Brave New Voices
Brave New Voices from Albuquerque, New Mexico
Last night the Chicano community lost Reies Lopez Tijerina, someone who I only know from alternative history books to have rubbed elbows with Cesar Chavez and Corky Gonzalez. As with Chicana Role Model, Michele Serros, I’m learning more about him now that he’s gone.
“Tijerina was known internationally for his research and political activism on behalf of land owners in northern New Mexico that wanted to recuperate land lost in violation of the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. His mercurial appearance on stage at the 1972 Raza Unida Party National Convention in the El Paso County Coliseum is considered a milestone in national and Texas politics, the birth of an American ethnic political party.” Dennis Bixler-Márquez, UT El Paso
This moment and an interaction with Sean JS Jordan, whose family connects to Tijerina’s work, made me think about some videos that I’ve been meaning to share with you all for over a year. They’re from Summer of 2013, when Brave New Voices was held in Chicago and I first came onboard the BNV train.
“Some people think I’m dead but the spirit of the cause still excites me… Nobody can erase my story.” – Reies Lopez Tijerina
BNV 2013 Finals: Albuquerque, NM
They may not have won medals that year but they certainly annexed my heart. The way this team carried themselves from the beginning of the competition inspired me. After the first round, shooters from the Online Crew were talking about a line in their Border poem: “The border is a color-coated revolving door that only moves in one direction”
Their poems are even more poignant now that some time’s passed. These are the four poems that they brought to the finals:
Rd1: School to Prison Pipeline
“It’s cheaper to hire guards than teachers – Put pencils in our hands so we don’t need guns”
Rd2: White Privilege
“Don’t let your inheritance be one of ignorance – We cordially invite you to join us. There’s plenty of room”
Rd3: The Border
“We are the children and grandchildren of mothers and grandmothers that managed to slip past the radar.”
Rd4: Drug Addiction
“Every penny I saved for college had been crushed and snorted – I was never a good enough reason to stop feeling the high and start feeling the pain”
These Brave New Voices spoke real truths and fought demons that many of us still can’t face today. I weep at the weight of the burdens they carry but find immense hope at how strong they are in the face of those challenges. I was back stage for this competition, collecting footage from the different crews that were in the audience.
It was an honor to watch them compete from my vantage point. When they walked off stage after bearing their souls about the pain that drug addiction is inflicting on their household and communities, I watched them collapse into each other arms and hold each other up. Neither of them had the strength to stand on their own but the three of them got each other through the pain of bearing their souls.
I want to end this post by saying that I feel that same love from the kind souls that have contributed to My Father’s Knee. Your support helps me take ownership of my own narrative, and follow the path of Chicano leaders like Michele Serros, Reies Lopez Tijerina and Team Albuquerque.
BNV14 – Breaking Free
“To be, or not to be, that is the question—
Whether ’tis Nobler in the mind to suffer
The Slings and Arrows of outrageous Fortune,
Or to take Arms against a Sea of troubles,” Hamlet 3.1
Chris Rock and Questlove made a call out to artists to make something great out of the national heartbreak that we’ve shared this fall. We’ve all spent a lot of time fretting over what we each feel has been the problem of the last few weeks. The best thing way that I thought of to contribute to this moment is by sharing some of the most hopeful experiences I had this year, at Brave New Voices in Philadelphia.
Teamwork!
I wrote about Brave New Voices last year and haven’t gotten around to sharing any of the new videos that I edited as part of the BNV Online Crew, along with Dimitri Moore. I’ll get more into that story another time but this post is about the leaders that await the opportunity to fix the problems of our day. These are some of their thoughts on Housing and Isolation
About Home.
“Home is always on your toes and learning to like it there” – Voice of the future
I love this video for the range of perspective that it carries. Young people from around the country wake up to realities that they all share. Joker, at the end, intrigues me the most. I could never have spoken about my feelings the way he does at his age. I can barely get the words out now.
“Let my every flaw define me.” – Joker
Break Free.
That’s how good this is and that’s how good school should be. Period.” – Voice of the future
Break Free was the theme for all the Town Halls but one young lady’s voice struck me enough to petition Dimitri and the higher ups to give her a stand alone video. They agreed that I could, after getting all the other videos done. This is where the universe plays a strange part in the story. I had some ethical questions about whether I could throw her story out to the wolves. She shared it in a safe space and I wasn’t sure if she was comfortable with me amplifying it for the world to see. Then, out of the blue, KJ Taylor pops her head into the back room of the theatre where a bunch of us had set up shop. She had no business being there. There may have even been a sign telling her to stay out but she poked her head in, smiled and excused herself… I’m still not sure if it was coincidence or divine intervention.
Telling her that I’d seen her speak and asking her permission to share her story with the world made me as nervous as any job interview, film pitch or first day of class. Telling her mother that I’d already spoken to my superiors about the clip and how it embodied the spirit of the Town Halls made me as proud as any graduation commencement, student evaluation or performance review. Today, thinking back about how I was able to take a situation that could have gotten a young person in trouble and make it into an opportunity to reinforce her willingness to take risks, I don’t know how that makes me feel. Grateful to those that have taken a risk on me?
BNV 2013 – Violence in Town Halls
I haven’t written about Brave New Voices in a while but others have. Around Halloween season, a piece by The DC Youth Slam Team was aggregated by Upworthy and written about in Huff Post Women. To give you a brief sample of the difference this made in traffic, it’s been watched 1.25 million times. The next most popular video had 175 thousand hits and the rest are below 60 thousand, closer to 10-20 thousand. Thats the strength of their message, it spread at 7 times the rate of the next most watched video.
We decided to write a poem changing the way we see monsters; [to show that] women can be fierce, hot-tempered, or what have you. We connected this to Halloween and how as girls grow older, they are convinced that their costumes must get skimpier and show more skin to be sexy. After brainstorming, we realized that our key point was women should wear what they want. Slut-shaming is not the answer, nor is peer pressuring women and girls to wear sexier outfits if they don’t want to. – Hannah Halpern
My previous BNV2013 posts were about how these young people are better at dealing with each other than previous generations and that they’re working to begin a creative ecosystem. The nitty-gritty of that whole process happened during a series of Town Halls on Violence; Gender-Based Violence, Economic Violence, Immigration as Violence, Armed Violence. The important thing to remember about these videos is that they are of real youth voices, shot by other teens and moderated by young adult leaders. The only adult intervention was Youth Speaks organizing the event and my editing the footage.
This is an overview of all the Town Halls on Violence
This is the Immigration Town Hall
These are some of the things that are on the minds of the young people who are willing to pick up the pieces after we tear each other apart. Youth Speaks planted some seeds in the fertile soil that is the topic of violence and this is what they grew out of it. Of the 3 comments that The Internet left for the Immigration Town Hall, one suggested that this is neo-marxist training. Another asked if it is from America because there were no white people, “Might as well be Mexico.” The 3rd comment is the one that gives me hope:
America has been racist since its inception and you reflect that historical violence when you suggest that young people who seek a life based on principles of love, community, voice, and empowerment, are therefore “anti white” or “marxist”. It seems these young people have more faith in you than you do in them and in the future of this country. It seems they reflect the constitution of the United States more than you. #bnv2013 #OurAmerica #lovelookslikethis – Bayana Davis
BNV2013 – Creative Ecosystems
Let’s live beyond ourselves and our moment for this week. This week, let’s live for eachother… It’s not about your Egosystem. I’m telling you, it’s what Marc Bamuthi Joseph calls a creative ecosystem. – Hodari Davis, Youth Speaks
This was the first time I heard the term Creative Ecosystem, while working with Dimitri Moore as part of the Brave New Voices Online Crew. It stuck with me because it’s an idea that had been germinating in my brain as art permaculture, which isn’t nearly as catchy. I like this definition of the concept:
Creative Ecosystems – Application which is designed to use biological ecosystems to produce art – GitHub
Chicago’s become a creative ecosystem this weekend as EXPO Chicago, Edition and Fountain Art Fairs herald the beginning of Fall. There’s plenty of art for you to see in the real world this weekend so I thought I’d share some more videos from the last time I witnessed an event like this in our city. Cyphers are a large part of what goes on at Brave New Voices. Poets gathering from all around the world means there’ll be some freestyling because it’s their way of sharpening their skills and spreading ideas from city to city. This Afterhours Cypher was more structured than others that spring up more spontaneously, with prompts by local hip hop artist, Phenom.
BNV2013 – They’re Better Than Were
I was lucky to be at the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts a few weeks ago for Brave New Voices, an annual slam poetry competition run by Youth Speaks. Dimitri Moore, head of the BNV Online Crew, invited me to manage their footage and edit short videos. He coordinated over a dozen young photographers and videographers from a handful of Chicago youth media organizations through 5 days of live poetry. I was locked in a dungeon, unable to experience the action for myself but the footage that came through gave me hope for the human race. I posted a whole bunch of videos to The Youtube that I’ll share over the next few weeks.
This is the second most viewed video from the Quarter Finals round of the competition. Enjoy.
Each successive generation seems to be making progress in changing attitudes when it comes to race… They’re better than we are. They’re better than we were on these issues. – President Obama
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