces.

00;28;07;24 - 00;28;32;13
Robin Joyce Miller
So they believe that white people did it. And the article I just read this week in the New York Times, these many European museums are returning it because they stole African art, even though they don't give us the credit. They we are primitive and all of that stuff. They stole this art, you know, these pieces and put them in the European museums.

00;28;32;15 - 00;28;53;11
Robin Joyce Miller
So that's a piece that I'm upset about. Also, Picasso got his whole Cubism from African sculpture. And then they have the nerve because, Romeo Bearden, the black man, they said that he got his designs, his thoughts, his, abstract art from Picasso. No, no no no no no no, it came from Africa. So there's so many racist.

00;28;53;17 - 00;29;16;22
Robin Joyce Miller
The racism goes in so many areas. You know, as we look at art, as they tell us that our African art is primitive art, yet they, it's it's it's honored in, in in secret. Okay. I'm done. I hope you're not done. But while can. Okay. But, you know, I just got to say, I had to get that out there because I am so proud.

00;29;16;24 - 00;29;44;03
Robin Joyce Miller
This room. Oh, by the way, up here. See that up there? That's some African. This is. You are looking in my Sankofa Lounge and cafe. This room is. It's got African art artifacts all over the room. Because I used to be ashamed of being a black of African descent. But that day is no more so I am here for it.

00;29;44;06 - 00;29;45;05
Onjale Scott Price
Okay.

00;29;45;07 - 00;29;47;21
Mwalim Peters
Well, I.

00;29;47;21 - 00;29;48;10
Onjale Scott Price
Am an African.

00;29;48;16 - 00;29;52;15
Rev. Will Mebane
Wally was taking us now to his, his show and tell.

00;29;52;17 - 00;30;28;24
Mwalim Peters
Yes. No, no, I was just moving away from the kitchen noises. Oh. However, I moved out of the, like my bed. All right, here we go. What I enjoyed was that it would have brought to mind was being born in 1968. You know, a mark that. Because when I look at what happened as a result of the George Floyd murder, and the sort of response to that and recognize now that's the exact same response you all had in 1968, after April 4th.

00;30;28;26 - 00;31;00;05
Mwalim Peters
It's, you know, it's a, comforting that they try to play. But being born in 1968, what happens is the concepts of black as beautiful becomes normalized because by the time you're five years old, the dashiki, the afro, the afro pick are all part of Madison Avenue. So you have a very, very different concept, and you're set up for a very different concept of how things are.

00;31;00;08 - 00;31;35;23
Mwalim Peters
And it was sort of like 1980 became that brick wall, because 1980 was the official reclamation of white supremacy in the United States. And it was a brick wall for us. So, you know, it becomes the thing of Amiri Baraka is somebody who we understand, we know about in childhood. The Wiz is on Broadway, Loft and Mitchell's Bubble, and Brown Sugar is on Broadway.

00;31;35;25 - 00;32;05;10
Mwalim Peters
The Rockefeller Foundation is pumping money into the new Federal Theater in lower Manhattan. So black theater is normalized in New York City for for all of us. So that so, so black arts, you have the Schomburg, which becomes key to our experience as young black artists. You have the Barry Harris Jazz Cultural Theater, the Blue Note, all of which are very openly celebrating the black connection of art.

00;32;05;10 - 00;32;32;06
Mwalim Peters
You have, you know, the New Rican Poets Cafe, which is now even acknowledging that, yeah, most of you Puerto Ricans are Spanish speaking African people. You know, a very interesting artistic acknowledgment. So that becomes that becomes a sort of intentionality point for us. So, black art for us is normalized within discovering we're the last generation of that.

00;32;32;06 - 00;33;23;14
Mwalim Peters
In many ways. And you see it reflected in the fact that the people born between 1964 and 1973, we bring that to college. That's why hip hop as Public Enemy, an exclusion, because we were the children listening to Stokely Carmichael and to, Bobby Seale. Again, what they had to say was, you know, a normalized part of our childhood, but then you but, you know, with, with that sort of indoctrination, it becomes an interesting thing because I remember, I was part of a theater, still part of a theater company in Boston called New African Company, which is actually New England's oldest continuous professional black, started 1968.

00;33;23;17 - 00;33;47;01
Mwalim Peters
It's actually, it's actually one week older than I, and it was started by one of the black arts, by Black Arts Movement pioneers, James, the late James for who was a part of the Black Arts movement, theater movement in New York City in the 60s and was a professor at Boston University. He was one of the founders of New African Company.

00;33;47;01 - 00;34;17;16
Mwalim Peters
So you had new African companies. And, you know, we had this indoctrination. The African company basically was the training place for virtually every black theater artist. Between 1968 and probably 1990, if they were doing theater pass through the African company at some point of their training. So you have this. And then when I come back to the Cape, after graduate school in 93, I'm like, okay, cool, I'll audition for theater.

00;34;17;18 - 00;34;37;12
Mwalim Peters
So I go to one theater company. I won't say the name, but they're in Falmouth. They let me audition and then they tell me, that was great. And we're thinking of doing 12 Angry Men, or maybe To Kill a mockingbird and think you'd be great in that. And if we do it, we'll give you a call. By the way, they still haven't done either of those shows.

00;34;37;14 - 00;34;55;15
Mwalim Peters
So I go audition for another theater company, and, I want to give you their name, but they're located in Barnstable, and they were doing Brigadoon, and, they stopped me in the lobby at the audition.

00;34;55;17 - 00;34;57;09
Rev. Will Mebane
For Brigadoon.

00;34;57;11 - 00;35;19;05
Mwalim Peters
And, ironically, I do have I even have Scottish ancestry. But we won't go into that. But anyway, with this experience, you had a number of black artists, actors, dancers, etc. on the Cape who had this experience. And you had, one little project called the, Black Theater Ensemble that had started out of Cape Cod Community College, and they were doing different things.

00;35;19;05 - 00;35;48;19
Mwalim Peters
But in terms of any kind of like continuous or open activity, there was nothing there. So we ended up forming a company called Oversoul Theater Collective, which became the first, professional black and native theater and arts organization on Cape that. And we started doing theater, and it was interesting to see the sort of pushback, because what the, story became was, oh, well, you're presenting black theater.

00;35;48;22 - 00;36;14;29
Mwalim Peters
That's racist, because why can't you include and not recognizing, you guys already do Shakespeare. You already do, O'Neill. You already do that. But you don't do Baraka. You don't do Boone's. You don't do Wilson. You don't. You know, you don't do you don't do Hansberry. And y'all like her. You don't even do Hansberry. You know, you don't.

00;36;14;29 - 00;36;39;17
Mwalim Peters
You don't. You don't even want to do the middle of the road stuff, let alone the hardcore stuff. And it was interesting to see the pushback was because we wanted to do the art that was before. And about us. The pushback from the white companies were, oh, you're you're separating yourselves and not realizing. And of course, then, what the, the gaslighting becomes is what we don't produce black theater.

00;36;39;17 - 00;36;57;11
Mwalim Peters
And it was always a question of the quality of the work. We don't produce it because the message isn't universal. So, you know, that was the theater experience. Now let me switch hats for my musicians. So.

00;36;57;13 - 00;37;13;01
Mwalim Peters
When you had black and brown owned venues, black and brown musicians on Cape Cod had some place to play regularly, where I could say nonpolitical.

00;37;13;03 - 00;37;49;26
Mwalim Peters
When all of those venues were forced out of business. Anytime you see a black LED or primarily black or brown music ensemble performed at any of the venues on the Cape, it's a political experience. It can't simply be we hire, you know, it can't simply be. For example, we hired the rural Adams. It has to somehow be connected to some, demonstration of how progressive they are.

00;37;49;28 - 00;38;10;27
Mwalim Peters
That they hired, you know, they hired all black and brown band, you know, or and, you know, the, interesting thing that we see, if you want the music organizations on Cape Cod to deal with black or brown people, they either need to be famous or did.

00;38;10;29 - 00;38;27;28
Robin Joyce Miller
Can I say I just say I'm going to make sure, because Cotuit Center for the Arts has me in there. So I will be looking to see, you know, what, when we have parties or different events, I'll be looking for you and your.

00;38;28;01 - 00;38;32;26
Mwalim Peters
That's one that's. Thank you very much. Because the only reason. Now, here's a very funny thing.

00;38;33;02 - 00;38;36;02
Robin Joyce Miller
I will really make connections.

00;38;36;05 - 00;38;47;08
Mwalim Peters
That I definitely agree that I definitely appreciate this. You know, the only reason the group a lot of us got in there was because of the, the heritage Museum, as you know, for example.

00;38;47;10 - 00;38;48;11
Onjale Scott Price
Right, right.

00;38;48;11 - 00;38;49;20
Mwalim Peters
You know,

00;38;49;23 - 00;39;13;21
Robin Joyce Miller
But they they called me for this. So I'm going to I want to I'm doing it for a purpose. It's not about me. It's about bringing in. And they are looking. See, they asked me, they said it's time for. And this might be part of question number two. So I don't know if I should be talking. Let's say this, this might be a really good transition to our question to is how can we address racism through art?

00;39;13;21 - 00;39;30;02
Onjale Scott Price
So let's quickly go to our people on the street, see what they have to say about how we can address racism to the art, and then we'll come back to our panel. I'm really looking forward to see what you guys have to say about that.

00;39;30;04 - 00;40;22;27
Vasco Pires
I use my, to express how I feel about life, what it means to be a human being. What is it that, What is culture? You know, so my art reflects my culture, my, reflects, some of the difficulties that my culture has. And so I'll have things that kind of express a, a feeling of, not so much rage, but, a feeling of disappointment that another human being would treat another human being in such a way because we're all the same.

00;40;22;27 - 00;40;34;01
Vasco Pires
We're all, created equal. You know, we're human beings. And, so I try to express that in my work.

00;40;34;04 - 00;41;03;16
Zyg Peters
Well, it's always important for people to see someone who's like themselves, especially, you know, like I said, you know, the brown kids because seeing a brown person in any kind of art, whether it be, you know, a brown person making music, writing music, or even like in film and television and seeing that is just going to make all of the other brown kids around the world be like, that could be me one day.

00;41;03;19 - 00;41;20;20
Zyg Peters
We need that. That is a good thing to have. All right. Yeah. We you know, we can't we can't forget that's a good thing to have. And and also we just have to remember there's also the difference between actual representation and let's say like tokenism.

00;41;20;22 - 00;41;37;06
Onjale Scott Price
All right. So back to our lively conversation. How can we address racism through art. And Robin, I think you were getting ready to say something before we broke, but I want to make sure that at some point we definitely, comment on Morgan's comments about seeing yourself reflected in the art, which we talked about a little bit, but go ahead, Robin.

00;41;37;13 - 00;42;06;25
Robin Joyce Miller
Okay. First of all, how do we make changes? I'll tell you, New York City has made some changes, because that's definitely because when they came up with the blueprint for the arts, what they realized the Annenberg family put millions, billions of dollars into the system for the arts because they realized that in this urban community of New York and New York is a Mecca for the arts, the, the actors and the performers were not coming from the New York City schools.

00;42;06;28 - 00;42;31;11
Robin Joyce Miller
That's why they started training new York City's students in the arts, because they said they need to be patrons of the arts. They need to be the artists. They can be the dancers, the performers. So that's what that fueled the whole. And of the arts. And so and in the curriculum, they put, they really, made a multicultural study.

00;42;31;11 - 00;42;57;07
Robin Joyce Miller
So now Faith Ringgold, Jacob Lawrence, different people were written into the curriculum so that it changed. So I saw that change there. Cape Cod is a really small community, and we've got to help Cape Cod grow in this way. That's why you're doing the show. That's why they, you know, when when the when the George Floyd like event, death murder happened.

00;42;57;12 - 00;43;23;13
Robin Joyce Miller
That's how that's when your show got started. That's when for two it asked me to come because they said it's time for white people to hear black stories and to listen. So that's what we're doing. And that's a beginning. And this exactly touches on what Morgan said. Seeing yourself reflected in in the art, seeing yourself reflected in the media and what that could really mean to people and especially to young people.

00;43;23;20 - 00;43;25;20
Onjale Scott Price
Yeah. Go ahead, Wally.

00;43;25;23 - 00;43;28;27
Mwalim Peters
Oh, what is going to oh, slight correction.

00;43;28;28 - 00;43;31;28
Onjale Scott Price
These I'm sorry. So again.

00;43;32;04 - 00;43;34;28
Mwalim Peters
He got tagged as Morgan, but he's zig zag.

00;43;35;00 - 00;43;39;08
Onjale Scott Price
Oh zig is that that is root his full name or his nickname?

00;43;39;11 - 00;43;44;11
Mwalim Peters
Zig is the name that he really he though he's known by more so,

00;43;44;14 - 00;43;49;00
Onjale Scott Price
I have a nephew named Ziggy, so that's pretty cool. His name is NASA, but Ziggy is what we call them, so.

00;43;49;03 - 00;43;56;23
Mwalim Peters
Okay. Yeah, yeah, we call them, but we we've been calling Ziggy since he was born, but Ziggy is the more, I guess, a mature version of him.

00;43;56;26 - 00;43;59;23
Onjale Scott Price
Okay. Is it all right? Okay.

00;43;59;24 - 00;44;01;23
Mwalim Peters
That's cool. But,

00;44;01;25 - 00;44;03;04
Rev. Will Mebane
But, yeah.

00;44;03;07 - 00;44;31;27
Mwalim Peters
Can only guess for Morgan when he's Morgan or Junior if he's in trouble. But other than that, none of us know he hasn't been in that much trouble. So, But no, but, one of the, one of the things that we started doing, and it was sort of like making Covid a, unworkable thing. The we ended up opening Polyphonic Studio during the pandemic shutdown because things were already kind of rolling.

00;44;32;00 - 00;45;10;25
Mwalim Peters
And since pretty much all the musicians involved, we were all around each other anyway, a bunch of them live at my house. Anyhow, what we found was we just thought we have. Okay, we're musicians, we have a studio, so we start making music. And what we began recognizing and look, you know, one of the things I looked at actually goes back to 1990, when I went to England and realized how racist the music genre structure is in the United States, and and researching music genre structure and finding out that, okay, the pop chart means white middle class, urban and that's what it's always meant.

00;45;10;27 - 00;45;37;05
Mwalim Peters
And then you had poor white rule, which was initially called the Hillbilly Chart, but eventually the country chart and now the Americana chart. And then you had the Negro chart, which then became R&B chart, which became the soul chart, which became the urban chart, which is now back to being the R&B soul slash urban. So now they have all the names, you know, put in there and, you know, realized how racially divided the concepts of music in the United States are.

00;45;37;05 - 00;46;13;18
Mwalim Peters
And of course, then going to Europe, where you have a pop chart and it's, you know, so, so like Aerosmith and Public Enemy, you know, excellent. And, Ricky Martin, everybody's all on the same list based on people like their music or not. And what we began to also look at was the fact that you have, when you look at the Cape Cod scene, you have black jazz, blues, soul players, R&B players, you know, folk players, you know, Gabriela Simkin, someone I think it was like a folk jazz guitarist, vocalist, comes to mind.

00;46;13;18 - 00;46;42;08
Mwalim Peters
You have Afropunk, you know, people like, shadow minister out of New Bedford, Tony Mendoza, and, Mexican-American, metal singer. And we begin to look at black and brown people making music outside of the expected job, and we start saying, so now what? Don't we all just start banding together? And ended up sort of creating a, movement, if you will call the South Pole stomp and soul movement.

00;46;42;10 - 00;47;07;06
Mwalim Peters
And, and it's a cross genre movement of black and brown artists. And what we started doing was supporting each other. We started putting out music every single month on, you know, on streaming services. And we've been, sending it out to people, sending out the links to people. We created a Spotify playlist that now has about 3500 followers, worldwide.

00;47;07;09 - 00;47;50;23
Mwalim Peters
And every month we're putting these black artists, native artists, Latina artists, etc. out and supporting the music and supporting the plays. And, you know, people are getting plays, people are getting spins, people are getting feedback. And so I said, hip hop, house music, so rock. And, that's one of the way, you know, when it comes down to re adapting, if you will, some of the initial principles that Marcus Garvey laid out in terms of self-determination, economic and social self-determination, these are some of the steps that we can take when we start to curate and support our own motion, our own movement.

00;47;50;26 - 00;48;18;11
Mwalim Peters
You know, the blueprints were there, but in a in a very different fashion. For example, you have people like Berry Gordy where his goal was to sort of break the barrier, down to even calling, you know, the, the slogan for Motown was the sound of young America, not young black America. The sound of young America. And, even having to do compromises like putting out album covers that didn't have photos on them, that instead have artwork so that you could sell them, sell.

00;48;18;13 - 00;48;38;00
Mwalim Peters
And, you know, things of that nature. But you look at that blueprint and it's like, okay, now let's take it a step further. What if it's like, all right, you're going to be the sound we're going to wear the sound of the South Coast. We want you here coming out of people's car stereos, wearing what people are actually listening to and hear that music.

00;48;38;00 - 00;48;57;04
Mwalim Peters
And then, of course, it also gets around the whole issue of, all right, the venues that don't want to hire us, we create our own venues. In 2017, when when we came in, we Will Adams came out with an album. What we decided to do to support that album was we actually went and bought a generator and started playing out in the streets.

00;48;57;04 - 00;49;16;03
Mwalim Peters
We started playing outside in Provincetown and PA, which we went to Boston, we went to New York City, we went to Worcester, we went all over and we would just set up and have a gorilla performance. And you know, what we would do is research the town laws in regard to free speech. And free speech was, yes, you can perform out in the streets, you know, go out there and perform on the street.

00;49;16;03 - 00;49;36;19
Mwalim Peters
And that was how we built a following, and that was how we got Grammy nominations, and that was how we got noticed by people who've been nominated for a Grammy, you know? So it was sort of like this became a control, you know, our own control over the venue. And of course, the fun thing was playing in Provincetown and realizing in a shorter amount of time you made more money playing on the street than you did playing in any of the bars in Provincetown.

00;49;36;19 - 00;50;03;11
Mwalim Peters
So, you know, little things like that. But when it becomes not just artistic self-determination, but when you tied into economic self-determination and when you tied in the curatorial self-determination, that's why venues like the Zion Union Heritage Museum are so important, because that is our venue. The inroads that Robin has made into the Detroit Center for the Arts, so that now the vision of its original founder is is being revisited.

00;50;03;11 - 00;50;28;19
Mwalim Peters
It's being, you know, forcibly revisited. That's the kind of thing that needs to happen, you know, because when I talk about the shutdown of our venues, the disappearance, you know, the unfortunate closing of Joe's twin village, the closing of the Mill Hill Club, the closing of what used to be the Kasbah slash Founders Lounge up in Yarmouth, all of these different venues that work with, black artists, black performers that are now gone.

00;50;28;21 - 00;50;44;11
Mwalim Peters
It now becomes a matter of we need to curate our own because we're not going to be let in. We're not going to be letting it go if we get in it, because we kick the door in, you know, it's like, James Brown said, I don't need you to give me nothing. Just open the door and I'll get it myself.

00;50;44;13 - 00;51;08;02
Mwalim Peters
It's still that way. So you know that that's what it has to be artistically, but it has to be, as artists. One thing that hasn't changed, Roland Hayes performed at Symphony Hall because Roland Hayes rented out Symphony Hall for some. And we, you know, we need to go back to that. We need, you know, we need to recognize that we need we can't just be the artists.

00;51;08;02 - 00;51;10;08
Mwalim Peters
We have to be the curator as well.

00;51;10;10 - 00;51;29;10
Robin Joyce Miller
God bless the child who has his own, you know. So yeah. Yeah. So we do have to we do have to own it. We do have to take some ownership and start some stuff. But I do believe I do have faith that, there's some openings that can happen and we have to I have to have that faith.

00;51;29;10 - 00;51;53;23
Robin Joyce Miller
I have to believe that. And, we have to keep trying and doing. But we do need to be take, we need to take, we need to be able to own their own and to to control the control. I mean, that's why so many black producers and directors, people look at, Tyler Perry, Tyler Perry said when they did not bring him.

00;51;54;00 - 00;52;16;27
Robin Joyce Miller
I just heard this from Sicily. When? When they don't, give you a seat at the table, bring your own folding chair. You know, your old chair. And instead of him bringing a chair, he set up his own table, like the whole company. And on the plantation. On a southern plantation. You know, his whole corporation and and his, building.

00;52;16;27 - 00;52;22;01
Robin Joyce Miller
So we have to do that. We have to take charge. And that's what.

00;52;22;04 - 00;52;42;29
Mwalim Peters
This is why we launched the South Coast on this. So because it's us putting our music out, controlling our marketing, controlling our music, and it becomes also, one of the lessons because zig is one of our artists, as my son, one of the things basically teaching him, okay, you want to be a producer, you want to be an artist.

00;52;42;29 - 00;53;06;04
Mwalim Peters
That's great. You want to get signed, tell you what, it's a lot better to go to a label with you having being your own label with actual numbers to show your sales and to show your marketing and to show, you know, you're coming in now with firepower as opposed to somebody who's just saying, I got a dope tape, hook me up, you know, know when you're coming in, you know, these are my marketing figures.

00;53;06;04 - 00;53;23;03
Mwalim Peters
These are my sales. These are my streams for the last, you know, however many months this is how many songs I put out. And this is what each song has done, you know, and you, and you're basically doing it on a shoestring budget. Imagine if you put real money behind it. That's giving, that's firepower. That's what it is.

00;53;23;03 - 00;53;50;18
Mwalim Peters
When it's our own. When we approach Cotuit Center for the Arts, for example, as an individual artist, that's power. When we approach them as our own organization. Simply trying to work with them as a venue or as a collaborator, that's a whole, you know, that's a whole different way. And that's that's how we need to. That's how we need to prep ourselves.

00;53;50;21 - 00;54;04;16
Rev. Will Mebane
Yeah. I'm thinking about how we can, create some of those venues that aren't around anymore because you're talking about, while you're talking about the South Coast group. I think that that.

00;54;04;17 - 00;54;05;25
Mwalim Peters
South Coast,

00;54;05;28 - 00;54;29;24
Rev. Will Mebane
Concert consists of, a whole diverse use, that word, so a diverse offerings there. I mean, maybe we ought to, do a whole weekend or whole month or something of, of, bringing those groups together and letting them do their thing. And, you know, Rob has got that inside now at Cotuit. So maybe we do it at Cotuit, or maybe we do it.

00;54;29;24 - 00;54;31;14
Onjale Scott Price
They can do it.

00;54;31;16 - 00;54;33;15
Mwalim Peters
Yeah, we we.

00;54;33;17 - 00;54;36;16
Rev. Will Mebane
We remember I said that do it and.

00;54;36;16 - 00;54;39;24
Mwalim Peters
Continue to do it. And I feel like that's their line.

00;54;39;26 - 00;54;45;27
Robin Joyce Miller
We might not know that. Yes. No, you didn't pick it up. We got t shirts that say do it. I could do it.

00;54;45;28 - 00;54;47;19
Mwalim Peters
Okay, I like that I can go.

00;54;47;19 - 00;54;48;20
Robin Joyce Miller
Late on that.

00;54;48;22 - 00;55;25;01
Mwalim Peters
Oh, you love that. Okay. My but what I, what I was going to say was what we've started doing is, we've had like, for example, if you go to the Polyphonic studios.com website, you'll see a link for the truly Cape Cod Jazz Fest. One of the first things we did, and it was because of Covid. We got a bunch of jazz artists from all over the country to video themselves performing, and we cut it together into episodes, and we got an actor from, but longtime collaborator mine, actor from Boston named him Garcia to be our host.

00;55;25;03 - 00;55;35;26
Mwalim Peters
And we have it up on YouTube and all you can do, you can click it and you can see some of the, you know, great jazz artists and the reason why we did the truly Cape Cod Jazz Fest. These are folks you never see on Cape Cod.

00;55;35;29 - 00;55;37;00
Onjale Scott Price

00;55;37;03 - 00;55;38;14
Mwalim Peters
Who are now who are now.

00;55;38;14 - 00;55;40;00
Onjale Scott Price
Social media hashtag.

00;55;40;00 - 00;56;04;27
Mwalim Peters
Linked to Cape Cod permanently. But and you know, but it's, it's that type of thing because one of the things in my research that I uncovered was there was a northern Chitlin circuit, you see, once you got north of New York, you were back down south. You. So there were those pockets and venues that you knew.

00;56;04;29 - 00;56;27;16
Mwalim Peters
I can play this place in Connecticut. I can play here in Providence. I can play here in New Bedford. And then back in the day, there are these places I can play on Cape Cod before I go up to Boston. And after Boston, I'd go out to Springfield and back down to Hartford. That was the northern, I call it the City Chitlin Circuit, but that was the northern leg of the of that circuit.

00;56;27;19 - 00;56;45;26
Mwalim Peters
And, you know, and a lot of it still exists because, you know, artists or bands that we know from the 70s, like the Tavares family, for example, they were part of that circuit. LTB and Jeffrey Osborne, you know, grew out of that circuit. So so that circuit, you know, was a very, very relevant circuit. That circuit, in fact, still existed.

00;56;46;01 - 00;57;10;17
Mwalim Peters
That was the circuit. New addition, cut their teeth, before going, you know, before going national back in the candy girl days. So, you know, you know, these situations existed, but, you know, the truly Cape Cod Jazz Fest was, was basically sort of like trying to revisit Cape Cod's role in that circuit, if you will. And like I said, it's on the you go to the website, click the link watching some great performances on there.

00;57;10;19 - 00;57;39;24
Mwalim Peters
And you know, we're going to try to do it live. But the other thing is what we've been doing are bits and pieces all the all over the place. So, so the center for the Arts would be a great place to do it. We did it back in, may in, when we were reflecting upon the murder of George Floyd, the event that took place, the away with words event that took place in the, Hyannis village green, that was a South Coast, the music that took place there was part of the South Coast.

00;57;39;26 - 00;57;55;00
Mwalim Peters
When we do the Lopes Square shows during the summer, that's going to be South Coast. That's the groove. A lot of that's going to be the punk, the funk, the hip hop and so forth, just spontaneously happening. So it seemed out in the streets of Provincetown. So the thing is, you know, we're moving it around, definitely.

00;57;55;00 - 00;57;58;23
Mwalim Peters
But whatever venue we can hit it with, that's what we're trying to do.

00;57;58;25 - 00;58;29;18
Rev. Will Mebane
So give us the give us the, the, the, website address against polyphonic polyphonic studios. The videos.com.com. All right. Cool. Very good. Now so we've got to draw this to, to a close in a few minutes. But I wanted to because you're both educators, Robin and Wally, this is a question that I was holding in response to, you know, what do we do to address racism in the arts?

00;58;29;22 - 00;58;59;01
Rev. Will Mebane
Right. So you're both educators, my guess is that there ought to be some things within our institutionalized educational systems. Right. That can begin to address this. I love what Robin was saying earlier about how quickly we can name off Matisse, Renoir and Monet, etc., etc. we can't do that with black artists. So we gotta start teaching, right?

00;58;59;03 - 00;59;05;00
Rev. Will Mebane
Yeah, those those artists. But but give me, each of you give me your thoughts. We'll start with you first. Robin. Give me your your thoughts.

00;59;05;03 - 00;59;35;02
Robin Joyce Miller
So my thoughts are that one. Okay. I have a Black Lives Matter series. Could do it. I'm thinking about and that's that's slideshow. So I, I'm thinking about doing some for children where I do Mrs. Miller's classroom, and I teach about some of the African-American artists through slides for children. But I'm also I met up with someone in the park who is white, and she's a lawyer, and her husband put them on working, trying to work with the school system.

00;59;35;02 - 01;00;03;24
Robin Joyce Miller
Here she writes grants. So these are the kinds of things. And she connected me to the black principal here at, in, Marstons Mills of the elementary school. So they want me to do, like, a curriculum development. So I might even when I was a, a facilitator, one of the things I did was look at the school curriculum and bring the arts into that and figure out how to work the arts into the curriculum and teach so well.

01;00;03;24 - 01;00;27;06
Robin Joyce Miller
In New York, when we were teaching New York City, I was working on the Harlem Renaissance story in there. So these are the kinds of things that can be done. We need to get connected to the schools, do things with the schools. I'm going to do what I can at Cotuit Center for the Arts and then bring get schools or children and people to come there and start paying attention to, you know what?

01;00;27;06 - 01;00;44;04
Robin Joyce Miller
What you know, I'm going to try and develop my own kind of thing. So I'm just a hands on, I'm going to do this like, you know, that's what we that's a start because people are coming to me saying things once you get started and you get out there. I have people then saying, hey, what about this?

01;00;44;04 - 01;01;06;22
Robin Joyce Miller
Or or what about that? So the more you have a voice, the more, you come on. Shows like this, you get known, people see you, they ask questions and opportunities arise. And I'm always prayerful that, I always work within the spirit and believe that my faith is going to bring stuff to me.

01;01;06;24 - 01;01;10;05
Rev. Will Mebane
So, you know, you, you know, you sing in my song now that's.

01;01;10;06 - 01;01;31;27
Robin Joyce Miller
Like, oh, we said that too, since we felt the spirit. And so I'm always believing for me. I feel that God brought me here. He connected me to a church here. And oh, by the way, I just got to tell you this. Speaking of art and and racism, I got my white church to take down white Jesus and they put a black Jesus in the church.

01;01;32;00 - 01;01;56;07
Robin Joyce Miller
And so so I'm just letting you know. So I almost did I almost was ready to leave the church and go, okay, like Jamar, my work here is done. Time to move on to another white church. But no, I love my church and in fact we're going to be doing something this Sunday. We're doing a Langston Hughes poem that's about race, and that church has really been there at one point, West Parish of Barnstable.

01;01;56;14 - 01;02;01;11
Robin Joyce Miller
I love my church. And, you know, I had to put that plug in there.

01;02;01;15 - 01;02;06;18
Rev. Will Mebane
Yeah. You don't I'll say too much more because you're going to be taking people from my church. Come in the other.

01;02;06;20 - 01;02;14;06
Robin Joyce Miller
Side now, but they're all the way in Falmouth. So all of the people close here, you know, this is in states in Barnstable.

01;02;14;09 - 01;02;15;07
Mwalim Peters
So anyway.

01;02;15;07 - 01;02;26;14
Rev. Will Mebane
Bonnie, let let's hear what you how how we can, what the education system can do, what can happen within education to change this racism in arts.

01;02;26;17 - 01;03;02;12
Mwalim Peters
Okay. Well, first I should say I grew up in Saint Joseph's Episcopal Church and didn't realize that the Episcopal Church was not entirely West Indian until I went to see Saint John the Divine's, because I thought, you know, my mother's family comes from Barbados, which is an Episcopal island. So suddenly discovering the white people in this church, we when but that aside, in education, one of the things that I've started doing is dealing with the specific I don't use the term racism.

01;03;02;12 - 01;03;23;25
Mwalim Peters
I talk about white supremacy straight up, because, racism leaves much room for equivocation around, you know, oh, well, everybody's racist and they have to talk about the definition of racism as opposed to race prejudice and that kind of thing. So what I do is cut right to the chase. The problem in this country is white supremacy and address it exactly as such.

01;03;23;28 - 01;03;49;20
Mwalim Peters
In terms of teaching the arts, a lot of it is, some of it is around the content. You know, I realize, I'm getting students who've been through 12 to 14, 15 years of education and never had a black man standing. If they had been teaching a class. The sort of like obstacles you have to overcome with that with each class that you have to understand.

01;03;49;27 - 01;04;11;11
Mwalim Peters
Yes, I'm funny, but I'm not a comedian. I'm dead serious about my time. I'm funny because I'm comfortable with the topic now. I have expectations. A lot of them feel a certain way when they find out that they weren't. Number one is going to be judged by a black man, and the black man is not. They're saying, oh, it's perfect, but instead is actually critiquing about it.

01;04;11;11 - 01;04;30;26
Mwalim Peters
It's interesting to see the reactions to that. So a lot of the indoctrination for them is even just the experience of having me as their teacher for a creative work or a creative process. Well, a lot of it is also just in terms of the materials that they're introduced to. In terms of what what gets worked into the curriculum.

01;04;30;28 - 01;04;58;10
Mwalim Peters
And, it's I would say in terms of the dynamics, especially as an artist or as a teaching artist, it has to be a very holistic approach. You can't do it. What was it? I've been sort of means to say passion is voice of an academic. When we're teaching about ourselves, we can't do it in the fashion is voice of an academic because it's too real.

01;04;58;13 - 01;05;31;00
Mwalim Peters
I mean, that was and I was hearing those words from doctor sort sermon 1989 and 19, but, and just sort of observing and realize that as a teaching artist, it's very holistic because who you are becomes part of what you teach, what your experiences, become part of, you know, on a part of your collective unconscious, to borrow from you and therefore becomes part of the experience, becomes part of the classroom experience for your students.

01;05;31;02 - 01;05;44;08
Mwalim Peters
And oftentimes that is the big resistance that students have when encountering a black or brown teacher. But that's also part of our struggle and part of our challenge in that role.

01;05;44;10 - 01;05;52;13
Onjale Scott Price
Be more black teachers. Yes, absolutely. Any last thoughts?

01;05;52;16 - 01;06;12;04
Rev. Will Mebane
I'm going to toss it to you with, I'm full, I feel rich. I've I've learned I've been, Yeah. I'm babbling. It's, Thank you both. White supremacy. Not racism. White supremacy. Not racism. That's, I'm taking that with me, too, so. Thank you.

01;06;12;07 - 01;06;44;22
Onjale Scott Price
Yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you both for this incredible conversations. Colleen. Good to see you and see you as well. And we want to say a special thank you to Dave and Alan at Qatv for continuing to produce this show with us. And until next time, thank you all for being here today and see you soon. Family.

01;06;44;24 - 01;06;49;15
Onjale Scott Price

01;06;49;17 - 01;06;49;27
Onjale Scott Price