This Week As an Artivist 3/19/16: #blackradicalimagination, dark eye circles, Hollywood fear


TRANSCRIPT:

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Hey what’s up Artivists! How are you all doing? So I’m curious
what happens to you…so you know Youtube

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makes suggested videos and I love how Youtube keeps suggesting this effing video on “How

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to correct dark circles under your eyes”
and this is crazy because it’s not like

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I have keywords of dark circles there
anything else. It’s literally like the

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videos reading that I have dark circles
and look I am SO not about shaming

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folks for appearance. And I’m cool. My dark circles – first of all are genetic – so I

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wouldn’t take them away. They come from
my family and I love my family. And

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second of all a lot of times they have
to do with the fact that I’m utterly

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exhausted – and I’m cool with that because
I work really hard and that’s a sign of my hard

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work. So anyway: just don’t let those
freaking recommended videos shame you in

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any way. I guess I wanna say that. Yeah
they have NOTHING to do with

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you. They have to do with an aesthetic
that people have come to believe is

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beautiful, and it’s bullshit. Utter bullshit. OK so this week so I went and met

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with the president of Pearl Street Films
who I’ll be working closely with, as we

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work out what my job entails, and that was really good…

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however, things are moving slowly with
the job and…they’re moving slowly

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because there’s a lot of fear about what
I’m doing and

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and I think also about how to present it
to the public. And it’s so ironic. The

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fear of announcing and sharing
with the public that we are taking

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measures to try to make more equity in
the entertainment industry – that that’s a

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scary thing to talk about. And I
understand there’s fear about miss-

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reading the intentions, and it’s just…
look if you’re doing something good and

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people question your intentions, then
just keep doing the good. That’s all

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you can do is keep doing the good – and certainly reflect and make sure that

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you are actually doing the things that
you want to do, making the positive

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improvements you want to make. And if you are, keep doing it and don’t worry about

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people questioning your intentions. But anyway that’s been really interesting

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and…no…no…it hasn’t been interesting.
That’s been really frustrating and

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I’ll continue to share updates about it
and hopefully it’ll get better. So I

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talked about the Nina Simone film
starring Zoe Saldana couple weeks

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ago and I just wanna tell you about – if
you haven’t read it –

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Ta-nahisi Coates wrote a beautiful piece
about it and I really like that he

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talks about growing up as a
young kid and the perceptions that

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we have around dark skin, around
particular features – those features that

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Nina Simone herself had – and how she
amazingly overcame that to be this

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powerful woman who believes in herself.
And that WE are to blame for holding – it’s

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similar to what I was talking about with the dark circles – we are to blame for

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holding onto this perspective of what
beauty is and we don’t need to be

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perpetuating that. So anyway I’m putting a
link to his article about it. It was

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beautiful. I posted a new one-drop rule
video, “How I learned about the one-drop

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rule” by my good friend Rudy Guevarra.
I’m so proud to have him

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him as part of the series and I love his
response. He identifies as Mexipino

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which…I don’t have a lot of
knowledge of that culture, although I

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read his great book “Becoming Mexipino
also there’s a link to his book here,

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check it out. And please watch his video.
So: United Solo Theatre Festival! I told

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you last week that we got in, and our date
is October 13 in New York City. If we do

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well with that show, they’ll add other
shows. So I had to this week do a lot

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of work to confirm that we’ll be doing
the show. That actually took a couple

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hours to put that all together,
but it is DONE and we’re doing that show!

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I went to MOCA – the Museum of
Contemporary Art – here in Los Angeles to

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see #BlackRadicalImagination and this
is a curated – right now they’re a set of

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seven films – and I think they’re
traveling across the country and the

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films change, but it was so powerful. So
these are filmmakers who are doing what

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we might label “experimental,” Afrofuturism. And these films were great. There was

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this huge audience. The good news is
MOCA is now making the films available

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online, so I’m putting a link to that.Watch
the films – they’re fantastic and

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inspiring. Black stories, Mixed roots
stories, Latinos stories, Native stories

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do not have to be in a bubble. We
are not ONE thing. We ARE something. We

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are, we have a culture and we have
traditions, but we are not just one thing.

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And so it’s…I just love this representation of Blackness in a way

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that we don’t see in movies for certain, in
movies that are distributed widely.

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Please watch these films. OK that is it. Have a great week.

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Tell me what you’re up to. Mama Trudy: I know you’re watching these. Can you…can you interact? Just, y’know,

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tell me if you like these videos. Please
give a thumbs up. Pease subscribe,

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share the video,

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especially the one drop – “How I learned
about the one-drop rule” video and if

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you’re interested in sharing your story,
How I learned about the one-drop rule,”

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even if your response is, “I’ve never
heard about the one-drop rule” or your

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response, “I was born into the one-drop rule,” whatever it is, share it because we would love

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to share it with lots of people. Alright have a great, great, great week and I’ll talk to

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you next week. Bye Artivists!