Hope is a Discipline | 6

We don’t know what the future holds for the growth of a radically inclusive multiracial democracy but the questions we raise in this series are more than just thought experiments. 2024 is an important election year for many countries all over the world and we ask you, dear listener, how are you participating in democracy in your own life?

Chapter 5 includes conversations with CONTRA-TIEMPO's Ana Maria Alvarez, Denise Fairchild, Anthony Thigpenn, Chinaka Hodge. 

When I was growing up in St. Louis, my family had four drawings by Charles White hanging in our home. In the mid to late 20th century, Charles White was one of the most famous and influential Black artists in the United States.

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His realistic, gorgeously detailed paintings and drawings portrayed the African American experience in all its pain, strength, determination, and dignity.

He happened to be my Uncle Ed’s close friend, which is how my parents came to have these wonderful drawings. Everyone who came to our house was amazed to find Black art on display. Back then, in the ‘50s and ‘60s, the only Black images I saw in anyone's home were family photos.

One of White’s most famous pieces is the 1943 mural called “The Contribution of the Negro to Democracy in America.” It measures 11 feet tall and 17 feet long. It’s painted on a wall inside a building at Hampton University - an HBCU in Virginia. At the center are people in chains. But what dominates the work are the faces of heroes who fought to break the shackles of racism throughout our nation’s history.

We see Crispus Attucks, Revolutionary-era sailor of African and Indigenous ancestry, who was the first person to die in the Boston Massacre, and became an early martyr in the struggle for independence. We see the anti-slavery rebel Nat Turner, abolitionists Frederick Douglass, and Sojourner Truth, inventor George Washington Carver, and educator Booker T. Washington. Also: Paul Robeson and Marian Anderson, contemporaries of Charles White who, like him, were brilliant artists and brave activists.

I’ve been looking at images of this mural as I have been grappling with how we can build a multiracial democracy.

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The mural is a potent reminder that Black people, even when it didn’t serve or protect us, have always played a key role in challenging our democracy, pushing it to fulfill its promise of liberty, justice, and opportunity for all. The mural also shows me that in the struggle to build a more perfect union, there is a throughline from resistance to creation, from rebellion to invention. And the mural sends a clear message about the central role of artists in political and social movements. As Charles White once said, “Art must be an integral part of the struggle. It can’t simply mirror what’s taking place.”

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I’m Angela Glover Blackwell and this is Reimagining Democracy for a Good Life. In this episode we’ll talk about how art and creativity are vital components of a multiracial democracy and essential for human flourishing. We’ll also look at where Los Angeles — and we as a country — need to go from here. Welcome to our final episode, Chapter Six: Hope is a Discipline.

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This is a tumultuous time for the nation — for the entire globe, really. Strong political forces are trying to erase the rights and freedoms won by earlier generations, including those heroes in White’s mural. How do we move from resistance to creation? How do we imagine a thriving, fully-inclusive democracy when there is no model?

Ana Maria Alvarez: I think our role as artists, our role is always reflecting a society or a future or an idea that doesn't necessarily exist yet.

That’s Ana Maria Alvarez. She wears many hats, the most well-known being the founding artistic director of CONTRA-TIEMPO Activist Dance Theater in Los Angeles, but I love the way she describes herself.

Ana Maria Alvarez: I'm a mama, I'm an activist. I'm a community organizer, a choreographer, dancer, mover, believer in the good of people.

In musical terms, CONTRA-TIEMPO means the off beat.

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Ana Maria Alvarez: It's the beat between the beats that makes the music sound delicious. Also that idea of off the beaten path or like against the time or against the times. I was clear from the beginning, I was like, “This is a dance company that is about transforming the world as we know it.” Our mission is actually like, how does dance shift the reality of our future, like, literally transform the world? That’s what we're up to.

Her dance takes on contentious issues. Like one provocative piece she did about a harsh anti-immigrant law that Arizona enacted in 2010.

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It required police to demand proof of citizenship from anyone they suspected was here illegally – a recipe for rampant racial profiling. Ultimately, the Supreme Court struck down most of the law. But before that happened, Ana Maria performed her piece across the state.

Ana Maria: There's a whole section of the performance where we all stand in a line and we like, take out our IDs and we, you know, basically show our IDs to the audience. And then from this moment, this, like, really intense moment of seeing this, like, lineup of all these incredible Black and brown people who look different from one another, who look like they come from different places and have different histories and lineages, but are all standing there holding their IDs, put our IDs back away, and then we just like bah! Absolutely explode. And ferociously claim space. And the show that we did in Mesa, Arizona, a bunch of people walked out during that section

The shift, in the United States, from a predominantly white country to one that is increasingly multiracial represents a historic cultural transformation. And with this change comes uncertainty. Art makes space for this uncertainty and for the possibilities it creates. Using the universal language of human expression, art activates us – our pride, our empathy, and our responsibility. It can reflect who we are and sometimes, where we want to go. And then there’s the kind of art that illuminates a pathway towards a future where democracy flourishes.

Ana Maria Alvarez: Whether it's dance or it's music or it's visual art. Whether it is lighting, whether it's video, the ways in which artists imagine, create and manifest the world it has us tap into our feeling. And feeling is the place where you make change and you shift, and you feel your capacity to understand grow, your capacity to imagine new things grow, is through feeling

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When you feel something that makes you move right. When you feel something, it puts you into action. And so I think that's our superpower as artists.

I first met Ana Maria when she created a dance for the PolicyLink Equity Summit in LA in 2015. But I’ve known her parents for decades. They were labor organizers, and her mother later became an educator.

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For a long time her father, Joe, was part of an informal group of organizers and activists that I’ve been in for 25 years.

We meet regularly, a few times a year, and discuss what’s happening in our individual areas, from progressive labor and academics to civil rights and community building. Without that group – the trust, rigor, and exchange of information, PolicyLink would not be what it is today.

It was imperative to all of us that our work continue to expand to meet the moment, and the future. So we made sure to invest in the next generation of leaders and pull them into our network to continue the tradition of solidarity.

This work takes a village, and that’s a lesson Ana Maria learned early on.

Ana Maria Alvarez: My parents are a great example. They gather every few weeks with their village where they have these, like three-hour conversations about something that's happening in the world. I go into their Zoom room and listen in, participate sometimes. But like those kinds of, you know, gathering human beings and actually reading something together, sharing something, you know, like, like finding community spaces where you can be in action together.

Transformative change is an intergenerational endeavor. I love seeing the daughter of a longtime friend and colleague boldly take up the charge of change,

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and infuse the movement with the special beauty and wisdom of someone whose art literally is movement.

Ana Maria Alvarez: I was fascinated with this idea that, like, resistance was seen as a negative, that pushing back and engaging was actually seen as like, that's the worst thing that you could do. Resistance is actually a fundamental part of being in a functional and healthy society, right? That you want push back and dissidence and discourse. And when everybody's all pretending like they agree with it. That's called a dictatorship. And also just looking at and thinking about salsa and partner dancing as this metaphor for this kind of resistance and how when you dance with a partner, you need that pushback. You need that engagement to know that the person is there, to know that you are being met with an energy, that there is a capacity for you to actually be in relationship and talk and speak with your bodies if you don't give resistance back, it's literally like dancing with a floppy wet towel, like you can't do it. It's actually impossible. The dance doesn't work. I was just fascinated with that metaphor of like, we need resistance. Resistance is critical.

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There’s another reason why art is so important in activism and organizing. It sparks joy.

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I’m joyful in my personal life and optimistic by nature. It’s part of who I am. But joy had not been part of the way I talked about what sustains me in doing the work – until recently. I have another podcast series, it’s called Radical Imagination.

And in one of the episodes, I interviewed adrienne maree brown about her book “Pleasure Activism.” We talked about finding joy and pleasure inside the struggle, and something she said fundamentally altered how I think about this work. Adrienne said something like, “If, in your vision for change, you don't have a vision for joy, your vision for societal change is incomplete.”

Since then, I’ve been more deliberate in describing all the facets that I bring to the work, and how important it is for activists to be conscious of maintaining a sense of deep satisfaction in what they do.

Ana Maria: I will say that I’ve been to so many protests where I'm like, people are yelling and screaming. We need to be dancing and singing, like, because you literally are going to get taken down if you also don't have this, like the cultivating of both joy and pleasure inside of the struggle.

We did see moments like this during the wave of international Black Lives Matter protests in 2020.

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Speaker 1 (archival): The Black Lives Matter protests have become a global movement, and protesters have also joined together in global dance movements, such as the Electric Slide. Professional dancers performed it during protests in New York, highlighting the work of Black dancers. Within a week, it was danced at protests around the world, becoming a symbol of peaceful protest. [tape fades under]

We need joy to sustain us in the work. And joy is an essential component of what we are trying to achieve. We cannot have human flourishing, or a good life, without joy, pleasure and beauty.

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At this point in the podcast, I would like to be able to tell you that LA has solutions that can guide the rest of the country. But things aren’t that simple, as my conversation with longtime environmental activist Denise Fairchild made clear.

Angela Glover Blackwell: Do you think Los Angeles can lead the way? Can Los Angeles be a model? Can Los Angeles be a place where we can have honest struggle and develop tools and strategies for the model if it's not the model? Where does LA fit?

Denise Fairchild: I think California and Los Angeles are indeed good examples of how to come together and how to come together to effect change, notwithstanding the challenges that are there and that that's continuous work. And we need to understand it is being continuous work. But I have to also mention that while we can be the model and I do believe we are the model because we've been doing the struggle, we've been in the struggle a lot longer than many other parts of the country. That, um, you can't, you can't tell Atlanta that it's California, okay? You can't tell Alabama. Because I've been working on a national platform, as you have, and they all say, “Don't don't come here with this California stuff. Right? We different. Okay. We've got a different culture.” And so there's a whole lot of resistance from extracting the examples of California to other places. And I think we do need to be careful about that because it is a very different culture in other parts of this region. And we've got to start where people are and show maybe examples, but not saying that, “Yeah, we've got the answers figured out.”

Denise is absolutely right, and while I recognize the important lessons from LA,

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Every city, every community needs to carve its own path toward a fully inclusive democratic future.

Los Angeles doesn’t give us a road map, but it does offer signposts for the journey ahead.

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LA reminds me that a better world is not only possible, it’s already being built on a foundation of creativity and dedicated hard work. My dear friend Manuel Pastor describes his particular vision of the city wonderfully.

Manuel Pastor: My son, as you know, is a musician. And he actually went to undergraduate to go to a theater program. When he was getting ready to go to the theater program, I asked him one evening as we were watching a sunset, “Why are you doing this? Why do you wanna go to this program?” And he said, “I just want to make things of beauty with my friends.” And I feel like what's gone on in Los Angeles is that we've tried to make a thing of beauty, a vibrant set of social movements, an idea, an attempt to take and wield governing power to make a thing of beauty, with a generosity of spirit, with an understanding of other people's experience, with an understanding that we need to be coming together to be able to make a world of beauty with our friends.

The fact that this experiment remains a work in progress shouldn’t discourage us. Rather, it should inspire us to keep working – and working harder now than ever, as community leader Anthony Thigpenn points out.

Anthony Thigpenn: I’m not sure the vision is ever completed. There's always another mountain we have to climb, but that would get us to a new level.

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I like to think of LA and California, that the work that we've done has brought us to the brink. We're not there yet. We’re at the brink of achieving something transformative. And that possibility exists more now than it ever has. At the same time, if you look around the country, forces of reaction are trying to take it away and trying to create a different model. So while we've achieved the brink of something, we've got to pay attention because it can all be taken away.

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Speaker 2 (Archival): Well, this new year 2024 is set to see dozens of elections held around the world, including in Russia, the US, South Africa, the UK, India and Taiwan. This is set to be a record breaking year.
Speaker 3 (Archival): 2024 will be the biggest global election year in history. In June 2024, citizens from all 27 EU member states will vote for the 720 members of the European Parliament.
Speaker 4 (Archival): From South Africa to Algeria, a third of the continent's nations will choose new governments this year. They include coup hit Mali, Chad and Burkina Faso if their military leaders keep their word.

Democracy is on the ballot the world over in 2024. At least 64 countries, which represent 49% of the global population, have elections scheduled throughout the year.

Democracy is very much on the ballot in the United States.

I have no illusions about the looming threats to our democracy, the urgent work ahead to protect and defend it, and the long-term struggle to build the kind of democracy we’ve been talking about in this podcast. But having spent many months thinking about the lessons that Los Angeles holds for our communities and the country, I’m feeling energized. People like Ana Maria fill me with joy and hope.

So do the community labor partnerships that won wage hikes and worker protections and helped elect leaders like Karen Bass. All these people remind me that hope is a discipline. This idea is well known thanks to Mariame Kaba, the longtime activist and organizer working to end violence and abolish the prison industrial complex. Hope is not fanciful thinking or sitting around wishing for something better. The discipline of hope has you doing the research to understand the history and how we got here.

It has you gathering the data to understand the problems. It has you finding examples of what works, and the people who are making a difference, and then stepping into your role in the struggle. Hope is cultivated through the work of transforming a vision of a fair, just society into real world results.

As I said in Chapter One of this podcast, many have taken democracy for granted. Now we see how fragile it is.

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As our country has moved toward greater inclusion – truer democracy – it has triggered a horrendous backlash. The people – and candidates – who want to destroy democracy have momentum. I believe most people in this country want democracy to survive, but wanting and wishing won’t make it happen. We have to act in response to the immediate threat, and with a long term vision.

That's why LA makes me hopeful.

And LA is not the only place where people are working to breathe new meaning, new life, into democracy. All across the country, activists and organizers are working across race, ethnicity, generation, gender, sexuality, religion, and ability, to make sure that democracy not only survives, but also thrives and serves all in a diverse nation.

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We have young lawmakers of color, like Tennessee state Representatives Justin Jones and Justin Pearson, who were expelled from the legislature for demanding safe gun laws. And then they were reinstated by local officials, and are now making good trouble in their state, even as their right-wing colleagues try to silence them.

Here’s Justin Jones on Meet the Press, responding to a question about the challenges of running for, and winning office, yet still being excluded from the democratic process.

Justin Jones (archival): That is how extreme anti-democracy forces have become, particularly here in a state like Tennessee, where they they feel like because of gerrymandered maps and voter suppression, that they're in power, but they don't represent the interests of the majority of Tennesseans. And so what they do is they try and limit discussion. They try and limit what we can advocate for because they're afraid that it will hold up a mirror to their false power.

And the good trouble doesn’t stop there.

We have robust coalitions and campaigns, like the Fight for 15 and the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United, bringing together poorly paid workers to improve wages and job conditions, build power, and achieve a just economy.

We have nonpartisan groups like the New Georgia Project, which is organizing and building power with the large and growing population of Black, brown, young, and other historically marginalized people in that state — and getting them to vote.

Here is Nse Ufot, the former CEO of the New Georgia Project — on MSNBC

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Joshua Johnson (Archival): Nse good evening. What would you say was the key to the success of your efforts?
Nse Ufot (Archival): Much has been written about the demographic shifts that are happening in our country, and nowhere are we seeing those shifts happen as acutely, as rapidly, as in the Deep South, in places like Georgia. So I like to say that the demographics were the fire and organizing was the accelerant.

We have more heroes than I can fit onto this canvas. Taken together, these people and their organizations illuminate an essential truth: The struggle to create a radically inclusive, thriving multiracial democracy isn’t about one group or another. It’s about what’s right for our collective future, and how essential it is for us all to be committed to the work it takes to get there.

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Chinaka Hodge (Archival):
Next year ain't coming with scepters or batons.
No magic except the part of you you've been neglecting.
No secret, except all the tricks you've been putting off till later.
No hero but you.
But you, hero.
And the truth is, as interested parties would attest,
Divesting in yourself is treason against humanity.
Radical love is built in the chest first.
Collective freedom is grown from individual joy.
How dare we trade agape for fake news?
Nobody needs you to be perfect.
The times demand you be honest
And brilliant if you are
And angry, if you are
Or struggling, if you may be
All of the things you are designed to be,
Be every single one.
No time to dim…
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Chinaka Hodge is a poet, playwright, filmmaker and educator. She performed this poem at an event honoring Martin Luther King Jr. in 2019, and it highlights something critical. For much of this series, I’ve focused on the importance of collective movements. But, there’s another element right at the center of the work of Reimagining Democracy for a Good Life. And that’s us. Our personal responsibility.

The actions we take are an inherent part of moving democracy to work on behalf of the greater good.

My hope is that as you’ve gone on this journey with me, you’ve been inspired. Inspired to see beyond what is in front of us, to have hope for what’s actually possible in our country. And, that hope will take dedication, and discipline, to stay the course and do what each of us can, to make that vision a reality.

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My contribution has been over half a century of developing strategy, mentoring leaders, and building the equity movement. For the people we’ve heard from in this series, it’s grassroots organizing, community building, running for office, combining academia with art and activism, and so much more.

What will it be for you?

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Reimagining Democracy for a Good Life is a podcast created by PolicyLink in partnership with Pineapple Street Studios.
We are grateful for the PolicyLink funders whose support allows us to produce this show.
For a transcript of the episodes and for more resources visit PolicyLink.org.
The team at PolicyLink is Perfecta Oxholm, Fran Smith, Glenda Johnson, Josh Kirchenbaum, Ferchil Ramos, Vanice Dunn, Montana Rane, and Loren Madden. Special thanks to PolicyLink CEO Michael McAfee.
This episode was produced by Yinka Rickford-Anguin, with support from Producers Alexis Moore and Natalie Peart.
Kamilah Kashanie is our Managing Producer.
Our Editor is Darby Maloney.
Fact checking by Will Tavlin.
Our Senior Audio Engineer and Mixer is Pedro Alvira.
Our Assistant Audio Engineers are Sharon Bardales and Jade Brooks, who also provided scoring assistance.
Theme song by Donwill. And our music is from Epidemic Sound.
Special thanks to Leila Day, Grace Cohen-Chen, Gabe Kawugule and Aggi Ashagre-Palmer.
Our Head of Sound and Engineering is Raj Makhija.
Je-Anne Berry is our Executive Producer.
I'm your host, Angela Glover Blackwell.
I urge all of you to make sure you are registered and have a plan to vote. A thriving multiracial democracy depends on participation, and voting is extremely important.