DATA OF INTEREST

GUESTS:
Patrisse Cullors
Damon Turner


Synopsis:

This workshop, delivered by Patrisse Cullors and Damon Turner, artists, activists, and founders of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) and Trap Heals movements, respectively, was centered around a dialogue with key figures fighting against racial discrimination in Cuba.

The launching point for Patrisse's work is the now age-old issue of the government and legal system's abusive and punitive relationship with Afro-descendent people in the United States. By activating the connections between Afro-descendent people around the world, the BLM movement aims to build alliances capable of demanding and bringing about changes in legal systems that, historically, have profiled and incarcerated people based on the color of their skin. The fight against racial discrimination, in which art is a mobilizing resource, helped bring an important criminal justice reform bill to vote in the United States Congress in 2020.

Damon Turner makes trap music, an urban genre that is increasingly popular among young people in poor neighborhoods. Damon considers himself a builder of creative spaces where knowledge of one's own culture can help unconventional leaders to emerge.

A group of Afro-descendent Cuban activists with a long history of fighting against racial discrimination joined this gathering. Those present agreed that racial violence, despite any local, sociocultural particularities, is something that connects the experience of Afro-descendants in Cuba and the United States. We found similarities and connections in the collective imagination of young people who are systematically marginalized.

At workshop's closing session, the capacity of urban music to nurture new social paradigms that subvert marginalized and self-marginalized stereotypes was deemed stronger than the individual differences between people with common ancestors, since they share the same underlying demand for justice. Here at Instar, we spoke the shared language of urban artists. Black Lives Matter is a global network that calls Afro-descendent people around the world, who share the same desire for justice and act collectively in their communities, to action in response to anti-Black racism and violence toward Black people that is authorized by the state.

Bio:

Patrisse Cullors

Cullors is a performance artist, organizer, educator, and public speaker from Los Angeles, United States, co-founder of the Black Lives Matter global network, and member of the board of directors of the organization Dignity and Power Now. She has been on the front lines of the fight for criminal justice reform for the last 20 years, and she led the Yes on R ballot initiative to reform Los Angeles jails in 2020.

Damon Turner

Turner is an African American trap artist, activist, cultural architect, and father. He founded the Trap Heals project, the first cultural architecture firm in the world based on the premise of horizontal construction. Trap Heals creates spaces, content, and strategies where culture and cultural knowledge can be produced organically and authentically by unconventional leaders.