Video Diary - Paris BLM Protests

By: Shirley Reynozo

@dtba_

June 6th | Paris Protest (Photo Series)

Nothing Good Happens After 2 A.M.

Nothing good happens after 2 A.M.

I wish I heard this solid piece of advice prior to my post 2 A.M. endeavors. Granted, it probably wouldn't have made a difference, I'm sure I would have continued my strained attempts to enjoy my fleeting teenage years, but at least I would have realized that if nothing good has happened by 2 A.M., then nothing good will happen, unless I make the night, in the words of Barney Stinson, "legendary".

Can you imagine living in New York City, but venturing no further than three different destinations; home, school, and the bodega? By the age of sixteen, my mundane and routine-like years of only venturing to a bodega were gone, along with my literary provincialism as I became a fluorescent adolescent that read works of literature that challenged me.

My grit, persistence and obsession with novels like On The Road inspire my adventures to new parts on the East Coast the way Kerouac traveled around the country. With each trip, my childlike perceptions changed and I became more critical of the people around me the way Holden Caulfield was.

Granted, my paranoia of something bad happening made me seem like the narrator of "Tell-Tale Heart", but it goes to show how my love for literature also influences my understanding of the world.

My most memorable venture was to Atlantic City with my friend. The coordinator of the event, a much too big of a woman, failed to book our hotel room. To spare ourselves the embarrassment, we told none of the other performers. Instead, we slept under a table in the ballroom of the Trump Plaza --of all places to be comfortable, sleeping under a table with someone laying next to you would not be one of them.

We expected the night to get progressively better, but by 1 A.M. we were feeling like Edward Norton, a helpless insomniac. Enraged, I sought to ruin the venue. We stole the Kit-Kats, Doritos and M&M's that were set up for the venue, ate them and disposed of the wrappers on the floor as a sign of our anger.

Our satisfaction was only momentary, a janitor came in to organize the space for the following morning. While he cleaned up our evidence of rebellion towards the event coordinator, the man produced a drum-roll effect by farting, and he'll never know that I was under that table listening to every tooting sound he made.

Tired of sleeping with someone next to me and intoxicated by the lethal smell of farts, we left the ballroom. We decided that we weren't going to let the circumstances ruin the rest of our night. Riding the escalators, exploring the casinos, showering in the bathroom sink, watching the sunrise and running around the empty ballroom lead me to the realization that you have to take ownership of whatever happens to you.

These “legendary” moments make great memories, but if they revolve around farts, junk food, and struggling to find comfort, how legendary can they really be? But no matter how dismayed I feel in my endeavors, I've grown to embrace them. The more difficult the situation is, the more I grow and learn about the kind of people I like to be around, the kinds of habits I want to define my character and what stories I want as memories.

My goal is to be successful. I can imagine that going to college calls for many nights that include staying up past 2 A.M. and I know that I need to assume the responsibility as an undergraduate student and triumph over the small obstacles rather than becoming angry and stealing Kit-Kats.
These experiences have made me apprehend that; in order to be happy, you have to take ownership of every situation in order for them to be, in the words of Barney Stinson, "legendary".

Train Symposium

Deciding to sit down doesn’t require an entire symposium in our head. Neither does sneezing, nor yawning. Reaching out to scratch an itch is just a reflex. Why is it then that taking a seat on the train becomes a marathon, and I don't mean the battle between the Athenians and Persians, but rather a complex decision that troubles you internally. It's a marathon between the two parts of you that want to either sit in order to rest, or stay standing to avoid sitting next to the person where you found the open seat.

Every action we make is based on a prior decision that we took. Why is it then that something as simple as taking a seat on the train becomes a Socratic cross examination of the personal opinions you developed of the individual next to the empty seat in less than a second. We’re all guilty of it, making assumptions or being scared of the assumptions that will be made of you.

The philosophy classes you've taken make you a little more critical of the cynics. You feel inclined to question the simplistic things because as a post-generation, new millennial, fluorescent adolescent it's the typical thing to do. You have an internal soliloquy and go, "'to be or not to be' comfortable? That is the question. For it is nobler for me to give up this orange colored seat and let the person have leg space, or to take pride and sit next to them." So you worry that you might take up too much space, or that you will be sexualized by the person you sit next to, or that they'll complain about how loud your music is through your headphones, or that someone will get upset with they wanted that seat .

The train stops come and go, the empty seats become not so empty. The sound of the train doors closing and the people shuffling play a sober bass note to the symphony of what is otherwise known as subway chaos. The New York Times is shoved in your face, the lady's bag behind you hits you at the waist and the homeless man asking for change forces you to shift so that he can get passed, but you still contemplate, "should I take this empty seat."

Your stop is approaching and your knees are buckling. You shift from one leg to the other, shift which hand holds the pole. You crinkle your nose as one small bead of sweat trickles down your forehead because the train is so crowded but you still don't know if you should sit because your stop is the next one and you don't want to be "that person."

Your stop comes and the door opens. Realizing that you should have sat down resembles Ivan Ilyich's epiphany about the good life on his death bed. You subjugate your essence of life and come across the realization of the wrong doings you have done to your legs and your back. You thought you would be praised by society by leaving that empty seat open for someone else. You've gotten to your stop and you didn't have time to fix your decision, but now you appreciate your revelation and know that next time you will take that seat and not be scared to be the one to sit there even if no one else will.

The Commonly Misunderstood New York City Teen Hustle

I had just finished getting my NYU ID card. Prior to that I was completely distraught. Ever since I received my acceptance letter I was tormented by the idea that my acceptance would be revoked. Even three days before class starts, my mind swims with the possibility that I would get kicked out, especially since I didn’t even have my fall course schedule registered. Throughout high school I was able to afford the bagel and cream cheese from the corner deli because I sold red-velvet cupcakes at school, despite the constant threats of suspension appointed my way. My cupcake business was beyond successful, I was able to buy myself an iPhone, a four-day stay at Orlando and an 8-day stay in Los Angeles (I even went to the Coachella Music Festival and the MTV Movie Awards). Now that I graduated I work part-time at Aeropostale. The entirety of my walk from the station to the NYU campus consisted of my fear of getting kicked out and not having my successful, albeit illegal, cupcake business to support me. I was pestered by the thought that I’d end up working at Aeropostale until death do me part.

Distracted by my worries, I lost sight of what was happening before me, a handsome young Latino man stopped to compliment me on my beauty. Concerned with getting to my destination I didn’t realize he was talking to me until I walked passed him and he kept calling out that I’m beautiful, but that a beautiful woman shouldn’t be disrespectful and not accept a compliment. I smiled while I continued walking but didn’t avert my gaze back to him because I thought by then it would be too awkward.

 After I got my ID, I proceeded to take the train back home. I wore my ID around my neck with pride and sat down hoping people would see the acronym “NYU” on the purple card around my neck. Shortly after a group of boys entered the train asking the passengers if “anybody would like to buy some candy” as they were trying to keep a honest dollar in their pocket. Of course at first I got annoyed by them, these very loud, rowdy boys claiming they needed the money for their basketball team.  

 Being downtown Manhattan, most of the passengers were white. The white man sitting next to me asked the boy for an Oreo, and hebought the last one. The boy’s rowdiness descends as he is conversing with his customer and thanking him for his donation. After asking “would anyone else like to buy?” and receiving no response, the boy sat down amidst in his endeavors. His short lived proper tone with the man beside me instantly turned to his more comfortable urban vernacular. I was still high in my own head with my NYU ID wrapped around my neck. I dissociated myself with the way he was speaking and thought little of his mannerisms. He then took one the prepackaged Gushers he was selling and ate them. I saw how the man who just finished buying an Oreo from the boy looked at him with shame, probably thinking “I just gave you a dollar so that you can eat your own supply”. Or maybe he thought nothing of it, only he knows.

 But then I shortly realized that I am him. I am the urban speaking, lower-class person-of-color ridding the same train (uptown) to where I truly reside. I took off my NYU ID and tucked it away in my purse. I instantly felt like myself again, no longer someone trying to impress others because of my newfound education status. I listened intently to how he spoke and how happy he was in his own world. The train stopped on 42nd and two Spanish boys, about 8 years old, got on. They leaned on the door and start singing John Legend’s “All of Me”. To say the least, and not sidetrack from the story, they were very good and I wanted to give them a dollar but did not have any cash.

The boy who was selling chocolates takes out all of his money so naturally I think he’s going to give a dollar to the kids because it takes one to know one. He starts to count all the money that he has in his bag and does not make the gesture to donate to the kids. The kids stare at the money, wide-eyed, expecting for a donation, but move on when the chocolate-selling boy does not extend the courtesy. His friend digs into his pocket and hands the two boys a handful of coins and the little boys scamper off the next cart.

 "BOY YOU DUMB AS FUCK GIVING THEM MONEY. They ain’t buying our candy. I’ll be fucking damned", and he went on about how he is a hustler and he sees those kids as competition. He went on about how no one is lining up to buy his candy so he’s not about to pay some kids who are probably making money to give to some “OG” (which is probably a wild assumption but very plausible". He continued so say that he’s “‘bout this money”, that when he’s older he’s “gunna have bands”.

 "If I ain’t make it as a ball player, I'mma have my own business boy, you gunna see me as an older man and I’m gunna be racked up boy, ya heard, I'mma be racked up with this money.“ I admired his persistence, his driving force to make it out of whatever struggle he was in or the propelling nature to just avoid ever being in the struggle was reflected in me as well.

"You ain’t making no money selling these Oreos and candies boy. Sell cupcakes at school. I’d make up to 110 dollars a day, I dead went to LA - I made 1500 dollars in like a month.” I exaggerated the month part just to motivate him a little bit, but even just having 1500 dollars at his age was motivation enough.
“Oh na LA, yo, you went to LA, oh na u poppin. My school don’t let me do that shit.”
“Me either, foh, I was always in trouble”

“How’d you do it then, you would like hide it in your bookbag?” He asked still aligning his singles in a stack.

“Yeah, I’d keep it in my locker, but I still always got caught. I just graduated high school, that’s how I paid for everything.” He looked at his friend and said’

“Yo you here this. She made bread with cupcakes boyyy,” then he looked at me and said “but my friend can’t cook.”
His friend, who’s been silent this whole time goes, “Boy I can cook more than you, shut the fuck up” in a high-pitched joking voice.

The chocolate seller goes, “Boy, corona and eggs ain’t cooking nigga” which was rewarded by laughter from several adults who have been listening the entire time. 

The train got to 125th and the boys got off and that concluded my encounter with two young impoverished children like me.

"It Is What It Is"

“It Is What It Is” by: @swamisound & @kamauwithsunflowers

Graphics by: @akibahaiozi

Blackness, what does that mean to you?

Black Lives Matter | Paris Protests

I’d like to share with my online community that protesting is exhausting and yesterday I found myself out of balance. Crying. Screaming. Cursing. Fuming. Yelling at the police. Sitting peacefully in the front line: legs crossed, hands out. I told myself both protests not to be a front liner and that’s where i naturally gravitated towards, feeling the need for the police to see us and humanize us. I don’t know what drove me to do such an act but it’s as if I gave no value to my life. Any order and the police could have charged and trampled me. I stayed the entire time and although my peers are well intentioned they left early. That’s emblematic of privilege. You choose when you can show up to places to demand justice. POC can’t choose when bc if they decide not to thats one more generation of the cycle. One more generation of: oppression, redlined districts, underfunded schools, unjust prison systems and sentences. The list goes on. This trauma is inherited. It is also shared in the community as we see each other get arrested and beaten at protests. When we see who populates a college classroom and who populates the prison system. When we see the conditions we live in. Not matter class background or the privileges black people face, the unrelenting truth of the American social system shows up at your door unboxed. showing up to the protests in Paris has given me a broader perspective. The police will smile to your face. They will say pleasant comments like “we are here to make sure everyone is safe.” They don’t immediately resort to the violent tactics as seen in the media by the American police, but their silence is even more violent because it occults the truth. Cut the sugar coating, behind that smile is the verisimilitude of a patriarchal structure they are upholding. I’m exhausted and on top of that Columbia University expects us to preform under the same caliber, as if there isn’t a pandemic & global civil unrest. I can’t do my thesis research. I cant do my hw. On top of that I am spreading myself thin by informing ppl asking me questions in my DMs. I am barely eating. I am tired. This is not our job.  

What do they see when they see us?

Film Maker’s Note:  

Often our identity is imposed onto us. We are socialized to be perceived in a lens that may not be the way we choose to be seen or treated. Some of us may be wayward in finding our footing in the soil that we walk across, but it is important to define yourself for who you want to be and not what others impose onto you. 

I went into this project with a non-biased lens that was open to producing art for art’s sake. Often I am seeking to tell a racialized narrative, but for this shoot I wanted us to exist outside of our race. This proved to be only a wish. Upon shooting in SoHo, an employee of a coffee shop off of Grand Street was bothered by our presence; four individuals of color. However, she didn’t see us as individuals, she saw us as a collective of what could be harmful, so much so that she threatened to call the police on us (refer to the opening of the film).

Karon contacted me to produce a "Behind the Scenes" film of the shoot. I contemplated incorporating this element, because again, I did not want to make the project exclusively about radicalized dynamics. After some thought I decided, this encounter is part of the BTS, just as our location scouting, outfit curation and image production. For this reason, I decided the narrative should be documented, all the while being juxtaposed with the actual work that was being curated with Hamadi, Chris, and myself - Shirley.

A tattoo artist by the name go Kgopotso from South Africa said to me, “Black people are the closest thing to God.” A South African spiritual leader by the name of Sibo said, “It is because of the likeness [to] we can create.”  Despite the micro-agressions and the animosity that was directed towards us, we kept our peace and proceeded to create. 

Written, filmed and edited by: Shirley Reynozo

Photographer: Hamadi 

Stylist: Chris

Model: Karon 

#BlackOutTuesday Morning Thoughts

This is a civil war between the police state and unarmed citizens. People of all intersectional identities have joined together to meet the face of oppression face to face in the streets. People are saying to them “these are the structural impediments you have placed upon us for 400 years, stop killing us, stop exploiting us, stop conditioning us to unsuitable living situations.” Instead of protecting its citizens and upholding the values of equality, liberty and justice, the police will rather beat, shoot, run over, pepper pray tase, arrest, and murder people to uphold a racist patriarchy. This is the image of America. Do not be fooled by cops taking a knee, that is a distraction from the reality that the system was not created to uphold any of our rights or values. There are cops looting so that the media can blame that on the protestors. 

The beauty of 2020 is that everyone can document the revolution even if it won’t be televised. They tried to send a signal to the world that they can censor our freedom of speech when they arrested the CNN reporter, Omar Jimenez, and his crew. They are trying to send a message to New York that the police has any right to do what they must do to impose curfews and Martial Law. Including inflicting violence on its citizens. But we will not be deterred nor will we be fooled. We all have a platform, speak up! The truth of the matter is that the system will use its puppets to uphold itself. Call it what it is! Love is not winning, violence has taken over. 

Please heal yourself and heal your community. Hold a harsh mirror to yourself like we do to America. It is the only way I’m which we will fix the illnesses of our communities and the larger structure, it is how we will get progress and liberation. 

Much love to black people, we will be the beacons of light. Keep creating please 🏽

A playlist to uplift your spirits: Find Your Peace [Fuk 12]

Riveting and invigorating visuals by Daniela Brito (@datpiffexclusive) 

Pictures by Fela Raymond @felaraymond 

Video by Kaykay Sublime @kaykaysublime 

RESOURCES

- Donating to Protest Bail Funds

- Anti-Racism sources

- Black Consciousness Raising

- Mental Health Resources

#blacklivesmatter #blm 🏽

On Solidarity (A Call to Action for White Liberals and Progressives)

DISCLAIMER:

Let me start of by saying, before I unintentionally offend my liberal white friends (again), that when I am referring to “whiteness,” I am referring to those that willingly and knowingly submit to what it means to embody a white identity in America, a nation founded on the expropriation of Black slaves to build this nation, a nation that had KKK supremacists and Jim Crow laws, a nation where black men with voting rights were seen as ⅗ of a person, a nation where it was illegal for a blacks and whites to get married, a nation were separate and equal meant truly just meant separate, a nation where a civil rights movement was needed in order to prove that black lives matter, a nation where when you say black lives matter, someone responds with all lives matter. With this being the attributes of our nation, I am coming to say that being pro-black does not equate to being anti-white.

***

Jean-Paul Sartre (June 21st, 1905 – April 15th, 1980) was a French philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. Apart from his renowned contribution to twentieth century French existentialist philosophy, Sartre is also known for his Marxist, anti-colonialist politics; such is evident in his Préface, “Orphée Noir,” to Léopold Sédar Senghor’s Anthologie de la nouvelle poésie nègre et malgache de langue française (1948) 

He opens up “Orphée Noir,” by interrogating: “When you removed the gag that was keeping these black mouths shut, what were you hoping for? That they would sing you praises? Did you think when they raised themselves up again, you would find adoration in the eyes of the heads that our fathers had forced to bend down to the very ground?”

Image by Isis Davis Marks (Yale 2019)

Sartre’s “Orphée Noir,” was written upon Senghor’s request and seeks to speak in solidarity with the Black population in tandem with their experience in white social-settings. Through using European imaginaries and an understanding of colonialism, natives, slaves and immigrants, Sartre recounts the experiences of Francophone Blacks. Sartre details that Blacks are critical of Europeans namely because Europe is a memory that taunts them. Through his analysis of the black condition, Sartre illustrates Négritude in a similar light of Aimé Césaire; the Black man uses his oppression to reinvent the self. Through the epistemic violence of European logic and reason, the Black man is shaped by oppression and subjugation. For this reason Sartre suggests that the Black man's ultimate goal is to redefine himself and discover the beauty of Afro-Caribbean and African cultures. Through this process of rediscovery, the black man will be able to reverse the subjugating effects of the French language and utilizes the language as a positive force to bring about a negritudist cultural expression, primarily through poetry

Sartre’s analysis of race consciousness can be read in tandem with Steve Biko’s I Write What I Like (1972), in which Biko aims to elevate Black Consciousness in South Africa. For Biko, “the philosophy of Black Consciousness expresses group pride and the determination by the Blacks to rise and attain the envisaged self” (Biko, 68). In other words, Black Consciousness exists beyond a Black/white binary. One must awaken consciously so that the centuries of deliberate oppression can no longer subjugate the Black man. The grass-roots build-up of Black Consciousness will allow Blacks to assert themselves and stake their rightful claim. On the same vein, Sartre considers Négritude as a step in the progression of revolutionary consciousness that will allow the Black man to transcend, redirects the gaze to Europe, and become their essence. 

Biko makes strong remarks concerning complacent white liberals who are against the subjugation of Blacks, but make no efforts to use their privilege to change the conditions of Blacks in South Africa. Biko claims, 

They are quick to quote statistics on how big the defence budget is. They know exactly how effectively the police and the army can control protesting Black hordes---peaceful or otherwise. They know to what degree the Black world is infiltrated by the security police. Hence they are completely convinced of the impotence of the Black people. Why then do they persist in talking to the Blacks? Since they are aware that the problem in this country is white racism, why do they not address themselves to the white world? Why do they insist on talking to Blacks? (Biko, 65)

In other words, white liberals fail at solidarity because they fail to address the white world. The white liberal will agree with the Black man that they face copious hardships and impediments under the imposed imperial regime, but will not turn to the white man to call them out for their actions. The critique Biko directs to liberal white South Africans can be used to understand the anti-colonialist social and literary work of Sartre. 

Unlike the liberal South African, Sartre’s “Orphée Noir” is as an act of solidarity for the Black population. Sartre nuances the Black essence not for a Black audience, but for a European audience that has been marked by historical amnesia.

 

In a word, I am talking now to white men, and I should like to explain to them what black men already know: why it is necessarily through a poetic experience that the black man, in his present condition, must first become conscious of himself; and, inversely, why black poetry in the French language is, in our time, the only great revolutionary poetry (Sartre, 16).

Despite Sartre’s essentialization of Black struggle, he actually makes the effort to directly address the white world (or white men as he says) and relay his Marxist, anti-colonial sentiments. In catering to European thought, Sartre’s preface is a powerful tool that not only allows the European to understand themselves and their complacent role in the subjugation of Blacks. Sartre’s support for the Négritude movement in “Orphée Noir” aligns him as a strong ally to the Black diaspora. Even so, he knows that his solidarity does not mean he can understand the Black experience through a first hand account (Sartre, 35). Rather, Sartre uses his voice to address the European for their colonial neurosis and their role in the subjugation of Blacks.

A CALL TO ACTION

Although this is highly representative of a male gaze and is contextualized within the anti-colonial period of the 20th century, my purpose in speaking on Sartre and Biko is to show that black oppression continues to be a global phenomenon. My request for all white liberals who wish to see the global liberation of black people, please use your voice to uplift our community. If you have financial freedom, please help the POC around you in need, especially grass roots efforts making substantial impacts on the ground. We are combatting centuries of epistemic, pedagogic, institutional, colonial and capitalist violence. I have included a list of Bail Funds you can donate to. And if you are protesting, please put yourself in between a black person and the police, THEY WILL NOT HURT YOU! And if they do it's the price of war.   

RESOURCES

- Donating to Protest Bail Funds

- Anti-Racism sources

- Black Consciousness Raising

- Mental Health Resources