On Monday afternoon, a distinguished panel addressed what they described as institutional violence against young black citizens and the galvanized response from the black community and activist groups that has propelled the issue to center stage of the already befuddling 2016 U.S. presidential campaign.
The event, billed as “Changing the Script: Media, Culture and Black Lives,” provided an attentive packed house with some perspective on the fast-paced chain of events from a four-star panel at the Harbor View Hotel in Edgartown. Alan Jenkins, executive director of the Opportunity Agenda (TOA) moderated the two-hour conversation. Panelists included Danny Glover, an actor and humanitarian; Patrisse Cullors, artist and co-founder of Black Lives Matter (BLM); and Issa Rae, an author, producer, and writer with a specialty in social media and web-based communications. The event was co-sponsored by the Open Society Foundation and produced by Black Robin Media (the entire event was videotaped, and will be available at opensocietyfoundations.org and opportunityagenda.org).
The discussion and conversations with participants spotlighted a rapidly changing American societal landscape, in which traditional attitudes and media are no longer the information drivers.
For Ms. Cullors, the BLM agenda is straightforward: to make violence against black youth a central part of the national discussion by disruption of political events. In contrast with her widely broadcasted firebrand presence at presidential political events, Ms. Cullors in person is a thoughtful, reserved, and focused woman who has been involved in protest against racial injustice for half of her 32 years.
In reference to her presence on the dais of an address by Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders, Ms. Cullors promised equal opportunity for obstruction for all the candidates. “I have nothing against Bernie Sanders. We are not going after Bernie Sanders, we are going after the people who are systematically killing black Americans,” she told the audience. “We will obstruct every candidate. We shut down Jeb Bush in Las Vegas. Hillary [Clinton] avoided obstruction by limiting access at an event, and [Donald] Trump simply canceled his event [that BLM had targeted],” she said.
Then there was Mr. Jenkins, who in a different life might have been an Ivy League don. He is a polished think tank professional with a goal of changing the cultural conversation around racial justice. A tall order, certainly, but like Mr. Glover and Ms. Rae, who are storytellers in their respective crafts, Mr. Jenkins uses the tools of his trade to advance racial justice. The Opportunity Agenda, which he leads, uses polling, for example, to take the measure and impact of social attitudes about race and justice.
“This is the first presidential election in which the killing of black folks will be a central issue, and it will determine the outcome of the election,” he told The Times before the panel event, noting that concerns about racial justice have erased racial and demographic differences and the stereotypes that surround them. “The [2016 presidential] election will be the first to be determined by people of color, by unmarried women, and by millennials, all of whom have a high level of concern for racial justice,” he said. As an example of stereotypes undergoing debunking today, Mr. Jenkins told the panel audience that white, evangelical Christian millennials are among the demographics most concerned with racial justice.
Mr. Glover is also at work on several projects related to changing the black narrative in America (Read here for an in-depth interview with Mr. Glover). He is developing a movie script about the role of a black man in abolitionist John Brown’s raid on a federal arsenal at Martin’s Ferry in Maryland, a tipping point prior to the Civil War. Meanwhile he’s working on a movie about the late 18th century slave revolution that created a free Republic of Haiti, the only successful slave revolution in history. He is also currently reading a script for a new four-part “Roots” miniseries.
Mr. Glover used the new “Roots” script as an example of the impact of new black narrative. “I was struck by how much this script was informed by [the book and movie] “Twelve Years a Slave,” he said.
“I want it all,” Ms. Rae said of new narratives about black participation in national and international history. “I want to hear all those stories. I’m sick of just seeing the stories of our people being trampled on,” she said.
Much of the discussion and audience exchange related to ways in which people on the margins can affect change. Ms. Rae creates websites about making a difference. Her successful web series, “Misadventures of Awkward Black Girls,” will shoot a television pilot this fall, an example of the need “to take the reins of our own narrative and to circumvent the traditional media industry,” she said.