Blumenau, Junho de 2017 |
Interview Text: João Pedro Fraissat de Moura Photo: Personal archive - Mary Hooks
MARY HOOKS the voice of blacks With exclusivity, the aParte interview in English one of the most influential black American women of today, that integrates the movement Black Lives Matter, the activist Mary Hooks. The BLM extends across the US in opposition to police violence and today also struggles with the economic, social, and political conditions that oppress black communities in the United States. From Blumenau, the interview was conducted via Skype by the black journalism student of FURB, João Pedro Fraissat de Moura. The student is part of the University's Afro-Brazilian Studies Center (Neab) and has made the translation especially for this edition. João Pedro's conversation with Mary Hooks in English can be checked at journalismofurb.wixsite.com/curso
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| Blumenau, Junho de 2017
Interview Editoria
H
uman Resources Administrator Mary Hooks is a leading spokesperson for social movements in the United States. Her life goes through situations of poverty, without knowing the biological parents and with a lot of racial prejudice. A story of adoption by a Christian family in which tensions intensified after becoming a lesbian. The climax still occurs in college, where Mary begins to identify with social movements and discovers a radical desire to be a voice for change in the world. This is the character of the interview made in the English language especially for the newspaper aParte, by journalism student João Pedro Fraissat de Moura, who is responsible for the translation.
aParte: Mary, we know that you are one of the co-founders of the SONG organization (Southerners On New Ground) that deals with LGBTQ issues in US and also has a strong relationship with Black Lives Matter. But what really motivatedyoutobeapartoftheBLM movement? Mary Hooks: Actually, I’m the SONG’s co-director. We founded it almost 25 years ago. I was motivated when I saw Black folks being abandoned and le to die by the U.S. government when the Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005. I was moved to action when rode a bus to Jena, Louisiana, during the Jena 6 trial when I saw Black children being lynched in the courts. In 2009, I was introduced to Southerners On New Ground and was moved to join the organization as a member and eventually became a part of the staff. Over the last six years I’ve been organizing through SONG, and had built relationships with some of the founders of BLM. Nationally, I got more involved when Southerners On New Ground was invited to be on the planning committee for the Movement for Black Lives convening that happened in 2015. Later that year, my comrade, Dre Propst, put the call out to start a chapter here in Atlanta. I’ve been motivated to ght for Black lives for years and been involved with this iteration of the Black liberation movement since 2014 because over the years I’ve learned that it is our duty to advance the liberation struggle of Black people in this country and globally. aParte: Black Lives Matter arose when the murder of the black teen Trayvon Martin was acquitted by the jury in Florida. Nowadays, the movement is present in every city in the United States? The problematic is equal in every city?
Mary Hooks: Yes, it is in every city in the US and the problematic is equal, but that would be awesome if don’t. We have 45 chapters (and that includes Canada as well) and people are running the same programs. What I saw is that once people began turning up protesting all over US using the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter in social media and the hashtag was connecting people in conversation and people would be able to be together and see other folks turning up and sharing their videos, their stories, in a way to be in a relationship to each other. There was other black movements that joined the protests, but I would say that BLM was the rst one that raise in the internet. There’s a main chapter that receive and which receives and indicates programs to be followed by the other chapters in other cities. We’re all connected with the same values and principles and we’re all doing the same thing. But we’re all looking the better ways to do that programs, because of the locals conditions where people at. In August 2016, BLM Atlanta and the organizations who did the Cleveland convention brought more than 8.000 people to a protest and we didn’t expect it. All these people had the same problems, you know? Police violence, drugs, prostitution… But the worst villain are our State and our system. They’re killing us, taking out our jobs, taking out our health care programs, marginalizing us… And that’s the reason why our communities all over US are starving, immersed in poverty.
The academic João Pedro F. de Moura conducted the interview via Skype. Photo: Roseméri Laurindo recognize a black person and how do the black community recognize a black person? Mary Hooks: I think we know black folks even where class are internalized by supremacy ideas, because a black folks share with each other the same pain with the racism, the same struggle against racism, the same vision… Understanding the struggles of that people and how black culture has been develop and how we’re engaged together, like the traditions of our people. When people intentionally reject a historical legacy, our share history, the stories of our ancestrals and essentially participating of the genocide. And in the end, I believe that even young folks can be transformed, because there was a time of my life when I wasn’t politicized, but I did understand why I got a lot of racism experiences… You know what I mean, if we talk about growing up very poor and see my people coming out of the factories, most of my folks were addicts, had been in jails and prisons… So, share the experiences and recognize a share struggle together. And finally share the love with other black people, be supportive
" BLM was the first black movement to come out on the internet."
aParte: Here in Brazil we have some problems to recognize when a person is black because of our miscegenation society. How do the American society
with the other people who are not black that also share the impact by someone saying “f*ck the police”, cause they know what the police made with us all these times. aParte: Do the distortions in interviews happen on any black thematic or only when police violence occurs? Mary Hooks: Oh, hell yeah! And sometimes not the distortions of the truth, but the distortion of the packs and sometimes about the not telling of the stories. But where’s no activate resistance, those things happened… But we see the distortion in different levels… The alternative effects in a feeling of report our stories in a real way or giving our silence in those stories is so real. Even when it comes to the movement, there’s a whole work that we have to do around that communications strategies and how we think about amplifying and share what it’s happening in our communities, in our towns, in our cities… That’s a huge thing right now. You know, back in the 50’s and 60’s it was different. Different way that news supported, different way technologies works… And so strategic communications and who we tell our stories, how they get reported, when we tell them, the audience… I mean, it’s all of it… It’s so critical because of those things, because they don’t report the facts, because they always make the movement small.
They give the impression that the movement is only a few people here and there, but there’s actually thousands of organizations that are in resistance. The way that they try to create the idea that we just hate the police. But not all the cops. I know some police officers that are cool and they still working for the fucking State. I’m concerned about the State, the system and the set up polices rules. But the world by the eyes of the media will have folks who believe that we just hate the police. But one thing that you won’t hear in any media, is our vision of the world and our dreams. That’s the things that they won’t report. aParte: Do you think that de ideas of the movement are well interpreted when interviewed by black journalists? Mary Hooks: It depends of the media institution, the rules of the institution and the person’s own ideas... For example, there’s a guy here in Atlanta that is politicized and make a great job. In the other hand, we know some black journalists that works for some institutions that their not allowed to report somethings that go against the conduct of the institution. So, there’s two types of black journalists: who get it, but prefer to keep their jobs and who get it, but it’s able to stand their positions to help BLM, the immigration movement and give us some space. You can’t be a black
Blumenau, Junho de 2017 |
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Editoria Interview journalist and be away from racial issues. Even because, you've faced racial problems until you get to where you are today. aParte: The movement doesn’t like talking to white journalists? Mary Hooks: Not necessarily. We talk to white journalists... There was a situation that happened where one of the BLM headers had an interview with a white journalist and the white journalist began to disqualify the movement and ask inappropriate questions. aParte: I asked you this because I heard about it in the internet… Mary Hooks: I think it was a fake BLM activist... Here in Atlanta we had a situation when there was a person who was saying that he is part o BLM, but he’s not… He made a fake BLM Atlanta page on Facebook and he wasn’t into our politics, values. He was completely homophobic, very sexist and he had some issues with the police… So he made this fake chapter called “Black Lives Matter Greater Atlanta’s” and started to gave interviews to Fox News as a real BLM leader. H e w a s disrupting our movement. That’s a tactic that Fox Ne w s d o to criminalize the Black Lives Matter. Then, other medias started to interview this man as a part of the BLM and they know that he’s not the real deal. There’s a lot of questions about his relationship with the police. So, that’s a thing that we need to deal with, because it causes confusion in Atlanta. People were asking “ok, who is the real one and who is not?” Like, we have a rally in a few hours here in Atlanta and the media will talk with him first. Like Malcolm X said: “The media is the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that's power. Because they control the minds of the masses.”
Mary Hooks: I think it’s a combination of both. With a bad information, someone with bad faith will find a way to change the things that we are saying. So, I think that’s the problem, because it confuses people, but in the other hand it will show who is the liar and it will show us different ways to destroy these issues. We have a lot of people in the traditional media that are feeding our society with bullshits and we have a lot of people in the alternative medias that allowed us to tell the truth. aParte: What do you expect from a journalist when you give interviews? Mary Hooks: To listen, take good notes, ask relevant questions and don’t manipulate the answers, like Fox News does. aParte: Have you ever been inter v i e we d f rom other countries? Mary Hooks: Yeah! I gave a interview to a guy who lives in South Africa… After a lot of conversation, he came to At l ant a and we met each other personally. But I a ls o gave s ome interviews to Switzerland and Germany too.
that won this year: Moonlight and Hidden Figures. And also Viola Davis who won too. So, to take a conclusion about this, we must see if in the next years the Oscar’s will be like this year, because the Academy have a lot of white conservative people. But I hope yes. aParte: Here in my country the black movement still has to deal with the question of the appropriation of elements of African culture and religions by white people, such as the use of turbans as a fashion accessory, and it is a religious accessory. The movie "Dear White People" also addresses these issues of appropriation in the US. But how that issue is handled by the black community in US? Mary Hooks: This is interesting, because white folks don’t have any culture. So they feel free to appropriate themselves of the Arab culture, Indian culture and African culture. Especially the young
people who are strongly influenced by pop culture. The appropriation of cultures isn’t something new. I think it’s something that many folks don’t recognize, because pop culture has glamorized and made to seem special when a white woman gets her hair braids, so she can sing like a black woman. And white people don’t understand our history and our culture. But our younger generation… I don’t think they recognize it as appropriation in the same way that others do, because, again, they all grown up in a society of pop culture that likes to pretend that black people don’t suffer any kind of prejudice.And that’s why you have so many black artists who sell our culture as shit with no regard, because white supremacy has been internalized to the minds of our younger generation by the VH1 entertainment programs, for example.
Mary Hooks: It will be harmony if we have a new system. If we have a new police structures, a real democracy… All of those things. When the reparations for what has been done to African descendants in this country and globally have been done. And not like “everybody get a 500 dollar check”, but I’m talking about end with the white supremacy, end with drug trafficking, end with prostitution and all of those things that marginalize black folks. But I’m not concerned about how black people relate with white people. I’m concerned about our people having decent houses, good health (mental and physical) and not get abused by the police and the State violence. I care more about that. But we need to have a conversation with white people about racial reparations if we want to leave healthily, with dignity and in peace.
aParte: What would be an ideal harmony between whites and blacks?
"When they reject the historical legacy, people contribute to the genocide of black people."
aParte: What is the main issue during the interviews: the lack of information or someone bad faith?
aParte: Last year we had the movement Oscar’s So White which criticized the lack of black actors and directors in the movies nominated by the Academy. What happened with the Oscar this year was something that the black movement gets with a kind of a solution or was just a way that the Academy had to “clean” the name of the awards? Mary Hooks: First of all, black folks are doing a really great job. Not only in the Oscar’s, but in others awards too, like in the Grammy’s. And when I say great job, isn’t only doing or acting in movies and making good songs. I’m talking about the militancy too. Like, supervising and boycotting awards that don’t recognize the work of black people. But returning to the Oscar’s, we had two good black movies this year
Photo: Hermelinda Cortés For Mary, only a new system can harmonize the relationship between blacks and whites.