Anne Bouie Interview, October 20, 2020
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- SEGMENT SYNOPSIS: The following transcript is automated and may not provide an accurate transcription of the interview. There may be typos or inconsistent line breaks. Please refer to the attached document for a more accurate transcript. SUBJECTS: DC Black Lives Matter Artist; (Virtual Interview)
- Joy PierceAll right, so Hello, my name is Joy Pierce. Today is
- Tuesday, October 22, at 9:12am and I'm calling from my home in
- Stephens City. Could you please introduce yourself, Anne, and
- spell your name?
- Anne BouieSure. Hi, my name is Dr. Anne Bouie, B as in boy,
- O-U-I-E and I'm chatting with you from Washington, DC.
- Joy PierceWonderful. And do I have your permission to record
- this interview?
- Anne BouieYes, you do.
- Joy PierceAwesome. So can you tell me a little bit about where
- you were born and when?
- Anne BouieSure. I was born in Birmingham, Alabama, and spent a
- few years there before my family moved to Atlanta.
- Joy PierceOkay. Can you tell me a little bit about your
- parents, their names and occupations?
- Anne BouieSure. My mother's name was Anna Laurie. And she's
- the youngest of 10 children born to Willie and Nicey Gaynor in
- Jackson County, Florida, Marietta Florida. My father was
- born in Easley, Georgia, another small town in and they met on
- the train on the way to Atlanta.
- Joy PierceWonderful. Um, can you tell me a little bit about
- your family background? You said all of your family lived in the
- south.
- Anne BouieMy nuclear family? Yes, on both sides of my nuclear
- family. My mother was the youngest of a farmer. My
- grandfather was a farmer and his great grandfather was the land
- was deeded to my great grandfather, great grandfather,
- yes, who received the land upon being freed from enslavement.
- And that land is still in the family today. And my mother's
- father farmed it. And he sent his daughters to school so that
- they wouldn't have to serve as domestics and he had his sons
- working the land. My father came from a very small town, and his
- mother did day work, as they called it. And his father was
- ill and confined. So but they were both, as I said, they're
- both origins are of the earth and of rural people.
- Joy PierceThat's amazing. And can you tell me a little bit
- about your childhood and growing up there?
- Anne BouieSure. I'm one of those families that--or one of
- those people that eventually has to share with you all of my
- entire life simply to tell you where I'm from. Because we were
- in Atlanta for a minute. My I believe my mother said my father
- had a photography gig there or something. But we moved back to
- Atlanta, and we went to school in Atlanta and lived there. My
- mother was familiar with Atlanta, she left home from
- boarding school. As a student at Nursing at Grady college--at
- Grady Hospital which was at the time, still may be one of the
- premier hospitals for training black medical professionals. And
- so she was there and getting ready to graduate. Marriage to
- my father interrupted that. He went to the Korean he served in
- the Korean War, and came back and was able to enroll at Morris
- Brown College and served as a tax accountant with H&R Block
- for 35 years. My childhood was spent in Atlanta, my brother and
- I were city kids. And the first time I saw the earth and saw the
- country really was when we visited my grandmother, and my
- cousins over the summer. Being a city kid, I was amazed at the
- land and saw acres and acres and acres and acres of crops and a
- big old barn and of course when you're a little child, it looks
- huge. It looks absolutely huge. But it was there that I got
- introduced to the earth and to the land and I really resonated
- with it and loved it all the there. Even though Atlanta is a
- green and was at the time a really Green City--trees and
- lots and parks and little streams going through the city,
- at least in the area where we lived. But the country is in
- altogether different thing. So I love the time in the country.
- Although we were there in the summertime in early harvest
- time. So it was quite a bit of work going on, we moved around a
- great deal. When my mother remarried, we we became an Air
- Force, brat family, an Air Force family, which meant a great deal
- of moving around. So I actually have been to school in Florida,
- Georgia, Kansas, and Pennsylvania by the time I was
- in fourth grade, so that we moved around a great deal. And
- some of that was fun, and some of it was, as would be expected.
- Joy PierceThat's so interesting. So what was it
- like, constantly moving like that for you?
- Anne BouieWell, as I've thought about it, over the
- years, the upsides to it, as I'm sure most Air Force brats would
- say, army brat, whomever would say that you get to see a lot of
- different places and a lot of different people. And for me,
- that meant seeing lots of difference. And at the same
- time, there's similar things go on at every place. And they're
- similar people at every place and the thing that it taught me
- was the ability to go into situations and discern who was
- friend who was foe, get a sense of the lay of the land, get a
- sense of what being the new kid on the block meant over and over
- again. So you got pretty good at being the new kid on the block.
- The positive thing about that is obviously, your discernment
- skills are very finely honed, the thing that can become a
- handicap is you really don't have the opportunity to learn
- how to develop relationships outside of your family with
- people over time. Because you know, you're not going to be
- there very long. And so making connections to people, for
- example, I can remember friends, even to this day, in every place
- I lived, that I lost contact with as we moved around as
- children. And I can also remember, people who did the new
- kid on the block thing with me everywhere we lived. The
- positive--you get if you want to, you get kind of a
- cosmopolitan view of having simply been around a lot of
- different places, that puts some kind of sheen on people or some
- kind of mark on people whether they want it to or not. And if
- you're conscious of it, and intentional about it as an adult
- reflecting on it, then it really does help understand why a
- person can flit in and out of so many different arenas and
- maintain some kind of sense of self.
- Joy PierceAbsolutely. That's so interesting to me, sort of
- the adaptability that comes with that sort of constant change.
- Anne BouieYeah, some people would snidely call it becoming a
- chameleon and others would call it adaptability and flexibility,
- depending on how--the extent I guess to which people actually
- lose themselves in the process of becoming whoever they need to
- become, at a certain point, versus being adaptable to
- different situations.
- Joy PierceMm hmm.
- Anne BouieMm hmm.
- Joy PierceCan you tell me a little bit about school as a
- child, if you had any favorite teachers or subjects growing up?
- Anne BouieAs a child, school was obviously fun, in some ways,
- and obviously challenging in other ways. I went to school at
- a time when teachers were fairly rigorous and had very high
- And they did it, they did a good job with that, in my experience
- expectations of their students and really did not care about
- too much except you didn't didn't factor in so many things
- that are supposed to have meaning today about whether or
- not children could learn or not. And I remember specifically, the
- thing I remember most about schooling in the south was, how
- rigorous the teachers were and how merciless they were. In
- terms of you learning. That is what I remember most about my
- childhood. teachers in the south I can still remember of course,
- I can remember my second grade teacher Mrs. Davis, or her son
- and her son had a crush on me. But the the thing that I
- remember most is the rigor and the intensity of the extent to
- which they were very serious about teaching you To the
- extent, for example, that when we moved from Atlanta to
- Pennsylvania, to Kansas, and to Pennsylvania in particular, that
- math, which is not one of my strong suits, I was actually
- ahead of kids in Pennsylvania in math coming from the south, and
- so my experience is that Southern schools in spite of
- having fewer resources, and having buildings that were not
- as new and well, furbish, quote, unquote, as other schools,
- still, the still created environment and taught children
- and taught them very well. Plus, there was a sense of nurture,
- that I remember, in southern schools. As I was sharing with
- you the other day that my principal, Mr. Brown, every
- Friday took a small group of us who were brownies precursor to
- Girl Scouts, to the bank every Friday, and we deposit our
- little pennies in the he would line us up and walk us in there
- and the bank, people would say, "Hello, how are you?" and he
- would beam and all of this and dare us not to act properly. And
- we've put our little pennies in the bank, and he'd walk us back
- to the school. Sometimes we got an ice cream, but he did that
- every Friday with us. And I really missed that when I left
- that school. And it's an indication to me of the way that
- that Southern adults, nurtured their kids and, and tried to
- create and did create a sense of self in them in the face of
- very, very stringent hostility, actually from the larger
- community.
- of sheltering us as much as possible from the rigors of
- Southern life for African Americans when they're
- encountering the larger society there. I think I was sharing
- with you that I didn't, there was a time in southern
- communities, you could literally go from womb to tomb and not
- deal with anybody outside the black community. And the first
- white teacher that I had actually what I was in Kansas,
- on military base at Salina, Kansas. And I still remember the
- principal, Mr. Bowman, who was a really very fine and excellent
- principal and person. And I mentioned that I don't remember
- the chats he had, I don't remember a lot of what we did. I
- simply remember energetically, he was a good guy. And he's an
- example of what Maya Angelou says, when people might not
- remember what you say, but they will always remember how you
- made them feel. And I obviously still have warm feelings toward
- him. When we hit Pennsylvania is when the reality of encountering
- white people on a regular basis, people outside community basis
- started to sink in and sort of hit because it's like, "Oh,
- dear. These people really don't think I'm very smart," or "Oh
- dear, these people think things of me that are not true."
- And my mother having been fairly sheltered herself, all of her
- life seriously sheltered. Because I remember my uncle,
- Willie, her elder brother, telling her that he that his
- father, my grandfather told him it was his job, to go to the
- train station and pick my mother up from boarding school and get
- her back home that that was his job to do. And so he would be
- waiting for her at the train station. And that kind of
- protective energy that many Southern families were able to,
- and communities were able to give their children fortified
- them when they were growing up and created a sense of
- protection around them that was obviously quite dearly needed.
- And obviously, something to counter the press of living in
- the south living, in the north, living any place actually. I
- enjoyed school and found it a place of repose actually from
- having to move. The one thing that would be consistent is you
- go to a school, you get some books and you get a teacher and
- you start doing homework, regardless of where you are.
- That is a consistent thing. And so that schooling I guess became
- a staple of how I defined... I don't know, some kind of
- structure and routine because you have structure and routine,
- of course at home, but you're always moving. Your environment
- of always moving means that you do indeed come--I can see just
- When I came to California, I attended one school it was
- listening here, that's probably why I enjoyed school so much
- predominantly black, and I had Mrs. Haywood who was my fifth
- grade teacher, who really, really, really encouraged ideas
- because it was a place of routine, in a sense of routine,
- and encouraged thinking and I'd go to or with any kind of idea.
- you knew it was going to happen, you knew was going to be
- She said, "Yeah, go for it." And she would supply me with
- equipment, and with books and all sorts of thing outside of
- expected of you, regardless of where you went. And that was, I
- the encyclopedias and stuff that I had at home to do all this
- guess, in looking at it a part of why I stayed in school so
- work. And she was very excited about it. And obviously, to have
- friends from there to this day, from that encounter in Riverside
- long. And why the structure of school really didn't bother me
- when we got to California. And then I went to another school,
- that much, because you need some kind of structure. Even outside
- because we moved once again when I was in California. And that
- of your home, you need some kind of structure and consistency
- teacher was kind of the opposite of Mrs. Haywood, she really did
- not have very high expectations for any of her students, we were
- course your home provides it, but you have to leave your house
- all black and Latino, she didn't have high expectations for any
- sooner or later and encounter the real world.
- of us. In fact, she very well communicated that she thought we
- had a certain place or location, and it was her job to keep us
- there. And to... not ever think that we could move or do any
- better than that. So her energy towards her students was she'd
- say things like, "You're going someplace and I don't want you
- to act like you don't know how to act." And it's different from
- when your parents say, "Don't forget who raised you. And don't
- forget how you were raised." It's creating some kind of
- expectation for you when you go someplace, was really, really,
- really about don't embarrass me in the sense of who you are. And
- she, I remember quite clearly taking ideas to her. And, as I
- did with Mrs. Haywood and her simply dismissing them,
- dismissing the ideas and really making it very clear that I
- didn't know how to act. She was the one who, when I transferred
- to junior high school, at the time, they had an overt tracking
- system. Today, the tracking system is a lot more subtle, but
- they had an overt tracking system of x, y, z and double x,
- and she put me in y classes. And I remember being in those
- classes, and I still remember the teacher, Mrs. Queenie Kales,
- who at the end of um, I guess it had to be ninth grade said, "Now
- Anne next year, I'm putting you in x classes, and I expect you
- to act accordingly." And I really didn't know what she was
- talking about until I got there in the x classes and saw. I
- said, "Oh, this is what she's talking about," being the only
- little black child in there.
- Again, the teacher saying things like I used the word ambivalent
- in a paper. And she called me to the front of the room and said,
- "What does this word mean?" And I told her because my mother was
- a psych nurse. So of course, I knew what the word ambivalent
- meant. But she swore that I didn't and insisted that I write
- the paper over again. So she was one of the people that created a
- sense of "How dare you?" with me, and on the other hand, she's
- countered with people like Mrs. Galbreak, who would work us to
- death and say, "This is what I want you to do." And we did it.
- And when I told her it was so much work, she just said, "Yes,
- it is go do it." And other teachers there who did that. So
- all kids encounter teachers who they don't like and who don't
- like them. I personally believe if you have more than three
- kids, you don't like one of them, but you love them and you
- do what you're supposed to do with them and for them. And but
- in the case of African American students, case of girls, in case
- of poor, white students, whoever is on the bottom of the rung,
- quote unquote, it is very important, and can almost be
- life defining, the people that they run into or the people that
- make the biggest impact on them and whether or not they run into
- any advocates along the way. Because I used to reflect on it
- even then that, why was I in all of these classes and none of my
- friends were when I knew that most of my friends were as smart
- as I was supposed to be labeled as and were just as competen but
- none of them were in these classes. And that always
- disturbed me, because why is that? And you certainly can't
- make it into well, because I'm special and I'm different.
- That's not the case. The case is a combination of any number of
- factors that landed you there and did not land other people
- there. And one can take that to mean that you think you're
- somebody or something else and another way to approach it is to
- be grateful and to be appreciative of that and
- understand that in many ways, it's got it got nothing to do
- with you personally. It does, and it doesn't.
- And that's one of the things I've learned from very early on
- that intelligence and creativity and humor and all that it's sort
- of like this song that Gil Scott Heron thing some people don't
- ever land in a place where they get to grow, they don't get a
- chance to grow. And so when people do get a chance to grow
- or land in some place where they do get a chance to grow, it's
- very humorous to me when they really do start to think that
- it's all about them and what they did and what they
- accomplished and how they did it for themselves and nobody helped
- them. That simply is not true. That is not true. In my
- experience, if it hadn't been for some people along the way, I
- wouldn't have made it into--Queenie Kales was a
- deciding factor.She is the one--Mrs. Cooter decided I
- should go into y classes which are dead end, academically.
- Queenie Kales three years later said, "I'm going to put you in
- this class." So that any number of the people along the way make
- a profound difference in how the capabilities of anyone get
- nurtured and deployed. So my schooling in high school--shared
- with you the gamut from Mrs. Lawson to Mrs. Golbreck into Mr.
- Shannon, had a hard time with the geometry, I took a class
- from the same book in the same teacher for three years in order
- to get a passing grade in it, because I had a very hard time
- with it. And Mr. Peterson never made fun of me or never did
- anything, said, "Okay Anne let's get at it again." And so those
- experiences in school are making or breaking a difference. And
- that is one reason that when I became an educator, that's part
- of the reason that I did because most students are not unwilling
- to learn. They are simply unmotivated to learn, and I
- would defy anybody who goes someplace five days a week, for
- seven hours a day and runs into people thinking that they don't
- have home training or that they're not capable of learning
- because of their skin color or the hue of their skin color, or
- where they live and managed to continue to want to learn quote,
- unquote.
- Joy PierceAbsolutely. So can you tell me a little bit about
- your journey from high school through college and becoming an
- educator?
- Anne BouieSure, um, we landed in Riverside when I was in the
- fifth grade. And at the time, Riverside was a sleepy little
- town that had more orange groves than people probably. Yeah,
- really nice place to grow up in but not a good place to have a
- lot of different kinds of experiences in and when I
- graduated from high school, like a lot of us, I went to Riverside
- City College and was taking classes there. And there too, I
- ran into the extremes of a teacher who simply did not think
- I could write and another one who, as I shared with you, whose
- assignment was go watch the film, "Cool Hand Luke" and come
- back and write on all the symbolism that is in the film,
- which was a mind blowing experience. And I really
- remember that film and that assignment to this day because
- it opened up another set of neuron tracks in terms of
- looking at the world and studying. At the time that I was
- in junior college, the Watts Riots broke out. And one of the
- responses in California was the creation of the Educational
- Opportunity Program. And that experience reinforced my
- realization of the disparities and the nature and the
- implications of a kid's packaging as considering the
- opportunities that they might have access to. Because the
- Educational Opportunity Program came as a direct result of
- policy and programmatic direct response to the inequalities
- that were brought to light as a result of that urban rebellion.
- And yet the people who were out there dying and confronting the
- tear gas and all of that, their children, by and large, did not
- wind up at UC Riverside and certainly did not wind up
- graduating from UC Riverside, it was African American, and Latino
- kids whose parents were already--who were already
- placed, who had already been to junior college, who would
- already had some economic and social currency, if you will, to
- be in a position to take advantage of that. And the few
- kids that did come from the urban arena, from LA and San
- Francisco, and places that the resources were not as well
- allocated, had a very hard time and many of them didn't make it.
- And so I am one of the people who benefited from the sacrifice
- and suffering. People in my own lifetime--I don't have to go
- back to enslavement to talk about benefiting from the trials
- of others. In my own lifetime, as a young adult, becoming a
- young adult, I saw that. I wasn't out there in those
- streets but I was one of the ones who got the benefit of that
- program and of other programs. And there too.
- And the other factor is that is while those programs might have
- helped people like me get in the door, they certainly did not
- ensure that I would get out with the paper so that a lot of times
- people talk about African Americans and others taking the
- place of other people, the whole affirmative action thing. And my
- experience and observation of that is the affirmative action
- and EOP program and other programs like that might have
- gotten you in the door. But in some ways, they actually were a
- hindrance in you getting out because you went in there with
- people assuming that you did not belong there, and treating you
- accordingly. And so you had to work very hard, if you will, to
- demonstrate the fact that look, I did earn this and it just so
- happened that the door opened, it's not anything to do with the
- fact that I came in here unprepared, or that I came in
- here unable to learn how to get prepared, learn how to make it
- and do well there. And so on on both sides that really shaped my
- views a lot. I really have a hard time with people talking
- about I made it and I and I did it. No, you didn't. (laughs) I
- have a hard time with people saying that, "Well, you got
- there and you didn't deserve it." It's like, "Yes, I did. And
- yes, I do. Because it was earned it was not given to me."
- And most of the programs--we all know that the first year of any
- grad school program, especially at the PhD level is about
- weeding people out it really, that is what it's about. They
- can say yes or no if they want to. But we both know that we all
- know that. That's really what many, the first year many PhD
- programs is about. In fact, that's the case with some
- undergrad programs. I remember a woman telling me she went to
- Spelman and her professor said, "Look to your left, and then
- look to your right. And one of those people will not be here
- when the semester ends." So no one can say that a person got
- out of the place. And the bottom line is getting in is important.
- But getting out with what you came for is also important in
- the EOP program didn't guarantee that and programs that talk with
- people about ethnicity or race--it doesn't guarantee that
- they'll get out. And in some ways, the forces make it very
- rare that you won't get out and that if you do get out, you will
- have paid for it dearly.
- So that I transferred from when I was at UC Riverside. I was
- getting ready to graduate and I had another one of those
- professors on the Mrs. Haywood end who said,"You don't know
- what you're going to do when you graduate. Fill this out." And it
- was an application to Stanford to the secondary teacher
- education program. So I rounded education, in fact, because Mark
- Loman knew that I did not know what I was going to do, and saw
- some notion that I might benefit from that program and at least
- put me in an arena where I would learn a whole new--a whole lot
- of different things and become exposed to a lot of different
- things that I had not to been before. And part of the reason
- that I know that my experiences are not unique, because I, all
- of us ran into people like Mark Loman. And all of us, I can
- remember in the tradition of rigor and excellence, and really
- not caring about a whole lot of other things. I think I told
- about one of my professors, Dr. Jacqueline Haywood at UC
- Riverside, who was the first African American professor there
- and inaugurated the black studies courses there. And I, we
- all loved her, of course, and we're really glad that she was
- there. And I remember her calling me into her office. And
- we were talking, just as I shared with you, just as you and
- I are talking right now. And she laid a paper that I had
- submitted to her on the desk. And I knew what it was, it was
- one of those night before B plus papers, or B minus papers that
- you submit. And she put the paper on the desk, and she just
- very quietly asked me, "Now about this paper, do you want to
- talk about it? Or do you want to do it over?" And that was all
- there was to that. So that those are the kind of professors I ran
- into that shaped to me about, "Don't come in here playing and
- thinking you're going to get over" because they call you out.
- And that has been my tradition with with students, I will call
- them out when--the problem is not misbehavior. The problem is
- not even trying. And part of the effort issue is because why
- would you try when somebody is going to put you in a y class
- anyway? And you look at the work and the work is insulting to
- your intelligence, which you know, you could but that's where
- you are, and what do you do? And there are all kinds of ways that
- kids revolt against being intellectually and psychically
- insulted. And that is one of the things that they do is just
- become disengaged, why would I engage with something that
- daily, daily, daily tried to tell me who I was, and in many
- ways, that's counter to the the message that I get from people
- who do Love me, and who are supporting me, and who are
- working in some cases, two and three jobs to get me those three
- figure tennis shoes that I come with, because they know I want
- them and who are working?
- So I could go on and on with that. But I won't. In terms of
- undergrad and graduate experiences and getting through
- school and that's how I left Riverside after all those years,
- from fifth grade to UC to graduating from UC Riverside, at
- Stanford. And at Stanford, in some ways, as I shared with you,
- I'm really glad that I did not walk into Stanford,
- understanding the allure and the the reputation and the fact of
- Stanford. I walked in there--It's another school that
- I'm going to it wasn't until I got there that I realized what
- people thought of the institution and how highly rated
- it was, you were transformed into another kind of human
- beings simply because you attended Stanford, and that too
- was "Oh really?" to me. So I'm glad I walked in there with
- that, and wasn't until I actually got into the the
- teacher ed program, and started seeing what the implications of
- being Stanford were about and looking at, "Well how did you
- get here?" And looking at the assignments, but I had some fun
- in that teacher ed program. And I learned a lot in that teacher
- ed program that has stood me to the rest of this day. And that
- helped shape me becoming an educator and go into grad school
- because of some of the things that I learned and I did.
- One of my formative core experiences when I was intern
- teaching at Burlingame High School, was how much of what I
- really needed to know I was not taught and in grad school at
- Stanford University, and I realized--our teacher education
- program was rated number one or two in the country. And so if I
- wasn't getting it there, very few people were getting it
- anywhere else, at least that so-called counted. And one of
- those things was working with students, especially students of
- color, because I walked into my African American history class
- that I was teaching at Burlingame High School, and they
- welcome to me the same way that we welcome Dr. Hayward UC,
- Riverside, excuse me. And I walked in there and I asked them
- per my Stanford training about involving students in learning
- process, quote, unquote. And I asked them what they wanted to
- learn in this black history class. And what my students
- heard, and what many students hear is not, "I'm being open and
- want you to learn new things." What they heard is, "This woman
- does not know what she's doing and does not know what she's
- teaching. Why should I respect her?" Because they came from a
- place of wanting to know that whoever was in front of them,
- was competent, and would be able to work with them not whether or
- not they liked the person, quote, unquote. Initially,
- liking had nothing to do with it. So I lost that class, even
- though I was African American. And they liked me quote,
- unquote. I lost that class. And it was, it's really humorous
- today because my department chair, Aldo Priviney, who is
- this really very suave, kind of high school teacher everybody
- thinks about--camelhair jackets and black turtleneck and loafers
- kind of teacher. I asked him to come to my class, to help me see
- whether or not my assessment was correct. And he sat in that
- class and he said, "Yep, Anne you've lost them. They're gone.
- You've lost them." And but what he meant from that I had no
- control of the class.
- And I was, in all likelihood, not going to get control of the
- class, because it's very difficult to get control of a
- class, once you've lost them, the best thing to do is not ever
- to have lost them. Because the work you have to do to reclaim a
- class that you lost in terms of discipline and attention and
- creating a learning environment is so, so arduous, that it's
- all--I can understand why people give up, because it is extremely
- difficult to reclaim a class whose discipline so forth has
- gone out the window that you've basically lost control of. And
- that was so humbling and humiliating that I have never
- lost a class since then, because I learned a different way of
- doing things with different kids. On the other hand, I had a
- class, predominantly white, and it was contemporary problems.
- And I had different kinds of experiences. Two of my favorite
- students were John and Peter whom I remember to this day,
- very wealthy kids. And one day, they came into my class with a
- jar full of marijuana seeds, because I was young, African
- American, cool da, da, da, da, da. And I told them, "I would
- strongly suggest you take those out of my class. And if you do
- it again, I will call the authorities on you. Because I do
- know what you look like when you're high, you know, eyes are
- red, and dilated. And you're coming here, almost as if you're
- floating. Don't do that again. And in fact, I want to research
- paper on the street names or drugs and medicinal names of
- drugs and their uses. And I want footnotes on the paper." And
- they looked at me quite shocked. And how and, "Who are you?" And
- I said "Yes, indeed we will. Otherwise, there can be
- consequences to this." And so looking at my approach in asking
- kids, "what do they want" versus saying, "Oh, no, no, no, no,
- no." John and Peter not only turned in excellent papers, they
- gave me the first edition of a book, I guess they got from one
- of their homes, Stanley Livingston's "In darkest
- Africa," one of the first editions of it. And I still have
- that book to this day.
- I still remember Michael Brown, this little cowboy who put his
- boots--took off his boots in my class and put them directly in
- my walkway to see what I would do. So you ran into all kinds of
- kids. And I learned a lot from Michael Brown. "Michael, would
- you please put your boots on? Thank you." And from Little
- Peter, who had gray hair because his parents expected him to go
- to Harvard and the child had gray hair in the 10th grade.
- Joy PierceOh my gosh.
- Anne BouieYes, it was horrible! To the two very very
- smart kids like Linda Savage who said, "You know, I really like
- you but they don't think that you can control them. They don't
- think you can teach them and that's why they're there like
- that Miss Bouie." And having to regroup with that and
- understanding that there are different cards, you have to
- learn how to play. And any school that's going to send you
- into an urban school if they don't teach you the complete
- playbook, they're doing you a disservice because it's not that
- children are uneducated or don't want to learn or behavior
- problems. As I got out of grad school, and I worked, and I
- learned even more, that was one pivotal experience losing that
- class and working with John and Peter.
- When I got to farwest laboratories upon graduating
- from UC Riverside, I worked in a lot of urban projects around
- educational dissemination and doing different kinds of work. I
- worked on a project to reduce suspensions in Stockton,
- California School District, and I had to work with a lot of
- students and teachers there, that was a very rewarding
- experience that I was given. And from working at farwest
- laboratory, I moved to another educational project that worked
- with reducing violence and vandalism at schools. That was
- another seminal framing experience for me. And it was
- there that I was able to put my experiences at Burlingame High
- School into some kind of context, because the program
- operated in urban schools all over the country, literally
- North, South, East and West and dead center of the country. And
- it brought together teams of educators, civic people, police
- people, teams of--they tried to take this approach of
- understanding that it was a community issue, not merely a
- school issue, and invited these teams of people to come to the
- sessions about how to reduce violence and vandalism in their
- schools. And it was there that we hired different people to
- come and make presentations and lead workshops, from mostly
- local areas, or at least areas surrounding the city in which we
- were in so that in the Bay Area, we worked with a lot of Bay Area
- educators and civic people. And I started hearing from the
- people who were effective, irrespective of packaging, the
- same song. And that's what really struck me about being
- effective in urban environments, and why I wanted to become an
- urban educator, because they were saying, "It can be done.
- And this is how you do it." And it's very powerful when you hear
- dapper, trash-talking, junior high school principal from
- Oakland, saying the same thing, as you see a little
- straight-laced, proper African American woman to a Down to
- Earth da, da, da, da, da Southern police person, all
- saying the same thing about how you are effective within urban
- schools, how you create rapport, how you raise expectations, how
- you get kids and communities motivated and get engaged and
- using their motivation, which they obviously have, in ways
- that will help them in their lives. That was very, very
- powerful for me that all these people were saying the same
- thing. And I learned from them. I listened to them. And I
- learned from them and talked with them extensively offline
- about their experiences and how they did it.
- So that when I applied to grad school, first time, I didn't get
- accepted. And I taught for a year California University at
- Stanford, San Luis Obispo. And there too, I was one of the
- first African American professors that they had, and I
- was in the Ed school and I was teaching urban ed and such. But
- black students on campus were really thirsty for somebody with
- their experiences. But I now had Burlingame's experience under my
- belt. (laughs) And so I was able to know when to yield the carrot
- and when to yield the stick with students inside and outside of
- my classes. I learned to sense what they call the "Okey doke"
- and the obvious--to some people--obvious lies of it all
- versus the truth of it and learn not to be swayed by the stories.
- Learn which stories to be swayed by and which stories not, learn
- to discern when I was getting ready to--For example, this is
- what I'm trying to share. When I was at Stanford, I was working
- at Nairobi College in East Palo Alto, and I was teaching and
- sometimes those were times when there was a lot of community
- engagement. A couple times my students came in and said they
- had court dates and they had to go to court. And they need to be
- excused from class. And so of course, I said, "Oh, okay," I
- assumed that this--and then somebody called me and, she
- said, "Anne those are for parking tickets, they aren't for
- anything civil." And soon I learned that that no, no, no,
- don't come in here with a court date telling me that you have
- something real going on, and you've got a parking ticket that
- you want to take care of. So those kinds of things, a lot of
- it was so that I was able to really be of real use to people
- to students, because I was able to carrot and stick them.
- Whereas before, I was mostly using carrot and care and
- concern, but without the kind of care and concern that Mrs.
- Haywood evidenced, for example, or Dr. Mayhew evidenced when
- I--he is a classic example of carrot and stick both in working
- with students. And that's what I learned from grad school.
- I'm sort of skipping ahead. If I go back to talk about my
- experiences at Stanford, one of those experiences is, again,
- under the press of, "Was I here legitimately or was like not
- there legitimately?" I actually went to the chair of my
- department and said, you know, "Did I get here--how much did
- who I was play into to whether or not I got in here, and he
- pulled out my class, the GRE scores from my class and said,
- "Look at--" and he just threw them, he just put them on his
- desk and said, "Look at these," and I saw my scores, and my
- scores were, my scores were solid, they were good scores.
- And that again, reinforced to me that a lot of times people like
- many who wind up in those doors are not there, because they're
- getting a favor done. They're there, because a door that was
- normally closed to people with that kind of packaging all of a
- sudden opened, but they were more than able to walk in there.
- And on the other hand, there are many who, for whom the door
- open, and they were not prepared and equipped to be there and
- when they ran into--but at their schools, for example, I used to
- run into a lot of students who were A and B students. And I
- remember a story I read in a newspaper article about this
- woman, who's a bank vice president working with a high
- school student at Castleman High School in Oakland, which was
- really renowned for its athletics and its students
- spirit, but but its academics were quite low. And she had the
- students who've gotten an A minus on a paper. (phone rings)
- And the woman looked at the paper--Sorry, the woman looked
- at the-
- Joy PierceYou're okay.
- Anne Bouiepaper, and said, to herself, "Am I really going to
- tell this child the truth about this paper?" And she decided
- that she would tell the child the truth about the paper, she
- asked the child, "Do you want me to really edit and tell you
- about this paper?" And the child saying, "Yes, I do, of course."
- And the woman took this A minus paper. And by the time she was
- done with it, the paper was essentially would have been
- about a D, in a class that had high expectations, it would have
- been equivalent to a D. And so many times, the standards are
- lowered, and the grades are raised. And kids come out
- thinking that they really know something A or B, or C and land
- at some place like UC Berkeley, or Cal State, or any place and
- find out that the work that they've been told was an A was
- really C if not actually failing work. And that is, those are
- sort of the two ends of the continuum that many students of
- color face. They're either very well prepared and not thought to
- be prepared, and were able to enter the place because of doors
- opening or doors open and the kids were not prepared at all
- and were sent up like raw meat. So that many times that's where
- students, all students, but particularly students who have
- been traditionally underserved and underrepresented fall.
- So going back to Dr. Mayhew, I went to him and said that I'm at
- the end of my second year and my advisor had not told me about
- preparing for the proposal, nor about the fact that I needed a
- master's degree outside of the School of Education to graduate
- and that that meant another 36 units that I had to pick up and
- pay for. And that was one of the times I almost quit school.
- After learning that and after having gotten through that
- trauma, and decided that I would press on, solely by the the
- grace of God I might add, and the spiritual support I got from
- a church that I had become a member of. I went to tell him
- that my situation, and he said, Come back in two weeks. And when
- I went back in two weeks, he said, "Okay, this is the deal."
- And he laid out the the proposal development guidelines and said,
- "There are five chapters in a dissertation. This is what each
- one of them does, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, come back to me in a
- week with an outline of each of the five chapters." And I was so
- taken aback that I actually did it. And from then on, he became
- my major advisor, and he hired me as a TA. And I was working
- three jobs, counting his at the time working at Nairobi College
- and working at American Institutes for Research, and
- with him and taking a full load.
- And he had assigned me to write some kind of policy handbook and
- I called him one time and I said, "Dr. Mayhew, I'm really
- got a lot of going on right now. Can I get an extension on this
- assignment from the deadline?" He said, "No." And pretty much
- goodbye and hung up the phone. (laughs) And so I was sharing
- with you that the the grad school thing is as much about
- the process as it is about the content of the work. And I don't
- remember the contents of that policy handbook, per se, nor do
- I remember in detail some of the assignments that I was given at
- AIRA to work on. But I do remember that Dr. Mayhew said
- no. And that meant that I had to get all of that stuff done. All
- of it done.
- And running into a professor when I finally accepted that I
- was going to have to do this history thing went into a
- professor like Kennell Jackson, who would assign you 500 pages
- of reading this esoteric, African, African American
- History, names with five and 10 syllables in them and countries
- from places that you're just trying to get a grip on. And the
- history of all of this and acting as if that's the only
- class you had is his 500 pages of reading, and going to a
- seminar. And hearing that--I missed that seminar. I'm so glad
- I did. But as I shared with you going to a seminar, and I call
- my friend to ask her, what did we need to do as a result of it?
- And she told me the Kennell sent us home. She said, "We were
- sitting around the table. And we started going through the
- discussion at the seminar and Kennell just stopped and he
- said, 'You guys have read. Go home.'" And send them home. And
- so the press, those are the kinds of things that that stymie
- people and cause them to give up not so much the work, although
- the work is obviously arduous, but those are the experiences
- that stuck with me about the kinds of standards you can hold
- people to, especially if you know that they're also in your
- corner.
- As I shared with you about Dr. Mayhew, when I started this
- internship at University of San Francisco. The prof that I ran
- into was from UC Berkeley. And he invited me to his home in the
- Berkeley Hills to discuss the assignment. And it didn't feel
- right. And I went to Dr. Mayhew and I specifically remember
- sayinh, "You never invited me to your house in the Berkeley Hills
- to discuss anything." And he did his proverbial, "Huh. Get back
- to me." And sure enough, I got back to him. And the next time I
- talked to that Professor, we were meeting on UC Berkeley's
- campus, not in his house in the Berkeley Hills. So that the
- quintessential thing about being, I believe, a good
- manager, a good educator is knowing when to hold 'em and
- when to fold them. And Dr. Mayhew told me no on getting
- that assignment done. And on the other hand, when I went to him
- about an untoward approach by a professor, I'm telling you, that
- man treated me with kid gloves from then on out. (laughs) He
- treated me with kid gloves. And to this day, obviously, I don't
- know what Dr. Mayhew said, but obviously he said something. And
- that man left me alone. So that those are the kinds of people
- that struck me, the kind that expected the absolute most out
- of me and almost had no mercy. And at the same time would take
- anybody who tried to harm you to the mat.
- So those are lessons--this little trail as I look back on
- things that taught me about how to be and help me examine how I
- was treated and what helped me get what enabled me to keep
- moving along, aside from the familial things, and my mother
- who had just--if you come home with A's and B's and you get a C
- or D in something, that's what gets emphasis, not the A's and
- the B's, what gets emphasis is, "What about this, and dah, dah,
- dah, dah, dah on that." And so between those two streams of
- environment, I distilled out of it if you're going to jack
- somebody up or be untoward, with somebody about something they
- didn't do, you have to have their backs. And I had the same
- experience with my mother, going all the way back to junior high
- school, I was in the teacher's classroom. And she was very mean
- to me, and had me standing out in the hallway and had me in the
- back of the room when I didn't have my glasses, and sent me to
- the dean's office. And the dean told me to come back the next
- morning because she was going to talk to me, and I went home and
- told my mother about it. And my mother went to the school with
- me. And sure enough that Dean and my teacher in there waiting
- for me to I guess, send me into my next incarnation. And my
- mother took them to task. And she was a classic example of you
- do not want to mess with an African American woman about her
- child. You don't want to do that. And I witnessed my mother
- put both of those women in their seats. And there too I got left
- alone after that. So I've learned all these lessons about
- observing things. And as I shared with you, when I got out
- of grad school, and got my dissertation done, and Dr.
- Mayhew was my chair, and he signed off on it. And you can't
- ask for anything better than for Louis D. Mayhew to sign off on
- your dissertation, that is a big deal and it meant a great deal
- to me.
- And going to work at those places where I got a chance to
- start interacting with young people and when I started
- getting a chance to having somebody concretize and almost
- present a structure and almost a theory of how you work with
- students who are disengaged, and so called unengaged and who give
- off the appearance that they don't want to learn helped me
- when I finally left both of those jobs. I got an opportunity
- to start an after school enrichment program that was
- written by the Northern California Council of Black
- Professional Engineers. And it was housed at a large urban
- church in East Oakland Allen Temple Baptist Church. And that
- program dealt with kids, grades seven through nine who were
- underachievers, and who were either failing in college prep
- classes or wasting away in general math classes. And our
- task was to introduce them to sciences and math and to make
- sure that when they left, if they came in, in seventh grade,
- when they left us, as going into school as sophomores that they
- were enrolled in geometry and in biology, which according to
- California state standards, that's where you're supposed to
- be. In 10th grade, you're in geometry and you're in biology,
- and that sets you up for the rest of the track. And we all
- know that from ninth grade on, that's when it starts and if you
- aren't on that track, it's very, very difficult for you to get to
- get on it, if you're not on it by ninth grade.
- And so our students were the kinds that would come in with
- their homework folded up in little pieces of paper, lots of
- them in their backpack, no date, no no class description, folded
- up on these little grimy pieces of paper, and walk in and say,
- "And?" about all of this. And it was our task to take these
- bright kids who were very disengaged from school, and to,
- if you will, help them transmute into kids who would feel
- comfortable in biology and geometry in 10th grade. And this
- was an opportunity for me to put into practice and see for myself
- whether or not I could do what all of these people that I had
- learned from in the violence and vandalism project and from my
- own personal experiences with who got me to work and who
- didn't and who took care of me and looked after me and who
- didn't, put them into practice.
- We worked with 50 to 80 junior high school kids, four days a
- week, two hours a day after school and the staff were
- college students who were math and science majors and/or who
- wanted to become teachers. And by that time, I had learned
- enough about process to understand thoroughly. And we've
- already documented the fact that math is not my strong subject.
- So that I told them, "These are the tools you need to develop
- really good learning activities." Creative, bright
- kids who needed to understand what they need--to develop
- learning experiences that would help kids who were unmotivated,
- quote, unquote, and who were certainly performing below their
- ability, and who citizenship you see--at that level one of the
- things I learned, it's not the academic grades that I want to
- focus on, it's the citizenship grades that are the teller. And
- if your citizenship grades are poor, that tells me something
- right there, that because all you have to do is go to class
- and shut up and get a decent grade for citizenship. Now, if
- you are doing something to get less than a decent grade for
- citizenship, that tells me right that you are nowhere near doing
- any academics at all. That's not where your attention. So the
- first thing is, let's get your attention to academics, and then
- the ability, and the mindset will kick in. So we indeed did
- that.
- I taught the project interface staff (sigh) the processes of
- teaching, how you teach how you set up, what you do on the first
- day, what you do in the first week, how you lay out the
- groundwork, how do you get a sense of establishing leadership
- in the classroom without coming off as a neo nazi? How do you do
- the nurture without coming off as an earth mother who has no
- damns whatsoever, and no boundaries whatsoever? How do
- you design learning experiences and what do you need--content to
- do learning experiences, so I was a process person, and they
- were the content people. And in order to develop good content,
- the tools that I gave them more the California State Standards
- for math and science, which were among the best in the nation.
- Massachusetts State Standards, were, I understand, the very
- best. California State science standards were just a beautiful
- work of art. And they also produced documents about what
- classes needed to be taken at each grade level to assure
- college entrance, what would be in those classes, and what they
- needed to know year by year. And I shared with the college
- students and the staff, you all have been through this but these
- And you develop--you don't call yourself a tutor. You don't call
- are the standards. This is what they have to know, this is what
- they should have known. I need you to develop learning
- experiences that cover what they should have known and that they
- don't know, what they're doing now and what they will run into.
- And I got taught by people not to give people lessons, Robert
- Fullilove at UC Berkeley shared what you want to do, or you want
- to do these worksheets, and you have students develop worksheets
- and learning activities that address all three of those
- different points in the learning process.
- it remedial education. We never even use the word tutor. We
- never used any of those words that have come to mean that
- you're stupid and you need help. We never did one on one work, we
- always did work in small groups, because for some cultures in
- some communities, that is the way. You don't ever do anything
- alone, you always do things in a small group, or with a group of
- people. Even if somebody is braiding your hair and it's you
- and the person braiding your hair, there are always other
- people around talking and commenting in this kind of
- thing. So that working with a person one on one whose context
- and background, talk about working in a small group and
- getting things done in that way is problematic in many ways.
- That's not the way they best work. The same thing with you
- know, used to observe a lot of kids and they'd sit up and move
- their arms and do all this kind of stuff in order to get ready
- to work. And a lot of times people think they're fidgeting
- and all of that when there's a formal name for that stage
- setting with kids and some kids do that. As much as I don't like
- it. Some kids can do work well with music in the background. So
- there were things that they needed to learn about how kids
- work and who we were working with that made made for a
- difference.
- And we at that project for over nine years turned out kids every
- year 66 to 75% of our students tested higher on the California
- test of comprehensive basic skills, certainly than the
- district as a whole and oftentimes from the schools that
- scored the highest in the district, our kids were there or
- beating them on this test. And it taught me a couple of things
- that you do not need to teach to the test. And neither teachers
- nor students need to be terrified of the test, you can
- teach kids in such a way that they will be able to walk in
- there and take the test without you teaching it to them or
- without you falling out and connipting and devoting a whole
- week to taking the test and whole year of designing lessons
- that are tests related versus learning related to students.
- And we documented that we had to go get the stats from the open
- research department, because I used to tell our students,
- "Look, people who fund us and who pay your salary and my
- salary, do not care that we like little black children, they do
- not care. And they don't care about a little person saying
- that I came here and the people really liked me and I felt good
- and I learned a lot." They want to see some bottom line results,
- as in from 55th percentile to 75th, or to 80th percentile.
- That's what they want to see.
- And that's what we're going to deliver, and they delivered it.
- And I was so proud of them. And so proud of the work because we
- were working in a context that large church where people would
- see--parents felt comfortable coming there, they felt
- comfortable sending their kids there, because it was base in
- the community. And they felt that they were a part of it. We
- did things to incorporate the fact that parents were not a
- problem, and that they were not seen as uninvolved and uncaring.
- We thoroughly understood that given the way we were outlining
- the work, that students would not do it. They simply would
- buck and not do it and rebel if we did not have the support of
- the adults that they respected in our corner. It was their
- parents and their aunts and their older brothers and
- sisters, excuse me (clearing throat), that said, "All right,
- we hear you. And you better go in there and act like we taught
- you how to act. You better go in there and listen to those people
- and do what they say." That's how we got our students
- initially. They liked the fellowship, they liked being
- around with other kids, they liked meeting kids from all over
- the city. They liked their study group leaders, excuse me
- (clearing throat), the college students. They didn't
- necessarily start out liking the work. And they didn't
- necessarily think that they could do it or that they wanted
- to do it. The reason we got traction is because from day
- one, we got the endorsement of the people that they listened to
- and respect. And that was their parents, their grandparents
- their aunt, their older brother, or somebody who said, "You go in
- there and you do what she says do and you listen to those
- people and you do it."
- And so when I would ask them, we got to have a series of
- consequences for when when behavior problems come up. And
- I'd invite them to give me some input because that's what
- Stanford says you're supposed to do. You're supposed to get
- student interest in all of this and that which is true. And I
- said, "So if something goes wrong, I want to call your
- parents the first time you do." They said, "Oh, no, no, no, no,
- give us a chance at least give us one chance to do it, we
- probably need two chances to do it." And so I said, "Okay, I
- won't call them the first time. Can we compromise on the second
- time that something goes awry, I call your parents?" Because
- you're working with junior high school kids, and they can space
- out because they got the phone call from whomever they have a
- crush on, or they didn't get the phone call, or they just got
- some new shoes, for whatever reason they space and they're
- not completely well, so "Okay, I'll talk with you the first
- time about the second time, we will call home. And we've
- already established with your parents because we brought your
- parents there. And we've told them what we're doing. And we
- told them why we're doing it. And we told them who you're
- working with. And our orientation was really thorough
- about this is you're working with. And this is what we want
- to do. And this is where we want to come out. And this is why."
- So that we called we didn't get parents not wanting to work with
- us or believing their child versus believing us quote
- unquote, because we had already laid the groundwork that we are
- in this together and that I realize I need you otherwise I
- simply will not be able to do what I need to do. So we did
- that.
- And we were successful. And I did that for 10 years and then I
- left to start consulting to urban schools on my own based on
- my own experiences, not what I had read, not what I had seen on
- TV, but what I knew personally could turn the corner. You were
- going to say something?
- Joy PierceI was just going to say what you're talking about,
- as far as you know, community engagement and support. My mom
- is also a teacher. And I think that that's something that we
- talk about all the time. So it's, it's kind of interesting
- to hear that it's been a longer and more pervasive issue than
- even we realized in our community. So I appreciate that
- perspective.
- Anne BouieWell, thank you. No, of course, it is it with when
- schools are seen as adversarial in institutions, one thing I had
- to learn in school is seen as an adversarial institution. And
- it's not that poor or their parents don't like education or
- don't want, and don't value education. It's not education,
- it's the educators that they don't like.
- Joy PierceMm Hmm.
- Anne BouieAnd problem where the dissonance is, it's not
- education in of itself. It's the way that they are treated and
- perceived when they come to school, it's almost assumed, and
- no child is going to respect you, when they're standing there
- and watch you treat the person that they love and care about,
- as if they don't know how to do anything. Or as if they are not
- good parents and need to be taught, no child is going
- to--they have to choose, they have to choose, it's clear who
- they're going to choose without a doubt. And what we did is
- make--there's not a choice here, we are all on the same team. And
- we know that your mother--I ride the metro, I see women and men,
- eyes blurred over working two and three jobs trying to get
- things so don't tell me your definition of parental
- involvement is the definition that is necessary in order for
- you to get buy in for students. These women are already taking
- their kids to the zoo, they're already buying those books at
- dollar stores for kids to read. They're already sending--I've
- seen him in the nail salons. I don't know what nail salons that
- some people go to. But some of the ones that I go to the women
- are in there and they cool the kid out with a book, those
- little cheap dollar store books, they cool him out with books.
- "Go read the book."
- So I know, you see them at the zoo. So that I know that what
- they are concerned about is educating their children just
- like the schools are it's just the schools do not see them as
- partners, as equal partners with something to say, and really do
- not understand that there is an entire community around those
- children and around those women, irrespective of the fact that
- they're poor, that enables them, that prepares their kid to go to
- school to be able to learn if that's the assumption rather
- than they don't want to learn and their parents are not
- involved and how can we get their parents involved? That's
- not the problem. The problem is working with what you have where
- people are, they don't want to come to school, for you to teach
- them to teach their kids how to read, then fine, what you do is
- you say okay, you don't have to take him to the zoo, you don't
- have to take him to the Grand Canyon, you don't have to do any
- of this. What are you doing and where can we work with because
- we thoroughly understand that you love your children and that
- you want the best for them, and we want the best for them to.
- And what we do to contribute to that is this, what you do is
- that and all we need is for you to tell them to come in here and
- listen to us and cooperate with us.
- And we can probably do something with at least 80% of them.
- Because they're that 5% on either end, five to 10% on
- either end. There's 10% of the kids will be orphaned, all their
- families shot dead right in front of them, they have to walk
- across the Sahara Desert barefoot with no water for six
- months, and they come out someplace and then they make it.
- There the other 10% that they do need the authorities and they
- are beyond the pale for many of us and are certainly not needing
- of some kind of outside--they're rough. The other 80% they're in
- the middle, they can be had, they can be had. There's no
- problem with that 80% being had. And the day that, with all due
- respect to all the work and the energy and the money, it is
- possible to turn out 75 to 80% of them at or above grade level.
- I know that for a fact.
- So that was a lot of my orientation, to work. And as I
- shared with you, I worked as a consultant to urban schools all
- around the country. Just as that project had taught me to work
- all around the country to see that the needs were basically
- the same, the concerns are basically the same. How do we
- get them and their parents to come to the party? How do we get
- them motivated, quote, unquote, to learn? And the key of it is
- they don't need pity. They need a challenge. They need respect
- that they are smart. They need to respect that we know you love
- your children, and that we know that you care about them and
- that you do want to get education. We will get out of
- your way and stop saying things about you, that poverty is th
- problem. Being poor is not an obstacle to being taught.
- Otherwise, all these children all over the world that are
- learning under bridges and having to use the dirt and a
- stick to write on wouldn't learn if poverty were the problem.
- Poverty's not the problem that's being poor is not a problem. And
- I used to tell my staff, "Look, if they're poor, they need more
- homework. If they're living under a bridge, they need more
- homework, not less, to do that," and that's sort of a segwayed
- into my artwork, because I've always seen myself as somebody
- who understands the hidden transcript with why things
- aren't going well.
- And in 2006--2003, actually, my yellow brick road kind of ran
- out with my consulting. It just wasn't happening. It wasn't
- happening, I couldn't get contracts at all. And I
- understand some of why that was the case. And is the case even,
- but the bottom line is the doors weren't opening. And the other
- bottom line is I had segwayed, into the art scene here in DC.
- And I was at a black artist of DC meeting at Graham's gallery
- over in Northeast. And they said that they were getting ready to
- mount a show called "Found" and it was based on found objects.
- And I said, "Well, I have this piece of wood that I brought
- from California" because I've gathered found objects and
- botanicals for years way before I even thought about doing art.
- And they said, "Well put it in," and I got the help to fabricate
- the piece of work, I put it in and it sold.
- And all of a sudden all these art doors start opening while
- the education doors were staying shut. The art doors are opening
- opening opening and I had a neighbor, a friend who was in
- Wharton MBA and one of the most dry, pedantic souls you can ever
- meet, certainly not you would think spiritually motivated at
- all or oriented at all. He said, "Well, Anne if the art doors are
- the ones that are opening, and the other doors are not you
- probably want to walk through the open doors."
- Joy Pierce(laughs)
- Anne BouieAnd, and he said in such a "duh" way that I stopped
- bemoaning what was I was being confronted with and start
- getting into it. And that piece of work sold and I've never
- looked back since that piece of work was about using found
- objects and botanicals, which were something that I've been
- always enamored with. And my style of work is rooted in a
- southern sensibility of using what you have, of seeing the
- beauty in earth and things and seeing the beauty and the
- utility of things that people have cast aside and who don't
- want. And understanding that art is more than simply art for
- art's sake, that in my tradition, at least, beautiful
- utilitarian things have been made beautiful and have a
- certain aesthetic value, and that art is a functional aspect
- of living and of orientation. It's not merely something that's
- aesthetically pleasing, and it stops in that or it's not simply
- art for art's sake. It's about functionality and art serves a
- specific role in the culture and the context from which I
- spri,ng. And that's the tradition and its sense of
- aesthetics that I've carried into my work. The other sense of
- aesthetics is the realization that pre contact cultures, their
- orientation to the earth, to spirituality, to the cosmos, and
- a relationships with the earth and other people. And the way in
- which they use art as a part of their life experience, to teach,
- to educate, to frame, to present is something that I really
- value. And those are the two things that emanate from that
- rest on my art, which brings you brings us to the noose.
- (chuckles)
- Joy PierceAbsolutely.
- Anne BouieYeah, that's what brings us to the, to the noose
- and to why I am still kind of amazed at the response to that
- and what it meant. It was a--what's the word I want--a
- lightning rod or trigger for all different kinds of reactions and
- responses. And I put that--it was a vine. It's a kudzu vine,
- that a friend and I went to some woman's house in Maryland, rural
- Maryland, because she had found she had read that this woman had
- all these different kinds of vines on her yard. And yeah,
- she'd be happy to let us come down there and have some. And
- that's what we did. And when I saw that vine that was in front
- of my house, when I saw it, I said, "Oh, we know what this is
- right here." And I had it at home, there were three of them.
- I've had him at home, I had them at home for a long time. And
- then when George Floyd was murdered, was murdered, executed
- publicly. And the marches started, I was amazed at that
- response to his murder, since it's nothing really new, to be
- vulgar about it.
- And the marches and the protest and the energy around it, and
- the things that people were doing individually,
- collectively, I wanted to be a part of because I do not March,
- that's a period, dot. I do not do crowds, I do not do marches,
- I am never any place, as I shared with you, that I do not
- see and have access to a direct way out. I want to see the exit
- sign and I want to be able to get to it. Therefore I don't do
- marching. I don't do crowds. But I wanted to express my support.
- And my support was putting out that noose. And what that meant
- to me and how it was interpreted and how it was experienced has
- been really edifying to me in terms of the response to it.
- Because here in Columbia Heights, there was a serious
- brouhaha around here for a couple of weeks on Next Door
- Columbia Heights quote unquote, that people were responding to
- it. And I got the gamut of responses to it, most of which
- were horrified and appalled. And "this has no place in our
- community." And "I hope for the day when this doesn't come to
- be" and on and on and on.
- So it's given me that art, that particular piece of work is
- perhaps, excuse me, a more pointed or definitive, definite
- piece of work that addresses the themes that I've been addressing
- ever since I've been engaged in this journey in art and history,
- which is that there is a subtext to American history, to the
- African American experience that we don't deal with. And that
- does not serve the--what's the word I want--does not serve the
- public mythology and public interpretation of history. And
- therefore, that hidden transcript is not one that is
- articulated, and is not one that African Americans can draw from,
- in particular, not only African Americans, but anybody who's
- been on the downside of things, has a history that is not drawn
- upon and is not acknowledged and that noose in my mind's eye is
- part of the subtext of the African American response to our
- experience that is not addressed, is not dealt with.
- Because that noose means to me something very different than
- how it was interpreted, even by a lot of African Americans. And
- there's another way to get at that story, or there's something
- else that you could have said, and that there are nicer ways to
- talk about it than that was a lot. "And I've lived in this
- community for 33 years, and I've never seen anything like that.
- And it's horrifying to me to see it. And did somebody do that to
- you? Are you okay? Are you being threatened yourself in some way
- or another?" And I know that the noose is a trigger. If I saw a
- noose, running around and I didn't understand it, I'd
- probably feel the same way. Depends on who was hanging it
- and why they were hanging it. But that was a vine as one
- person said, "Well, it's not really a noose, it's just a
- vine. It's not a noose tie knot and it's not rope. It's just
- tied together with some yarn or something. It's not really a
- slip knot for a noose," and on and on and on.
- But the noose, that that piece of vine, and what it
- represented, it's sort of like the spear point to what my art
- and my historical work are about which is the resistance on any
- number of levels to enslavement into oppression and the culture
- of opposition to enslavement and oppression that developed during
- enslavement by people who were enslaved. And what got them
- through. Everyone is quite quite, quite, quite aware more
- than aware of the horrors that they experienced and of the
- terror that was experienced so many times and just the, the
- need to deal with that. There is another side to that. The
- "however" is how did they get over with their souls intact?
- How did they get through and were not destroyed by that.
- And that is what I'm interested in that yes, and I'm not
- diminishing at all, because as I shared with one person I have
- personal experiences, members of my family have personally
- witnessed and or experienced and were present, when events that
- that news represents occurred in their lives, personally, that
- and these are not ancestors. These were my Uncle Willie and
- his peers. So this, this happened, not in the 18th, 17th,
- 16th, even 19th centuries, this is contemporary for all intents
- and purposes. So don't tell me that I'm not aware of what that
- means because my family members and I are aware of what that
- means. And in fact, one time I asked my favorite uncle who was
- essentially a surrogate father, who had never said, a coarse,
- word to me in my entire life. I tried to probe him about the
- history of Jackson County, and he went from zero to 60 on me,
- and I had never experienced him doing that before and I was
- taken aback. I think my mouth dropped open for him to talk
- with me like that, because he had never, ever. And it took me
- a while to know and understand why he went there. And yet, I
- look at that man, he raised seven kids, he he took care of
- the land that his grandfather, my great grandfather was deeded
- that land is still in the family today. He had a marvelous sense
- of humor. He could make you laugh until your stomach hurt.
- He was a wise man. And he himself faced or experienced or
- saw and witnessed some of the most horrific things that have
- been a part of the African American experience in this
- country.
- So the the public myth of of African Americans and our
- response to enslavement and to oppression are--we are
- articulated as having been destroyed by enslavement. And
- Daniel Moynihan's treatise of the reasons for the demise, if
- you will, of the African American community are rooted in
- enslavement misses the point entirely. The public narrative
- on enslavement and on black people in this country, and to
- this day it's based on three faulty premises. The first one
- is that Africans had no culture and no history and no past of
- note, they had nothing of that sort. The second is that they
- were spiritually and religiously savages and heathens who ran
- around trees and who had no concept or no knowledge of God
- and needed to be saved. And enslavement was actually a
- method of saving their souls. And so therefore, it was worth
- it. And the third one is that we rolled over, that African
- American is rolled over. And that interpretation, that public
- narrative are still operative, and obviously, have had a
- deleterious effect on African Americans and on the entire
- country because they're simply not true. They're lies. They're
- just so far beyond the reality of what happened, and how we
- responded to that and how we got over. There's a spiritual sense,
- sometimes I look back and I wonder how we got over. And my
- work is about the "however, yes." And my work is about the
- "however" and let us focus on the things that enabled us to
- not merely survive but prevail oppression and enslavement to
- prevail and come out with not only our humanity intact, but
- our own skills and wherwithall and minds established, to be
- able and to want to establish a life for ourselves. And that
- life had been established beyond the respectability politics of
- many sectors of the African American community, to make it.
- So that's what the noose is about. And I guess I can pause
- there to see if that's helpful or where you want to go from
- here Joy.
- Joy PierceYeah, that was wonderful. That was really
- powerful. And I think I have yet to hear someone state, sort of
- the the big myth so succinctly with those three points. That
- was very helpful. So I think my my follow up question for all of
- this is, it's clear that you see the role of art, of your art
- particularly, in countering that narrative and saying, "No, you
- know, we have agency and there's been resistance in this sort of
- thing." Do you think that there's a particular place for
- art specifically within the Black Lives Matter movement and
- what's happening right now? Do you see any sort of parallels
- there? I know you said you don't March but you make your art.
- Anne BouieRight. Yeah, well, art has served a functional
- purpose in the African American--well throughout the
- aesthetics. The aesthetic of art being functional, and as a part
- of integral part of society, is certainly rooted in African
- aesthetic and, and a context. But it's also a pre contact
- context as well any pre contact culture or civilization across
- space and time. Since came out of mine, art has served as not
- only ascetically pleasing, but functional. It has had a role in
- teaching and healing, in defining who people were,
- telling people the cultural mythology, mythological and
- cosmological and religious stories about themselves. Art
- has been a major tool for how that's done. So it's functional
- and a part of people's lives. One of the things that we often
- forget is that all the so called African art, all African art
- that's collected in a Museum, the beautiful masks, the
- statues, the carvings, the iron work, all of them, those were
- not merely art to hang. They were functional and they were
- used by people and by individuals and by groups. And
- that's why you'll hear a lot of collectors of African art tell
- you how careful they are about which pieces they select,
- because some of those pieces are not to be used or displayed in
- many contexts, because they're simply too powerful, or the uses
- to which they were used were very, very secret, very, very
- sacred, and don't need to be in the hands of people who do not
- understand that. So I have a lot of African art, but I kind
- of engage with every piece to see even if I don't know the
- depths to which it was use to have a sense of understanding of
- it and not only that, whether or not the piece is something that
- would feel comfortable with me and that I would feel
- comfortable with. And that it's even appropriate for me to have.
- And I've encountered pieces of art in museums and in displays
- and for sale. And that's like, "Oh, no, no, no, no, no, that's
- a little too--no, no, this one, no."
- Anne Bouie"But this one, no." So we don't understand the
- Joy Pierce(laughs)
- extent to which art is functional and serves a purpose
- and is loaded with meaning on any number of levels. That
- cultural continuity is a part of what my work is in assuming that
- there had to have been visual cues on the Underground
- Railroad, there--
- Joy PierceMm Hmm.
- Anne BouieAnd that means that art was a tool of resistance,
- and was intentionally used as a tool of resistance to
- enslavement and as a tool of agency, quote, unquote. So that
- my work builds upon that stream that pre contact cultures had a
- relationship and an understanding of the earth that
- is only now just being barely recognized and only because it's
- absolutely essential to do to do it. This point, for example, in
- Australia and in Northern California's both in both of
- those places, scientist and forest rangers and all of that
- have started to work with Aboriginal people in Australia
- and with Native Americans in this country because they know
- about using fire in controlled burns, they know about how to
- work with fire. And they know how to work with the earth in
- such a way that these kinds of tragedies do not happen with
- Aborigines and with Native Americans. The things that they
- know about the earth and about how to work with the earth and
- the land and respecting it are things that are now being sought
- out by people, because what do we do about these fires that are
- cataclysmic that are just simply cataclysmic and will
- destroy--fires in California are still burning after months. And
- some of that is because traditional pre contact methods
- of dealing with the earth have been completely ignored. So that
- I really have come to value the fact that there are universal
- principles and uses that transcend time and space, and
- every single pre contact culture on the planet, every single one,
- Europe, Africa, Asia, South--everywhere. And I like
- those cosmological things. I like the fact that all of them
- used art as functionality. We all know, for example, that the
- plaids, Scottish tartans, simply by looking at the plaid in
- somebody's kilt or somebody clothes in Scotland could tell
- you their tribe, could tell you their affiliations within that
- tribe, could tell you their age, could tell you what they do,
- could tell you where they're from simply by looking at
- someone's kilt. The same thing is true in Africa, that if you
- look at a woman's head dress. Headdress in particular, it can
- tell you whether a woman is single, whether she's married,
- whether or not she's had her first son, all of those things
- can be shown simply by the clothing and embellishment that
- a woman wears, her hairstyle, her clothes, all of that can
- tell you that and and we photograph these photographs of
- these women in their beautiful clothing and hair and carriage
- and all of that. And we do not realize that basically that
- woman is a book to anybody that can read it, can tell you
- everything about her. There are, for example, I have a piece of
- art, that is a very beautiful piece of work. And I've learned
- that it when it's hung on the outside of the house, it means
- that there is a single woman in there who's available for
- marriage, just by that.
- Anne BouieJust a piece of art, I have another piece that I got
- in Namibia, that the woman told me is quite old and that it is
- used in the head man's house, it is that it is looked for that's
- who you go to when you first arrive in a village or a
- community because they are the person that you sort of check in
- with. And that's what you look for when you look to people's
- houses and it's very beautiful. All of the work is very
- beautiful. But it's also quite functional and has a role to
- play. And that's what motivates me, and certainly motivates the
- work from two strains of work, ancestry and the code, visual
- cues on the Underground Railroad. And since then it's
- led me to explore and contextualize that with the use
- of material culture and visual art as tools of resistance in
- enslavement, and that's where my research has gone. And that's
- where the studying has gone. And that piece with the vine is
- rooted in a combination of ancestral meaning as well as,
- functional meaning. There are things on that piece that if you
- know what they are inferred to, tell you something that counters
- the vine itself, the noose itself, all of the adornments
- and embellishment on that piece of work, for example, convey
- words and meaning that to someone looking at it who
- understood would disempower the power and terror of that vine.
- It would refocus their attention on the "however," that that
- Joy PierceWow
- noose signifies. The terror and demoralization and fear and
- horror of it are, if not neutralized, are certainly put
- into a place where they can be dealt with and that they don't
- destroy, and that there are tools that were involved in the
- community, either mentally, physically, spiritually or
- actually on this plane that counter that terror and that
- horror that made sure that the people did not fold. It is not
- to say that they were not wounded and they were not
- scarred. How are you gonna not be? It also says, however, that
- people were not destroyed by that the culture was not
- destroyed, their humanity was not destroyed their family
- units, blah, blah, blah are not destroyed. And that's what my
- work focuses on.
- And Black Lives Matter is focusing on the fact that we are
- of value. And, clearly, we'r of value and that it's
- not appropriate to continue to s oot people on the street like
- ogs in broad daylight. And art has played a role in that t
- a major extent. There have b en too many artists who h
- ve responded to that, and just as with the Black Panthers w
- th Emory, who was an artist for he Black Panthers, who used art
- to tell the story of liberat on, contemporary artists acro
- s the board have been usef l and have been involved in illu
- inating and depicting that stru gle.
- I wouldn't say a problem, but one of my concerns is that we do
- not focus enough on the "however," of George Floyd. The
- "however" of every single family in community whose lives have
- been ripped and sliced and stabbed by these deaths. You
- don't hear of any of them falling out and laying down and
- rolling over, I have yet to hear of one family that has rolled
- over and given up because of that. Every family that--I might
- be wrong on this but every family who has suffered that
- tragedy has responded in a way to stand up and to fight and to
- keep it moving. Which is not to say that every single member of
- that family does not go someplace and roll around in
- snot and cry and moan and ask why and be an incredible pain
- every day. It's horrible to think of somebody you loved and
- think about the way they die. Dying is enough even if you go
- to sleep and die in your own bed with your loved ones standing
- around you. It's going to cause pain and have you hurt and roll
- around the floor snotting and crying and almost unable to be
- consoled. Just death alone does that. But to die and to see your
- child or your husband or your friend or your daughter be shot
- down like a dog and their bodies literally laying in the street
- for half an hour before somebody comes to do something about it.
- It's almost beyond the pale.
- And yet people have gotten up and Black Lives Matters is a
- result of seeing somebody's body lay in the street uncovered for
- 30 minutes, dead and bleeding before somebody comes. That was
- an impetus for Black Lives Matter. And that alone says
- something about the response of African American people to
- trauma and destruction in this country. And that is what I
- believe needs to be focused on as much as the actuality of the
- event. The response to that is very powerful to me. And that's
- my "however," being a southern person and listening to the the
- ways that Southern people are described that southern men and
- women are described that they were Samboes and clowns and
- scratched when they didn't itch and laughed when it wasn't funny
- and shuffled along and their religion was nothing but about,
- "On the other side of glory, I'll get saved. And there's
- nothing to look for on this side of the water." That does not
- match my experience of my father, of my uncle, of my
- father's friends. No, it's a direct contradiction to my
- personal feelings of many of the black men and women that I know
- that's not them. These are them not that. And so my work focuses
- on these are them not that, which is not to say that that
- did not exist. Of course it did because we all know who gave up
- Denmark Vesey and Gabriel Prosser and probably Nat Turner.
- They were other black people that gave them up, especially
- with Gabriel and Denmark. Basically that prevented what
- probably would have been successful revolts that nipped
- them because other black people gave them up. And other black
- people were the ones who went 500 miles into the interior of
- Africa to drag people out to take to the coasts so that they
- could be put on ships and sold away. Europeans weren't 500
- miles into the interior of Africa. They weren't allowed to
- get off the coast, much less go into the interior. Other black
- people rounded them up and got them there. So it's not to say
- that, that the the scope of humanity is not found in black
- people. Yeah, black people sold other black people, just like
- white people sold other white people, we have no monopoly on
- humanity or that sort of thing. And nobody gets out alive.
- But the point is of the "however," that yes, I was on
- those ship stripped, inspected, finger stuck in every orifice in
- my body, and branded and all of this. And however, the "however"
- is what within me enabled me to get up and not give up. And I
- would contend that what, Joy, is about spirituality. It's not
- about my substance and my strength and my character, it's
- about being able to tap into something that is greater than
- myself, that enables me to get back up. I don't get up all by
- myself when the deal goes down. And when my son has been shot
- down like a dog. I go someplace to a power that is greater than
- myself. And that, to me is the underpinning of the art and the
- music and the protest. And so art, my art is based on a
- spiritual premise, I see making art as a spiritual process. And
- that artists at their best are allowing themselves to be used
- as channels for something higher and greater, that can serve
- people in some way. It's simply not a self absorbed act. I see
- art as a spiritual process, because it's making something
- invisible, become visible, and it needs to be treated in that
- way. That's the way I approach art, I approach art as a
- spiritual process. And I'm very grateful for being able to be
- the channel through which some of my better work (laughs) has
- come through. And so the art that is made that references
- that not only needs to speak to the horror, it also needs to
- speak to the transcendence and transcendence is about
- spirituality.
- And every movement that's about something that has lasted and
- had some depth has had an overt, articulate, explicit spiritual
- dimension to it, not religious but spiritual. It just so
- happens in modern times that spirituality is often presented
- in the context of organized religion. They're not the same
- thing. But that is how spirituality is marshaled and
- presented, and so with Black Lives Matter to me in the
- spiritual dimension says, "Yes, we matter." It also says more
- importantly, is this is how we transcended and this is how we
- overcame. And it's about understanding that that's a
- spiritual process. It's not an intellectual process. It's not
- an intellectual process, for sure. It's not personal
- psychological construct it is a spiritual construct. And I think
- that all protest and all desires for a better life are rooted in
- a sense of the spiritual and the spirituality and value of human
- beings and the earth, and their spiritual dimension, not merely
- their political, social or cultural dimension. And I think
- that movements that acknowledge that explicitly probably have a
- deeper root system than those that do not. You need a root
- system. And for me, the root system for African Americans,
- clearly in this country has always had a spiritual
- dimension. And all movements, if they're going to be successful,
- over the long haul, have to have some kind of spiritual dimension
- to them.
- And art is one of the ways of, for me anyways of dealing with
- that spiritual dimension. And it says something not only about
- what we have suffered, it talks about how we have transcended,
- and you do not transcend without a spiritual dimension to your
- work. For me, that is my experience and my opinion that I
- have been places in my life and times that I know I did not get
- up from as a result of my own will or from you telling me that
- I could make it. I got up from them because of the
- acknowledgement there is a source of strength and power and
- guidance and all that that is greater than my own and greater
- than your own intellectual powers. And that's the way I
- work and believed in carry it. Sort of like that thing, there
- are no atheists in a foxhole. (laughs) And the other point is
- that Bob Dylan, in one of the songs he sings, that you're
- going to serve somebody, you're going to serve something. It's
- not whether or not you're going to serve somebody or believe in
- something or somebody or something. It's who and what
- that is, is the question not whether, because everybody
- believes in something, and calls upon something. And my
- experience is the only well that does not run dry and the only
- well does not depend on my own resources is a spiritual well.
- And I see that spiritual well, coming through in pre contact
- cultures very clearly, I see that spiritual well, coming
- through the religious figures of many people who have been
- engaged in the movement. One of the things that is kind of
- disturbing to me these days is that the extent to which
- religious figures, overt religio s figures, are disdained, and
- in some ways consciously exclu ed from social movements across
- he board. And in many ways, tha 's totally understandable.
- Mm hmm.
- t's really hard to grasp the f ct that the human beings who go
- nto religious organizations re just like the human beings t
- at go into commerce, or b siness, or food cuisine, or far
- ing or anything else. They're n t any different. The institution
- in many cases have become suc that are not any difference,
- the interpretation f the spiritual principles upon
- which most religions are b sed, are serving power and money
- and not the growth and the s rvice of people. None of
- hat can be denied. None of tha can be denied. One person said
- That is, the experience and the time of religion and so it's
- "You know, people don't much appreciate religion and spirit
- ality and the cross whe it's accompanied by a
- un." (laughs)
- very, very hard for a religious person, quote, unquote, to be
- seen and heard as espousing spiritual principles. Because
- there is not a single major denomination on the planet
- today, who does not need a Madison Avenue campaign to
- restore its image.
- Joy Pierce(laughs)
- Anne BouieThere is not a single one and some of the
- things that you could say about the people in formal religious
- organizations, it would make you think, like Diogenes going
- through the streets, looking for one who is honorable. Just can I
- find one religious figure, that's honorable, please? It's
- that bad across any denomination. That does not deny
- the fact that spirituality is not religion, and that you need
- to find somebody who can articulate spiritual principles
- for you. And I know for a fact, in Black Lives Matter movement,
- every single one of the people involved has a very deep
- spiritual practice, from my reading and of interviews and
- that kind of thing. Every single one of them has a profound and
- deep spiritual practice. What the movement collectively needs
- is that is spiritual undergirding from somewhere,
- from somebody that everybody can say, "Yes, that we are drawing
- from a spiritual source and a spiritual well." And in this
- society, it's very hard for that not to be couched in religious
- terms. Otherwise, people think you're running around trees
- under the full moon, when you say spirituality. But that is
- what sustains movements. That is what sustains the 60 million
- people who were out in the street because George Floyd
- died. If that stuff is going to come to anywhere, it has to
- become beyond "Well, I've done my service. I've been in the
- streets and marched," or "Yes, I've been outraged. And then I
- express that and I get a catharsis and I can go sit
- down." No, it's spirituality that says, that was what I
- needed and what's done next, and gives people the energy and the
- power and the will and the faith to keep going, because that work
- is too hard. That work is too hard. It's too draining. It's
- too painful to think that people can go through it sustained on
- their own will they simply cannot, it cannot how many
- bareaved mothers can you go to and talk to without becoming
- overwhelmed after a time and without just drained and full of
- despair? And how do you get up from that? You don't get up from
- that because you go on a cruise to Baja for two weeks. You
- don't. You get up from that from being connected to a spiritual
- source and art is spirituality. All of the art talks about
- intangible things that helped us get over, help anybody get over.
- So I've certainly had my hands on my hips about that, haven't
- I?
- Joy PierceNo, I really enjoyed it. That was extremely profound.
- And I appreciate sort of the framing, the spirituality as
- well as like the long term trajectory, the utilitarian
- purposes of art. I think it sort of gives me a more comprehensive
- view than I had before. And so shifting gears a little bit, but
- it's kind of related, I kept thinking about the big mural in
- Black Lives Matter Plaza in DC, as well as other ones that have
- sprung up across the US, after George Floyd specifically, and
- then Breonna Taylor. And knowing that you see these very explicit
- links between spirituality and art, what is your reaction to
- big murals that are sort of spearheaded by, you know, local
- government officials to make these statements? And, you know,
- what does it say when that sort of like an official
- representation, that art is sort of like co-opted by the
- government to say something, even if the people that work on
- are, you know, local DC artists, and there's a lot of support for
- it? What's your take on that? I'm just curious.
- Anne BouieWell, first of all I think that it's really good when
- the arts are funded by government, local, national, all
- of that, because artists need to be paid for our work, and we
- need money for it. And it's good that they are funding the arts.
- For example, when we put "Black Lives Matter" in 12 foot letters
- in yellow on the plaza, and do that, and it's done by the--yes,
- it does. But what I get concerned about is, does
- government back that up with any kind of real structural change
- and addressing real structural issues? Because all too often
- Black Lives Matter is reduced to "Well, I'm not being racist" or
- "I support black people" or "As a black person, I can't take
- this anymore, and I won't deal with it anymore. And yes, I'm
- angry, and I'm not going to sit down." But the core of it is is
- that it's not about personal feelings about whether or not
- I'm prejudiced or biased or racist, and it's very
- disconcerting when people say that they are not a racist or
- not prejudiced or something or other because my challenge to
- anybody about how they feel about anybody else is would you
- like your thoughts in your mind, recorded over a three to five
- day period, recorded every thought every word, and then
- print it out for anybody to read? And I don't know a soul on
- the planet who would say yes. I do not know a single soul that
- would say yes to that. I know I certainly wouldn't because I
- think some horrible things about people and everybody else does.
- So don't say that I don't have any biases or that I'm not--I've
- had adults say to me that they were not aware that they had
- biases. It's like what?
- Joy PierceYeah.
- Anne BouieSo that the issue is not whether or not I'm a racist,
- quote, unquote, the issue is that it's like being in LA. The
- air in LA is brown. You can see it. Now the air in LA except for
- the Santa Ana winds in the wintertime is brown. Period.
- They have the air in Shanghai is dark brown. You can see it the
- air in Mexico City and the air in Houston. Now, if you live in
- Shanghai, or Mexico City, or Houston, or LA, you are
- breathing brown air. If you live in America, metaphorically
- speaking, you are breathing brown air. There's no way around
- it. Everybody has been affected with it. Xenophobia is quite
- real. I think in some ways it was necessary when people were
- running around stabbing mastodons and saber toothed
- tigers. They were them and we were us. So probably DNA--but to
- say that I'm not is part of the proble really. Yes, you are and
- it's okay. You're not going to die and go to hell. You're not a
- bad person. Nobody's going to kick you out of the spring
- jack's tournament. You still get to play marbles. But yes, you
- are. We are. And so the personal dimension is one thing that gets
- in the way of the willingness to look at the structural aspects,
- because one of my favorite lines is from James Brown, he said, "I
- don't want nobody to give me nothing, open up the door, and
- I'll get it myself."
- So that when the city pays for a mural that espouses the
- principles and supports of Black Lives Matter, and at the same
- time, that very city's budget has $86 million allocated to the
- Department of Youth Rehabilitative Services, and it
- serves 250 clients and their budget is $86 million. The
- budget for the jails is $200 million. And it serves 1000
- people, a little more, not even 1500 people annually. So their--
- Anne Bouie[inaudible] almost $300 million allocated for less
- Joy PierceWow.
- than 2000 people. And yet that same city's budget for the arts
- is $34 million. For the Parks and Recreation Department. It's
- around $30-40 million. For the libraries, it's about the same.
- And all of those agencies serve far more people. So that if
- the city is really serious about talking about whose li
- es matter, they might want to ook at the fact that research
- as shown that for every dollar s ent on prevention, tw
- to five are saved on treat ent, and you are spending three
- times the amount of money to ho se so called juvenile delin
- uents, then you are on the art program for the entire city.
- Joy PierceWow.
- Anne BouieThat's in DC alone. The Philadelphia government came
- out in support of Black Lives Matter, is closing 23 schools
- and it's funding a $4 million jail.
- Joy PierceThat shows where their values are.
- Anne BouieThank you so that I don't really want to hear about
- you spraying Black Lives Matter all over the walls or supporting
- my colleagues who need the money. In fact, if you would pay
- me to do something, I'd go do it. However I realize, and I'm
- sure they realize that they are being used to take away
- attention from the fact that $86 million, that's almost $100
- million dollars is spent on 215 kids.
- Joy PierceWow.
- Anne BouieThat is a travesty. And so when government tries to
- (sighs) affirm itself, I want to see the numbers and I want to
- see the figures. It's the same thing with the people doing the
- marches. Now 60 million people were in the street, at the high
- point around protesting the murder of George Floyd. Let's
- assume that, minimally those 60 million people each spent at
- least $500. Let's assume that they could have spent as much as
- $1,000 in getting there. For example, the women's march in DC
- with a million people. And we know that people from around the
- country came. In fact, several of them stayed here at my house.
- So you figure transportation, you figure gas money, you figure
- food, lodging, souvenirs, money to make the signs, money to knit
- the little pink hats. All of that probably adds up to $1,000
- per person. Now, what is 60 million times $1,000? I think
- it's $600 million.
- Joy PierceYeah, that's significant.
- Anne BouieNow, how many houses how much affordable housing
- could you buy for that amount of money? How many libraries could
- you build? How many arts programs, how many job
- employment programs, how many businesses that would hire
- people over a long time with that much money support? So that
- I believe that it be great if people would stay at home and
- put that money in a pot and build some houses and parks and
- libraries and books and training programs for people, in my
- mind's eye. Which is not to say that protest does not serve a
- viable purpose. Of course it does. But $600 million and most
- of that money goes to the very corporations that people are
- protesting against.
- Joy PierceMm hmm.
- Anne BouieAs in the large hotels dah, dah, dah, dah, dah
- to city governments. And yet our tax money is paying their
- salaries and is paying for those kids to be--what is $86 million
- divided by 215 people, that's enough money to send every
- single one of them to a $50,000 a year school from preschool to
- grad school to post grad school.
- Joy PierceWow.
- Anne BouieSo that when we look at the way resources are
- allocated, when people start putting their money where their
- mouth is, and looking at not to defund the police, because oh,
- no, no, no, no, we need police. I'm sorry. Every society since
- time out of mind, is that some equivalent of the police now you
- need police. Nobody's talking about defunding the police.
- We're talking about a whole lot of things. But with all due
- respect, no. What we are talking about is giving the DC Arts
- Commission as much money as you give the police department so
- that a program officer who's supporting arts organizations
- has a million and a half dollars to split between 80
- organizations.
- Joy PierceYeah, wow.
- Anne BouieSo that so that no, I look with a jaundiced, cynical
- eye at governments. And it's the same thing with philanthropists.
- You can give money to organizations. Having run a
- nonprofit, I would love somebody to drop six figures on a
- nonprofit that I'm running or had been involved. It's a
- wonderful feeling when they do. You almost levitate, when
- somebody drops six figures or seven figures on you. At the
- same time, it would be wonderful if those philanthropists that
- are putting millions of dollars into it financed some black
- businesses, financed some black institutions, financed some job
- training programs that were guaranteed to get people jobs.
- If George Floyd had a job, he wouldn't have been murdered like
- that. And when 60 million people get marching in the street,
- about getting George Floyd a job while he's alive, as opposed to
- after he's been murdered, then we will be addressing structural
- change and not personal feelings. And art is, if nothing
- else, an intricate part of most of the structures, if you will,
- of the cultures that I resonate with. Art is a part of the
- structural system. And it's obviously part of our structural
- system, because we're saying," Oh, yeah, our city is really
- cool, because we have Black Lives Matter and a Black Lives
- Plaza." And in the same time, somebody looked like George
- Floyd would probably be swept up and taken to that $200 million
- facility. Or people would cross the street if he were alive. And
- they certainly wouldn't want him to have affordable housing in
- their neighborhood. And they certainly wouldn't give him a
- job. And there are a lot of George Florida's still alive and
- walking the streets who need affordable housing or a job or
- some literacy training or an employment program.
- And they're still around. And no, there aren't 60 million
- people in the street for them. There are $86 million for
- juvenile facilities and $200 million facilities for jails for
- the ones for the George Floyds that are still on the street.
- And that's just a fact. That's just a fact and until our
- governments address that--Artists are being used, if
- you will, and and we and we, I realize we realize that. And I
- know that we're doing the best and what we can with what we've
- got. So yeah, the mural says something and the mural is true
- and real. And as a minister that I used to know, would say, you
- know, saints are needed in Ahab's palace, murals are needed
- if Ahab pays for them, so bes it, they need it. But that's not
- the end all and be all of it.
- Joy PierceOne thing that you brought up that I kind of want
- to circle back to, in the whole discussion of defunding the
- police, and I know you said that's not something that you
- stand behind. But do you think that the national conversation
- surrounding these city budgets and sort of the allocation of
- resources, do you think that that is something to be hopeful
- about, the fact that people are maybe for the first time in a
- while realizing the way that their community spends their tax
- money? And maybe that there's hope in that?
- Anne BouieWell, I am a self righteous cynic, Joy. I know I
- am a self righteous cynic. And in the cold light of day, I have
- yet to see one piece of local or national or state legislation
- that does anything about that. Have you?
- Joy PierceI haven't. I've only seen people talking about
- budgets. They've been at the local level.
- Anne BouieExactly talking about budgets, and those 60
- million people who need to be right there when they're talking
- about the budgets have dissipated, or have felt they've
- done what they needed to do, or have taken the money and done
- something inappropriate with it, or have taken the money and
- continued on without tangible things to show with it. So yes,
- it's important to be talking about budgets, but we've been
- talking about budgets since time out of mind. And I have yet to
- see any place where something substantive has actually been
- done. It's one thing to talk about defunding the police when
- everybody--No, it's not the police need to be defunded, it
- needs to be restructured and redesigned and reimplemented to
- serve. Because traditionally police are or have been about.
- That's what the patty rollers were about under enslavement.
- They weren't to protect black people. They were to protect the
- community from black people. And that is the origin and role of
- the police. And so until that orientation has changed. In
- Columbia Heights, you say, "Oh, it's great that we have all this
- police presence." And then some people are saying, "Oh, yeah,
- that means I gotta really be careful. And really dodge things
- because I could get hurt."
- Joy PierceMm hmm. Yeah
- Anne BouieYeah. So that so that, I would like to think but
- I need to, it's like Jerry Maguire. Was it Cuba Gooding, or
- was it Tom Cruise in Jerry Maguire that said, "Show me the
- money?"
- Joy PierceYeah, absolutely.
- Anne BouieYeah, I haven't seen the money yet. And until the
- money is shown, it's all tingling, brass and crashing
- cymbals. So your hope comes not from what people have done are
- talking about. There goes back to the spiritual principle. If I
- put my hope in those 60 million people, or I put my hope in the
- budgets, that people merely talking about the budgets, and
- obviously, I would have to go home and sit down, because that
- hope would be dissipated like fog in bright sunlight. The hope
- has to be rooted in something else other than what is going
- on, otherwise, you will crash and burn because nobody has put
- anything on legislation. So my hope has to rest on spiritual
- principles that say that the arc of justice is very wide, but it
- does lean toward justice. And says that, "let one"--I'm going
- to miss that quote up so I won't even try to say it. But the hope
- rest in spiritual substinance and drawing on that to keep
- going not in merely playing the--you have to work as if you
- think there's no God and you have to pray as if you think
- that there's no other help, you have to do both. And it's my
- contention that they fuel one another that you have to work
- and you have to believe. If you don't believe you won't be able
- to work. And if you work without belief, it won't be successful.
- And even if you do work with belief, it can take a long, long
- time to see success. And then you will get bitter, and you
- will get discouraged and we'll start to doubt ourselves and
- anybody we worked with. And that's why going back to art, in
- spirituality artists to put us in touch with something greater
- than ourselves and remind us of the invisible that frames and
- shapes the visible.
- Joy PierceThat's very well put, very well put. Do you have
- any other things that you really wanted to touch on? Any things I
- didn't ask you?
- Anne BouieWell, I think you've been extremely thorough and
- thoughtful. I really do. Um, I can't right now. All the things
- that are meaningful to me in terms of explicit involvement in
- the spirituality of the movement. For example, Reverend
- Floyd Barber, I think he in his march on poverty--people like
- William Lamar IV who's pastor of Metropolitan AME Church here in
- Washington, DC who are talking about justice and who are
- wielding not only the intellectual prowess to address
- injustice, but the spiritual muscle to stain that process are
- people that need to be invited to sit at the table with many
- people who want to dismiss them and what they say simply because
- of not being willing to examine things very closely.
- Joy PierceMm Hmm.
- Anne BouieThere were a couple other thoughts that I had, Joy.
- There were three points about black on... The inclusion piece
- and the healing that's necessary because so many people involved
- in Black Lives have been marginalized and castigated and
- demonized by a formal religion. It's very easy to understand why
- they don't want to have any of it coming. However, there's no
- way this fight is going to be won without inclusiveness of
- that sort. And there are a couple of other thoughts. If I
- think of them, I'll call you back and perhaps get
- incorporated. But no, I really appreciate your talking with me.
- And it's really been illuminating for me to think
- about these things, and encouraging to keep on making
- art and doing the research that would do something to change the
- perception of who we are, where we've been, and where we're
- going. Because sometimes we're fighting shadows that we don't
- need to fight.
- Joy PierceAbsolutely.
- Anne BouieWe have a wealth of history and experience upon
- which to draw. I guess one thing I would say is that people don't
- understand the nature of protest, that these young people
- who are leading Black Lives Matter are not mushrooms, and
- they did not spring up out of a vacuum they sprung out of a
- culture and a context that nourished that. Just so they are
- not unique, and they are not exceptions. They are exemplary
- of what it's about. It's just as Harriet Tubman was called the
- Moses of her people. And she was called Moses that is a biblical,
- spiritual reference. But she was not a mushroom that grew up
- overnight, she came out of a context and a culture and
- movements need to root themselves in a context, culture
- and there is almost one that's not greater than the African
- American experience and our prevailing against enslavement
- and against oppression. And summarizing it, going back to
- the art into the noose, Ralph Ellison said that, "I am not
- ashamed that my ancestors were slaves were shot or hung were
- bred. I am not ashamed that my ancestors were slaves. I am
- ashamed that I once was ashamed.
- Joy PierceWow. Yeah, I mean, that's it, isn't it?
- Anne BouieYes, it is. Because if I'm not ashamed, that means I
- can go back and draw from that well and not cut myself off from
- that well, can't cut yourself off from the well and you cannot
- cut yourself off from your roots. We know what happens to a
- living organism who cuts itself off from its roots. It dies, it
- dies. Or at least it's stretches along but not with any
- substance. And if we cut ourselves off from our roots,
- that's what we might end up doing as a people because we
- don't value those roots and don't see the lessons from which
- we gained from which that helped us get over and make it so no, I
- think I've shared all the thoughts that I have on this I
- didn't think the noose would lead to things like this but it
- has and so if it gives us opportunity to just think and
- mull and to struggle, then I guess it's a good thing, you
- know.
- Joy PierceYeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for your time.
- And if you think of anything else, feel free to reach out to
- me I appreciate this so much, you taking the time, so much
- time to sit and talk with me and do it again. Is there anything
- else?
- Anne BouieNo, I think that you've been most gracious and
- forbearing researcher, Joy. I really do and I thank you for
- that because many people would have just thrown up their hands
- in the air with what we've been through to get this and
- obviously I have a place in my heart for students period. And
- certainly for people trying to get out of grad school but I
- love the energy and the thinking this and--I always have a
- working with from everything from the college students at
- interface. I really enjoyed that and I really enjoy working with
- you and with people like yourself who are thinking and
- grappling and acting in a constructive way. And so
- anything I can do to help you, I certainly would do that. And I
- want to encourage you and strongly encourage you to keep
- moving and keep going and keep thinking and grappling and being
- willing to grapple. That I think is essential to be willing to
- grapple with the interior, as well as the exterior. And I
- sense that in you.
- Joy PierceThank you so much. That's so kind of you.
- Anne BouieSo, I guess we will know more later, right?
- Joy PierceYes.
- Anne BouieYou'll edit this. And if you need me to say any,
- to clarify anything and everything as you're editing it,
- please let me know.
- Joy PierceAbsolutely. I will send you of course, a copy of
- the recording, which I doubt you'll want to listen to the
- whole thing, but I'll send you a transcript as well.
- Anne BouieOkay. That would be great to have the recording and
- have--
- Joy PierceMm Hmm.
- Anne BouieYou'll send it over the internet, right?
- Joy PierceMm hmm. Yeah, I'll figure out what's the easiest
- way to do it. But I'll send it to you for sure.
- Anne BouieOkay, great. And you'll edit it and dah dah dah
- dah dah with it too, as well.
- Joy PierceYeah.
- Anne BouieOkay, well, then we will keep in touch and I've
- listened for you and then and we will know more later.
- Joy PierceAll right. Perfect. Thank you.
- Anne BouieThank you. Joy, be well.
- Joy PierceAlright, bye bye.