Anti-Racist Love Dialogues
With Love & Dedication to Michael Schwerner, James Earl Chaney, & Andrew Goodman
Anti-Racist Love Dialogues is a short film I made for the Antioch University Student Success Symposium this past Spring. A call for creative contributions was to create expressions on links between student success and anti-racist activism.
My response was this homage to Michael Schwerner, James Earl Chaney, and Andrew Goodman, three Civil Rights Movement workers martyred by the Klan in Philadelphia , Mississippi, in June 1964. My inspiration for the film derived in part from the opening narration for the 1981 iteration of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (I’m grateful to this day that it was one of the programs PBS picked up from BBC at the time.)
To meet the Symposium organizers’ request to make cultural presentations accessible, I included a transcript of my spoken part and text descriptions of visual elements. I also included a short text description of the background music.
This last part was significant as well, as it was the first time I scored music for a film!
Michael Schwerner, James Earl Chaney, & Andrew Goodman, Rest in Power!
Film notes
Below are the following
Transcript of the spoken portion
Text description of the musical soundtrack
Text descriptions of the photographs and other visual images
Credits:
Ángel L. Martínez: voiceover, electronic music, photography
Professor MTZ: art direction
Notes:
The four (4) questions included are intended to stimulate discussion and, therefore, dialogue. Facilitators should feel free to stop the film in order to ponder any or all questions, and then continue.
All timecodes are approximate.
Spoken text:
Anti-Racist Love Dialogues
Without purpose, success is empty, hollow, an illusion based on monetary measurements in places where you have too little of it to survive in a system overflowing with the stolen fruits of your precious labor.
Student success is more than just individual student achievement, which is laudable and only more so when in the same circle together with all who seek student success.
The point of Anti-Racist Love Dialogues is to imagine a future where racism is weak, ineffectual, indeed, smashed, that is, prevented from causing harm to any one, any life, any culture, or any oppressed nationality ever again. In the educational context, this means racism never again being able to interfere or obstruct student success in any way. These dialogues are intended to end racism and make success possible.
“Anti-racist” is not just a term, but a shorthand for struggles against national oppression and for liberation. To be anti-racist is to be for the termination of racism as a force.
The “love” is about the love we need for each other, the love of learning, and, the special ingredient for success, the love of making learning possible.
The “dialogues” are about what will make an end to racism and the flourishing of student success possible.
Anti-Racist Love Dialogues are an invitation to consider the following:
What is racism?
How can one be anti-racist?
How do students become anti-racist freedom fighters as they seek success?
And what are Anti-Racist Love Dialogues anyway?
Anti-Racist Love Dialogues require art of all kinds. Certainly, creativity is key to any discourse against racism and against national oppression.
This is what helps make student success, viable, possible, and very much necessary.
Images:
Timecode precedes each description.
1:05 “Combat Racism” definitive stamps issued by the United Nations Postal Administration in New York. The words are written in the style of off-white/grey spray-paint graffiti on a black wall. The stamp on the left reads “United Nations 13c” in yellow sans serif text and the stamp on the right reads “United Nations 25c” in red sans serif text.
(1:16) A black stencil with slight fading on a red brick wall. It is written in block letters as
BE YOUNG
HAVE FUN
SMASH RACISM
(1:21) An article from the CTPost webpage reads in black sans serif text on a white background “Stacy Graham-Hunt: Call me Black, not BIPOC.” Underneath is the author’s name in bold face and, below that, the date “Feb. 27, 2021” in regular face. (Note: There is disagreement over the use of the term. The author’s objection is to its potentially obfuscatory and insensitive nature.)
(1:30): Rock Against Racism logo sticker/button. Black circle encloses a black five-point star on a mauve background with “ROCK AGAINST RACISM” in yellow letters superimposed on it. (Rock Against Racism (RAR) began in the UK in 1976 and spread to Canada and the US as cultural expression against white supremacy, and embracing rock, jazz, soul, punk, ska, oi!, and funk. I have performed poetry in two RAR-inspired events.)
(1:43): National Day of Mourning (NDOM) march in 2023, Patuxet, Wampanoag Territory (Plymouth, Massachusetts). Large red banner, held by several marchers side-by-side, in foreground reads:
In the Spirit of Metacom
NATIONAL DAY OF MOURNING
UNITED AMERICAN INDIANS OF NEW ENGLAND
Top and bottom text in golden yellow, middle text in white. On the viewer’s left is a portrait of Wampanoag sachem and warrior Metacom (AKA King Philip) on a golden yellow eight-pointed star.
Two more banners are held by marchers behind. On the viewer’s left is a long red banner with black letters reading:
In the Spirit of King Philip
FREE LEONARD PELTIER
All Political Prisoners
United American Indians of New England
On the right side is a black drawing of Peltier.
On the viewer’s right is an orange banner. On the left of the banner is the UAINE logo. The banner reads
WE ARE NOT VANISHING
WE ARE NOT CONQUERED
WE ARE AS STRONG AS EVER
Photograph by Dr. Martínez.
(NDOM is an annual protest on “Thanksgiving” Day and for Indigenous liberation. It is organized by the UAINE each fourth Thursday in November since 1970.)
(1:59): Photograph of annual parranda (Puerto Rican holiday procession) in El Barrio/East Harlem, New York City led by BombaYo!, a Puerto Rican music organization. Participants, some carrying percussion instruments, stop in front of a mural. The mural depicts a smiling piragüero (shaved ice dessert vendor) wearing a brown fedora and behind his white cart topped with bottles of different shaved ice syrups. He is next to a green street sign marked “E 106 ST.” Further right are words “AQUÍ ME QUEDO” (“Here I stay.”) written straight in lemon yellow (top half) and lime green (bottom half) letters. The mural is otherwise splashed with colors inspired by piragua flavors. In front of the mural is BombaYo! leader Dr. Drum getting the group ready to play. Photograph by Dr. Martínez.
(3:14): Photographs of, from left to right, Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner, and James Earl Chaney. The caption on top reads: “THE CIVIL RIGHTS WORKERS WHO WERE SLAIN.” (Source: no attribution found. Apparently originally reproduced as a flyer.)
(3:30) Flyer issued by Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). Tve text reads:
HEAR HEAR
HOW OUR BROTHERS
Died for Freedom
AND HOW WE ARE CARRYING
ON THE FIGHT IN MISSISSIPPI
(Interspersed with photos of, from left to right, Schwerner, Chaney, and Goodman)
HEAR
Mrs. Fanny Chaney
Courageous Mother of James Chaney
At New Zion Baptist Church
2319 Third Street
THURS. AUG. 27, 1964
7:00 PM
C.O.R.E.
Musical soundtrack:
All tracks performed by artist on GarageBand synth.
Movement 1 (0:29): Downtempo space/ambient with arpeggiated beats in ascending and descending tones over atmospheric sound.
Movement 2 (3:15): Brief mournful, symphonic-derived tone.
Movement 3 (3:50): Rhythmic bass-heavy, minor key funk clavinet sound.