Notebook: Protest is Performance And Performance is Protest

Now is the time for protests and performance in both big and small ways. Now is the time sign petitions, make statements, participate in marches, virtue-signal, draft press releases in support of #BlackLivesMatter. I will take all of it, the shallow and the deeply felt, the instagram celebs and the poignant moments of truth. I do not differentiate. History will sort out truth from fiction. But right now, I think we should be encouraging people to act in any way they can because this is all apart of a grand public performance.

 Most protest is performative activism. I love Tonya Pinkins's medium article titled "Why I'm Fed Up with Performative Activism" but some people have taken this idea as a cudgel to bash any metaphorical protests. You're tossing performative around like it's a negative thing. The most effective protests throughout history have been performative metaphors that are theatrical-ized by people. The Boston Tea Party was performative...a bunch of white dudes got dressed up like Native Americans and dumped tea into the harbor. Did the tea dump do vital damage to the British Empire? No. Were the protestors only upset about tea prices? No. Yet, the performance of that small act was a metaphor that galvanized other people. A small group of people perform a metaphor that sticks in the mind's of people...yes it IS like theatre. 

-what you're really talking about is the difference between an effective performance and ineffective performance as protest. So what makes an effective performance? Well first off there is timing and attention...

-Remember National School Walkout? Students across the country participated in anti-gun violence.  In some small towns there was no groundswell of support. But there was one student who walked out for an hour, or one student who stood on the street by themselves. What difference can one student make? Nothing. But it was performative gesture, it was the right time, and it got attention b/c someone took a picture of it. And the images of those individual students was as powerful and poignant as the thousands of people walking out together. Why? Because it struck a heroic note of -even if I am the last person- I'm going to do the right thing. 

Ppl judge situations by 3 factors: 1) is the cause good or bad 2) is the protests active or passive 3) does it come across as strong or weak? Gandhi's 1930 Salt March was to protest British law forbidding Indians from making their own salt. He was going to take a long walk to the ocean and then make salt from the water. Salt is a pure and clean image in people's mind. It comes from the earth, it is a natural thing. The salt march takes something seemingly mundane and charges it with political and spiritual meaning. A walk becomes 1) virtuous 2) strong 3) active in opposing the British Crown. His adversaries look evil and foolish because they're stopping a kindly old man from taking a walk and  making salt out of ocean water.  MLK repeated this strategy in Selma. He took a walk across a bridge. Like Gandhi he had the perfect visual metaphor: an actual bridge both black and white people were going to cross. The performative metaphor and its context allowed the protestors to do the right thing, be strong, and be active by taking a walk, praying, walking some more. The evil of segregation would be highlighted by King walking across a bridge. Did he need to literally walk across that bridge to get somewhere? No. It's not like his house was on the other side. But did we -as a nation- need him to walk across that bridge so that WE could get somewhere? Absolutely. 

-AIDS Quilt is performative, ACT UP's 'die-in's are performative and theatrical. Later on, #BLM repeated the same tactic by laying their bodies on the ground and pretending to be dead. 

- Tiananmen Square tank guy is performative. We all know the tank could've crushed him or a soldier could have walked out and arrested him and dragged him away. The performance was a game of chicken: I dare you to show how brutal you are to your citizens in secret prisons...but in public.

-This is why theatre ppl love protests. Yes we are a vain and narcissistic bunch, but we're also looking for the metaphors in our lives that take mundane things and charge them with meaning. 

- So what good does a performative statement do from a corporation during this crisis? It serves as a record. It is an apology and a promissory note. Generally  most people think 'out of sight, out of mind' but that promise to do better doesn't die. Like the truth, it travels underground and builds and grows. Wickedness thrives in silence and off-the-record. That's why Black people are all about records. Our entrance into this country was as a matter of trade records. We keep lists and notes and details. Like Nina Simone's "Pirate Jenny" there is a day of reckoning. There is a time when the bill must be paid and we have all the receipts. So get your company, your theatre, your boss, your local org to make those #BLM statements. Get them on record because they're going to forget. But all that is forgotten is not lost. The bill must be paid. 

-Virtue Police: The idea that there's some pure virtuous cause unblemished by human vanity and selfishness is bullshit. Every cause is tainted with 'me' because I bring me along to every action. There is a honeymoon period where you can attract idealists and get them to do a few good deeds. But every movement that lasts for the long haul has self-interests. The question is how do we take your self-interests, my self-interests, their self-interests...put it in a pot and melt it down to some thing that can be achieved.

Remembrance of Things Past

The cleaning process was the first thing we got wrong. The entire house smelled like shit. It was an overpowering revulsion that filled my body as we walked through the front door after another day of school. My mom was cooking chitlins.

Chitlins are pig assholes and intestines. Chitlins are a staple of African American cuisine. Chitlins make your kitchen smell like fiery piles of excrement and garbage. The pig guts had this rainbow luminescent shine over their slick surface. The kitchen countertop looked like it had been overrun with giant clay worms covered in viscous oil. My mom had cleaned the guts well enough so that we wouldn’t die from eating it, but she had forgot about cleaning it out to avoid that infamous chitlins smell.  I could tell that my Dad was slightly annoyed at her oversight.

My parents thought it was time me and my sister tried chitlins. And they wanted to surprise us with the horror of our heritage. There was collard greens, spices, and other parts of the pig laid out for us to see in all their glory. Hog maws, feet, snouts, chunks of ham. This was going to be the real southern experience. My father –always happy to play family historian- let us in our on the secret. During slavery times in America, these were the pieces that were left from the master’s butcher. After the ham, bacon, and finer sides of meat had been striped, there were the leftovers. The feet, snouts, eyes, assholes, and guts. Blacks would get the most of the guts because there was so much to cook. Pigs are filthy animals so the preparation of chitlins involved as much cleaning as cooking. I held my nose as my Dad explained the beauty of taking the worst and turning it into the bests. Chitlins were supposed to be tasty, but it seemed like that the process of cooking the guts involved throwing in as many different flavors, meets, and spices to remove any lingering reminders of what was being served.

My sister was skeptical. I was horrified. Neither one of us wanted any part of chitlins. My parents assured us that this was delicious. They recounted stories of growing up on chitlins, being excited for those special times every year when they would devour the rubbery, salty, pig innards. It was a rite of passage.

My head was reeling from not only the smell but now the thought that I would be forced to eat this concoction that was not bubbling like a witch’s cauldron. I went to my room and closed the door. I shoved blankets under the opening to block the stench. I buried my face in a pillow and inhaled deeply. I screamed into the fluffy, perfume-scented bedspread.

When the chitlins were ready, I was summoned to the dinner table. My father handed me a big heaping plate of my nightmare.  The entrails were now boiled into withered submission and looked like a fried and frizzy clay scraps. The residual odor from the cooking process was still so strong that it was hard to smell anything else but dark, dense, putrescent scent. I lifted the plate to my nose and sniffed it like a suspicious dog. The worst of the odor had been buried beneath the spices, greens, and ham bits. There was just a faint whiff of boiled shit.

I looked at my parent’s face who smiled and gave an encouraging ‘go ahead.’ My sister sneered, I hesitated. Seeking to encourage us, they both took big heaps of chitlins and shoved it into their mouths, while making orgasmic sounds of pleasure.

I lifted the tiniest shred of chitlin on to my fork. And then I carefully placed greens, ham, and anything I could stack with my fingers on top of my ancestor’s food. I held my breath and shoved the fork into my mouth. I chewed and swished the food around until my tongue grazed across the rubbery chitlin. Then I bit into it.

It didn’t taste awful. It didn’t even taste like its smell. It was just meat taffy. My next fork-load had a bit more chitlins, and with each subsequent try I became more bold. By the end of the meal, my sister and I were smiling and enjoying ourselves. Who knew assholes and innards could be so savory? We may have had chitlins one more time in my life. My mom was fixing a meal for some family members. When my cousins arrived they were shocked and excited.

Aunty Yvonne, you cook chitlins?

My mom shushed them and laughed like it was an absurd questions.

Civil Rights Movement: 10 Questions to my Mom

This year is the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington. Today my mom said 'oh yeah, I did some protesting.' I had no idea.

In 1963, my mom -Yvonne Boston- was a college student in Daytona Beach, Florida. She went to the historically Black college, Bethune Cookman. I wanted to record these details from 1963.

Name: Yvonne Boston Squire

Hometown: Columbia, South Carolina

Current Town: Miami Gardens, FL. 


Q: What did you do?

A: We held protests at Morrison Cafeteria when we were in college. Marching around with signs to get them desegregate the entire restaurant. Back then, Morrison had a big chain in Daytona and Miami. I never ate there before because it was too far from campus.


Q: Why didn't you tell me this before?

A: I don't know. Everyone was doing it back then. I was in college and I think the NAACP came to our campus and asked us students to be a part of the movement. We signed up. Our non-violence training was pretty simple. They just told us 'this isn't Malcolm X. We're not trying to punch people. Don't respond to their comments. Just walk and hold the signs.'


Q: Were you able to stay completely non-violent?

A: Sort of. We were marching back and forth in front of the cafeteria. There was this middle-aged White woman who kept breaking our line. And she would bump me. And then she would come back through and bump me again. So the third time I put my elbow out. (laughs) It was very subtle but I just nudged her and kept marching. It was little...just some people are bullies, you know that. And they just need a little encouragement...(laughs) to stop. She didn't come back through our line again.


Q: How many of you showed up?

A: 20-30 depending on the day. Bethune was a small college. A lot of people were on Malcolm X's side. They wanted violence. I really didn't know what I wanted. I just floated through. I remember coming back from protest and having to go to German class (laughs). "Machen sie das buch zu!"


Q. How long did you march?

A: A few hours each day. We marched maybe a few weeks or a month or so, don't quite remember. It was around November. And then Kennedy was killed.


Q: How were people back then?

A: Daytona isn't a place people were born. People come from other places. So we had catcalls from people in cars and on the sidewalks.


Q: What would they say?

A: Go home...and 'other things.'


Q: Did you march on the day when Kennedy was killed?

A: Yes. And a car drove by and someone yelled out, 'your president got killed.' Your president. As if they are from another country. 'How do you feel now, your president has been shot! Go home!'


Q: How did students react to Kennedy being assassinated?

A: People were shocked and sad. They were crying. It was unbelievable. Someone heard it on the radio and it spread around the campus. But we still got out there that day and the next.


Q: And what ended up happening?

A: They desegregated. Very soon after that. But I ate at Morrison's years later in Miami...after they had desegregated. The food was actually good.