photo by Jamal Williams
Video of “Strong Light documentary” panel by Jamal Williams.
ART & POLITICS
What historically is the relationship between Black Arts and community engagement/activism?
During the height of the Black Arts Movement (1965-1976) every individual who was actively involved in both social movements and the arts so no separation between the two activities. You walked a picket line, you danced in an African drum&dance troupe; you did voter registration work, you drew murals and made posters; you organized rallies and demonstrations, you wrote poems of rage against the system and encouragement for resistance. Art and activism were right and left hands on the body of black struggles for self-respect, self-defense and self-determination.
There was no dichotomy, no clash, no choice one or the other, for in truth art and politics are never at odds in and of themselves. What is at odds are the goals and objectives of each, the ways in which we make, disseminate, employ, consume and/or use art. Neither the artist nor the politician is inherently good or bad, neither one is necessarily socially consciousness, or for that matter neither one is inherently career oriented, money-hungry, attention seeking or narcissistic; each one can be socially conscious, committed to making the world better and more beautiful.
And what each artist decides, what each individual must choose for her self, for him self is quite simply do I want to help others or do I want to simply serve my own interests. What will I do that will make the place where I live, struggle, work and play a better and more beautiful place, a place where children can grow and develop, where love can flourish, where we have support networks and social safety nets to insure that each and every individual, both child and adult, is loved and cared for.
How does my art, how does my activism make this world better and more beautiful. Each of us must answer that question, and in answering that question we define the relationship between arts and activism. During periods of social movement, the answer is obvious; during periods of repression, resistance is the identifying characteristic. Too often our major problem is that we don’t specifically know what our problems are?
If you don’t know what’s wrong, you see no need to suggest what’s the right thing to do. Historically, to be black has meant to be at odds with the status quo, to constantly engage the present in a struggle to create a better future. Historically we have defined truth and beauty in terms of the examples of our ancestor men and women who gave us the opportunities we enjoy today. Truth and beauty should not be abstractions but rather the everyday example of how we living in the here and now; truth and beauty must be measured by the future realities of our people as a whole and not just the televised example of specific individuals living large while the masses suffer. In the final analysis, first, last and always, the goal must be to improve relationships, to be better and more beautiful.
Who we are and how we live is the measure of art and politics.
What does it profit a person to gain a fortune but have a fucked up family life? What does it matter if we have big mansions and fast cars if we don’t have safe streets and prosperous communities. There is no real art, no real activism without a struggle to create and maintain truthful and beautiful relationships.
What are the roots of Arts & Activism in the city of New Orleans?
Other places have soup, we got gumbo. Other places waltz, we bounce. Other places march, we secondline. The roots of arts & activism in New Orleans is the black, i.e. the African impetus to always, always, in any and every way possible to make life pretty, to make the food good, to whistle while we work, and make love every chance we get, indeed to make every minute we live an act of love, hence the way we walk, the way we talk, the way we do what we do and be down here in the big E-asy. We are the root and the foundation, everything else is an addition or an extension.
—kalamu ya salaam