Shaquille Blackstock
       Staff Writer

Being lost on a college campus can be unsettling at first, but then it changes into something romantic and familiar. After following the intriguing, engaging notes of a Jazz band playing into the Cowan Humanities Building, the discussion introduced itself with a myriad of sounds.

The music played was undeniably linked to the culture of a younger era, appropriately setting the tone for a discussion of racial tensions in contemporary America.

A young woman named Cherie Clemmons introduced the discussion, and laid out ground rules for the event.

Of the rules, Clemmons told audience members to: “Speak your truth; firstly, because that’s all we can expect ourselves to do. Expect and accept non-closure, because this is not an issue that can be solved overnight. It is a very old issue, [racism].” Third, “Let yourself experience discomfort, because this is an issue that must be experienced.” Lastly, “Listen with understanding, and ask questions when you get offended.”

The discussion was introduced with “musique concrete,” a technique that blends music with other forms of media; which included video, sound tracks of discussion and conversation and music.

The style was effective, utilizing a social awareness critique video called, “Kids who die.”

The video included provoking quotes such as: “This is for the kids who will die today, organizing in the streets of Chicago and in the orange groves of California,” and “[This is for] the money hungry preachers who raise their hands against the kids who die.”

Next, an audio track played over the soft ambience of the band.

One voice in the audio track was of a criminologist who said, “The goal of policing initially was to control slaves [and] black people in the United States.” A recurring sound bite was the voice of Dave Chappelle, “I’m not saying I don’t like police,” and “Neighborhood watch — which George Zimmerman was a part of — descended from slave patrols, which were meant to keep people ‘where they belonged’.”

Two other sound tracks featured Richard Pryor, who called to question just how long the issue of police brutality has lingered, and asked, “How far have we really come?”

Jon Stewart’s voice was also present, “People who believe they [Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, Walter Scott, Mike Brown and Freddie Gray] justified their own deaths…believe justice will come from a flawed system.”

The last sound clip was of Martin Luther King Jr., who said, “Some of the philosophers got it wrong. Nietzsche’s idea of power takes away from the Christian idea of love. Justice at its best comes from love, not power.”

The main orchestrator of this event was Dr. Love Crossling, who directed the discussion and spoke of her work in human rights and human relations.

“There is a national conversation going on around this topic,” she told the audience. “We wanted to help everyone to engage in this conversation, we wanted to invite everyone to the table to analyze these things deeper and really delve into this fusion of civics and art,” said Crossling.

Crossling then introduced the audience to the artists who put the sound clips together and explained the significance of their work.

“Mixed media presentation has an overtone of rhetoric along with avant-garde. It is nothing new, a fusion of medias. Max Roach, a drummer I admire, did a piece with the “I have a Dream” speech,” said Crossling said.

“Peace is especially relevant now, in the face of this whole police brutality thing. Music is already written, in a sense, and we must be a medium of sorts to it,” Crossling said.

Of the sound clips, Crossling asked the coordinating artist, Larry Drawn, “This performance might remind some, as it did me, of the dialogue that came before NWA. Old school hip hop was heavily critiqued, because of the packaging that it came along with. Is this applicable at all to your classical jazz packaging? What would you say to those who would disagree with the way you are packaging this piece?”

Drawn answered, “Hindsight is 20/20. Jazz was the hip hop of its day. Louis Armstrong was not seen as a genius, but as…a black guy with a trumpet. People need to see the message; I rap and am a minister. My parents taught me that some of us have a moral obligation to others. When you are smarter, you have to bring others up with you. Emotions, empathy, and insight need to be shared. People will see hip hop artists as geniuses in 50 years.”

The discussion closed with audience members sharing their stories and questions regarding police brutality.

One woman shared her experience visiting Ferguson, “I went to Ferguson, with my son, and I served in the law enforcement field for decades. The things going on out there are not exactly as the media portrays them. Videos get deleted, and the criticism of the police allow for other, more sinister agendas to come in.”

An older man’s comments struck the air with tension, “We often find ourselves in a postmodern competition for a narrative. It’s different from acting on a political desire for change, for power. One can assert himself or herself as authentic, but there is no guarantee society will accept it. There is no one truth, and you must convince others to accept your truth. It is contingent, any ‘absolute, always, everything’ can be rejected by some. I don’t want my neighbor to love me, I want my neighbor to respect me. If the system is broken, who cares about what’s at the bottom of the hearts of people, we need to fix the damn system…[and prevent] another system [that] will come along and be problematic as well.”