Black Nouveau

(bright music) (dynamic music) - Hello, everyone, and welcome to "Black Nouveau".

I'm Earl Arms and this is our September edition.

This month is National Suicide Prevention Awareness Month.

James Causey and Dr. Kweku Ramel Smith discuss how suicide is affecting the African American community.

Milwaukee Film's Cultures and Communities Film Festival starts in just a few days.

Geraud Blanks, who's the Chief Innovation Officer at Milwaukee Film highlights some of those offerings.

Next month, PBS will air two documentaries on two legendary African Americans, Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman.

We'll tell you how you can join us for a special preview of these two programs.

But first, we look back at Milwaukee's Black Theater Festival from last month.

Alexandria Mack takes a deep dive into one production that spotlights an issue impacting our city and country in unprecedented numbers.

- What first comes to your mind, what do you see when I say gun violence in MKE?

(people chattering) - "Milwaukee Voices of Gun Violence: Resilient, Resolute, and Revolutionary" is a documentary drama that is a collection of monologues that are taken from interviews that were conducted by the Mothers Against Gun Violence, their story project, I'll say really getting to the essence of the stories that are being told so that we can hear not only the truth in the incidents that occurred, but also what's on the other side.

- But present circumstances have increased frustration and hostility at home and in our streets.

- One of my colleagues at UWM Peck School of the Arts, Portia Cobb, introduced me to Debra Gillispie, the founder of Mothers Against Gun Violence.

And they shared with me that they've been collecting these stories from survivors of gun violence.

- I lost my only son, Kirk Patrick Bickham, Jr. and his two friends, Deshawn Windbush and Carl Hall to a felon with a gun in 2003.

My son had just graduated from college, had came home and was here out celebrating with his friends about his new corporate position with Coin Wrap, Incorporated.

But because he was African American and his friends were African American, the worst was assumed.

And for me to find out that you lose a loved one, and in my case my only son, and to hear victim blaming, saying that, tried to make it sound like it was his fault that he was shot and killed.

Since then, it's been my mission to make sure that we have a voice, survivors of gun violence have a voice, and be able to claim their own stories.

- My name is Steve Hartgarden.

I'm 70 years old.

Well, I'm an emergency physician (gentle piano music) by experience and training.

I've been taking care of emergency patients since 1976 actually, here in Milwaukee largely.

Communities where gun violence is higher in Milwaukee related to homicides and gun violence related suicides is distributed across Wisconsin so it's everybody's problem.

It's everybody's challenge.

- They stopped me from driving.

And the guy in the passenger seat ran out and ran into my car and opened up the door.

(somber piano music) And he had a guns.

- Filled with life and with activity (playful piano music) and sometimes for too many kids, and I was one of those kids too, that energy is sometimes negative energy.

And a lot of times there are kids in the cities like ours, (somber piano music) not just here but across the country that are lulled to sleep by the sound of gun violence and they don't even- - Oh, I don't know what I would say to the person that killed my child but I know I could just say why?

Why, like what did he do to you that you had to take his life like that?

He was just a baby.

He was only 16.

You killed him- - Gun violence affected my life on August 5th, 2012, when a white supremacist gunman walked into the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin in Oak Creek and murdered six people.

One of those was my father.

- This is one of those plays that you wish weren't so current, but it truly is of the moment because it's yesterday's headline, it's today's headline, and unless we have really strong gun legislation, unless things really change, the gun culture changes, it's gonna be tomorrow's headline.

So right now it has great relevancy.

- I loved reading it because I recognized the truth of the stories.

I feared before we did a reading in the early spring, a public reading here as a matter of fact, Black Arts MKE organized it, I feared that it would be tedious for an audience because it's monologue after monologue after monologue and they're very, they're very serious and that was my concern.

And then they're kind of long and I thought, oh man, people are just gonna, how are they gonna take all of this?

But I think because of the quality of the performances, and I'm speaking about my colleagues, not myself, and the careful editing that Sheri did in the texts, the audience was absolutely floored.

I mean, they were stunned.

They were so moved.

It had such a powerful impact, more than I had imagined.

- I hope that "Milwaukee Voices of Gun Violence" impacts each person who hears the testimonies, the accounts, to remind us that we can survive this, we can thrive, and in serving others, we help ourselves and others to heal.

We don't have to remain victims.

(dynamic music) - Rosa Parks is arguably one of the most celebrated Americans of the 20th century and arguably one of the most distorted and misunderstood.

- Only a piece of her story was told in school, typically in February during Black History Month.

- Yes, we all understand that she went and sat down on the bus.

The narrow narrative of her just on one day did something.

We need to dispel that.

- She was like a superhero to me.

She really was.

She had the conventions of a superhero and that you might walk by her and not know that she had this power, this capacity to change the world.

- If they could see her talking about the Republic of New Africa, if they could see her out there with the Panthers in Oakland, if they could see her in all of these fragrant varieties of her personality, then they would understand the real Rosa Parks but they might have been just a little bit frightened.

- That clip is from "The Rebellious Life of Rosa Parks", the opening film in this year's Cultures and Communities Festival.

And here to tell us about that film and the festival Geraud Blanks, who is the Chief Innovation Officer for Milwaukee Film.

Geraud, thank you so much for joining us.

- Thank you for having me.

- Oh, absolutely.

So I'll get into the Rosa parks film in just a minute, but Cultures and Communities, talk about what that means to you and what do you hope people get from this festival in that regard?

- The festival is, it's a labor of love.

(chuckles) And by that I mean it is a lot of work but I love it.

And it's implicit in the name, Cultures and Communities.

Culture, what do you care about, what do you love, your way of life, the things that get you out of bed in the morning?

And your community, right, the people you love, the people who you want to engage in culture with.

So it's about bringing folks together around health, wellness, equity, inclusion, all the things that are important to us.

- And you start that with Rosa Parks, "The Rebellious Life of Rosa Parks".

So what do you hope people get from that film?

Especially considering all the things we know about her, but maybe some of the things that we don't know or some of the things we may not think about when it comes to Rosa Parks.

- Well, you hit it right on the head, the things that you don't know, the things that you don't think about when it comes to Rosa Parks.

Rosa Parks was not this docile old lady.

(both chuckling) Right?

Rosa Parks was a revolutionary, she was an activist.

And I think when we dig into her life a bit more, she's actually far more inspiring than I think we even know, and we grew up learning about her.

But we learned one side of the story.

This is the other side.

- And we got a couple local films in this festival, "When Claude Got Shot", "The Exchange in White America: Kaukauna & King".

Talk about those films, local films, but what makes those unique besides the fact that they're based off of folks who have come up in Milwaukee?

- Yeah.

Well one, "When Claude Got Shot" is nominated for an Emmy, which is pretty amazing.

Right?

- It's a big deal, yeah.

- Right.

And both of the films deal with, I think deal with subject matter that is close to all of us.

The idea of identity, racial identity, the idea of violence in our communities, these are issues that speak to all of us.

And the fact that these films were made by local filmmakers is beautiful because that's a big part of what we wanna do at the festival is support local filmmakers and really support films that are dealing with topics that everyone cares about.

- And it's not just films, right?

We're having discussions and you're talking about different topics.

I think I saw tech, we're talking Roe v. Wade.

I think for all the "P-Valley" fans out there, J. Alphonse Nicholson will be coming to speak.

But with all of those topics, are there any topic that stands out to you, especially considering current events or the times that we're living in?

- Is there any one that stands out?

Well, we're having a Black Birth forum.

It's called Black Birth but it's on Black maternal and infant health.

This is the fifth time we've done this, fourth or fifth time.

And that one is near and dear to my heart.

And that is a symposium that I think is really, really timely.

And then, like you said, J. Alphonse Nicholson, his work on "P-Valley" I think is so important in thinking about the depiction of Black men on screen, sexuality, masculinity, all of these things.

Those are two events that stick out but you what might be the event that I'm most excited for is the "Beyonce and Beyond".

(both laughing) 'Cause I love talking music culture.

And we did a Tupac retrospective for his birthday back in June.

It was amazing.

So we're hoping that this will have the same energy.

- All right, before we wrap things up, we're gonna see another clip.

This is from the closing film, "Butterfly in the Sky", which should bring back memories for many public TV viewers.

Take a look.

- When I first heard (light upbeat music) the pitch, the idea for Reading Rainbow, I thought what a great idea.

Let's use the medium of television to steer kids back in the direction of literature and the written word.

Because my mom was an English teacher in the first part of her life.

Before she became a social worker, she was an English teacher.

And I know that my life has been immeasurably enhanced by my love of the written word.

- All right, so LeVar Burton to close out the film festival.

Why is that?

- It's Reading Rainbow.

I mean like, (both laughing) I mean, come on.

Who didn't grow up on Reading Rainbow?

And it was, when I found out about the film.

Well, it was the Rosa Parks film and the Reading Rainbow film, I was like, we gotta get 'em.

And I felt we were so blessed to get 'em and we said, these are perfect bookends.

I mean, everyone we talk to about this film can't help but smile.

It's Reading Rainbow, it's LeVar Burton.

And on top of that, it's an amazing documentary.

That's the best part.

It's really good.

So we think this is the perfect way to end what we think will be an amazing week.

- Can't wait.

Geraud, thank you so much for joining us here on "Black Nouveau".

- Thank you.

- And just a reminder to all of you out there, the Cultures and Communities Film Festival runs from September 14th through the 18th.

(dynamic music) - [Announcer] This October, PBS offers two documentaries (gentle music) on African Americans who fought to end slavery.

First, "Harriet Tubman: Visions of Freedom".

Go down Moses Way down in Egypt land Tell those pharaoh (tense music) Let my people go (children screaming) (tense music) (hammer clanging) - [Narrator 1] She would hear voices.

She would hear singing.

She would see fire burning, or she would hear water rushing.

- [Narrator 2] She would have very, very vivid dreams of her flying over fields as a free woman.

(somber music) - [Harriet] God's time is always near.

He set the north star in the heavens.

He gave me the strength in my limbs.

He meant I should be free.

- [Announcer] "Black Nouveau" asked Marquette Professor Kali Murray about Tubman's importance in history.

- She offers a different story of freedom.

What does it mean for someone with, she wasn't illiterate but she had sort of complicated literacy.

What does it mean for her to take not only herself but gradually her family and her community, and what does it mean to take that community to emancipation and liberation?

She tells a different story I think about freedom that counters the kind of story that we have about founding fathers and founding mothers.

I think the second way in which, she's an important figure historically.

I mean, I think she leads key raids during the Civil War.

She leads raids to South Carolina, to the very heart of the Confederacy.

And she sorta activates a sort of Black world network that helps the Union Army in key states in South Carolina and Georgia.

And so she actually is an important figure in the history of the Civil War, the ways in which the Union Army gradually began to use Black freedmen and brought freedwomen to become the center of the Civil War struggle.

(somber music) - [Narrator] And "Becoming Frederick Douglass".

- [Frederick] In the summer of 1841, a grand anti-slavery convention was held in Nantucket.

(bell tolling) (horse hooves clomping) I was induced to express the feelings inspired by the occasion and the fresh recollection of the seams through which I had passed as a slave.

- The abolitionists that were there knew that they had this fugitive slave in the audience and they asked Frederick, "Will you tell the audience what it was like to be enslaved?"

- [Frederick] What shall I say of this experience?

I have seen the cruelty and brutality of slavery and I had been subjected to the depths of slave life.

I was a graduate from this peculiar institution with my diploma written on my back.

- More Americans heard Douglass speak than any other American in the 19th century with the possible exception of Mark Twain.

And it was significant that a former slave was famous.

- [Announcer] There's also a new series from Dr. Henry Louis Gates, (tense music) "Making Black America: Through the Grapevine".

- Throughout our history, Black Americans have with great ingenuity and imagination, created a world with its own values and rules, a world defined by unfettered racial self-expression, a world behind what W.E.B.

Du Bois called the veil.

- When we talk about networks of Black people, we're talking about different types of associations.

There's a social type, fraternal and intellectual organizations.

- How were each of you shaped by Black social institutions?

- I grew up in African preschool.

I didn't learn "Snow White and the Seven Dwarves".

I learned "Coal Black and the Seven Sebbens".

(all laughing) (jazzy music) - [Interviewer] What does Black joy mean to you?

- Black joy means being in a safe space and feeling free, where you can really be yourself and shed that skin.

- [Announcer] We invite you to join us for a preview of all three projects at the Wisconsin Black Historical Society (light upbeat music) Wednesday, September 21st, from 6:30 to 8:30 PM.

Refreshments will be served and you'll be able to get more information on all three programs.

The event is free, open to the public, but you have to register.

Go to our website Milwaukeepbs.org.

(dynamic music) - September is Suicide Prevention Awareness Month.

Suicidal thoughts can affect anyone regardless of age, gender, or background, but while suicidal thoughts are common, they should not be considered normal.

Here to talk about the impact of suicide is Dr. Ramel Kweku Smith.

Dr. Smith, thanks for joining us for such a serious topic.

- Yeah, thanks for having me.

Right off the bat what you said is it shouldn't be considered normal.

Because suicide happens so prevalently, we have kind of normalized this dysfunction so I think it's really good to have conversations like this to let people know that this can sometimes be an avoidable tragedy.

- Right, right.

So let me jump right in.

So suicide is the second leading cause of death among young people ages 10 to 34 and the 12th leading cause of death overall in the US.

Why are so many young people choosing to end their lives?

- Yeah, well, this is what you have to recognize.

There's always about double the number of suicides than there are homicides, but when you ever look at suicides, like for example, in 2020, there were over 45,000 recorded suicides, but there were 1.2 million attempts.

So when you start to look at these numbers, what you start to see is a strain on individuals without the resources to be able to deal with these strains.

So when we see the increase in suicide attempts, see the increase in suicide completions, what we see is a society that has problems with the inability to actively handle those problems.

- Yeah.

So although more women attempt suicide than men, I think it's nearly four times as many women try to end their lives, men are more successful.

Does that surprise you at all?

- Well no, because generally, and this is from a rough socialization kinda times from archaic past, to be honest.

But usually when men would attempt suicide, their attempt usually was to kill themselves so they would use more lethal means, be it a firearm, be it strangulation.

However, a lot of times when a lot of women would try to attempt suicide, a lot of times these were cries for help.

So it would be cutting behavior, would be pills, things that had ability to recover from if it was caught in time enough.

Now, those things can be fatal if not caught but had the ability to.

And what we have to remember is this, we often talk about suicide, but we have to talk about the different labels.

We have suicide ideation, you have suicidal plans, and you have suicidal attempts.

Ideation is just when a person is thinking.

So if a parent is wondering and you hear somebody say, "Wow, what is heaven like?"

Or, "What if I wasn't here?"

These are ideations, so it's not saying it is, but it's a time for conversation.

A plan is when somebody writes out something or can vocally say, "Hey, this is what's going on.

This is what I'm gonna do."

But an attempt is when somebody has a plan, whether in their mind or written out, and actually goes through with it.

So when we start looking at which level people are at also deals with what type of level of intervention that they would need.

- Yeah, I totally understand that.

And I'm gonna share a personal story with you.

I know a lot of people believe you have to be mentally ill when you try to end your life, but that's not true.

Personally, when I lost both my parents back to back a few years back, I mean, I felt suicidal.

And so I guess my question to you is where do you go when you feel like you have nowhere to go and no one to talk to?

- Yeah, that's a great question.

The first thing I wanna say is this.

What you felt is absolutely normal.

To feel that way is absolutely normal.

Because it's so taboo in our society, people don't wanna talk about it.

And when you can't talk about it, is when the problem starts to escalate.

So you say, who can I talk about?

Well, so many times there's resources right under our noses and we don't even know it.

Now, we can call 1-800-SUICIDE.

We can do the new 9-8-8 number that they have.

And those are strangers that can be there in a minute.

But what I tell most people is this.

When I talk with parents that's had to unfortunately bury a child, they say, "Why didn't they talk to me?"

And the child is thinking, "I didn't have anybody to talk to.

I didn't want to disappoint you.

I didn't want you to think I was weak.

I didn't want you to talk me out of it."

And so what we have to recognize is so many different things that's going on in people mind.

So the first thing what we wanna do is to let share all of our loved ones, if they need to talk to us, they can.

We don't wanna wait until they get down to wonder if they do.

We wanna proactively let them know I'm here.

And not only say it in words but do it in deeds by having those tough conversations to let 'em know I'm here for it all, whether it be light or heavy.

- Yeah, so there's this belief that Black people don't kill themselves.

But we know that Black suicide is a leading cause of death for African Americans ages 15 to 24.

Why is that such a critical time for young people?

- Well yeah, because think about it.

At that time, your age, at that age, your brain is not fully developed.

And this is what I tell young people.

I say, "You're old enough to fall in love, but you're not old enough to fall out of love," because those emotions of unrequited love become so overwhelming where you don't understand that there is a tomorrow.

So when we talk about a developing brain, we talk about puberty and hormones, any person who has a child that was a teenager, they understand how difficult those years were.

Why?

Because a person is trying to formulate their identity.

Now, you mix that in with the pandemic, you mix that in with social media, you mix that in with the bullying epidemic that's going on, it could be too much for a child.

And before they could blossom into that beautiful butterfly, they end it while they're still in the caterpillar stage.

- Are there signs that people should look for if they suspect that someone that they care about may be thinking about suicide?

- And the signs is this it's everybody, it's anytime, it's anywhere.

You could be suicidal, I could be suicidal right now even while we talk and we laugh because most people who go through pain is like the old saying, laugh, clown, laugh, sometimes they don't let you know.

Of course, we look for people who are isolated.

We look for people who behaviors change.

We look for people who've gone through so many different changes in their life where when we say we gotta check on them.

But the person who we need to check on is the strong friend, the person who's laughing, the person who's making you laugh.

The person who seems like they have it all because everybody at the end of the day deals with trauma, deals with hurt, deals with pain.

So everybody is a candidate for suicide.

Some people say, "Oh, no, never me."

I said, but we always say that suicide is a permanent solution for a temporary problem.

Whenever those resources seem outweighed by the problems, suicide becomes an option even for the strongest of people.

We've seen it in billionaires, we've seen it in pastors, we've seen it in athletes and entertainers.

So there's no threshold, as you said earlier, there's no demographic that can avoid this possibility.

The key is to have love around you, nurturing around you, for people to say, hey, you know what, there are people who love me and care about me and can you gimme some help in ways in which I can't help myself.

We have to be strong enough to ask and vulnerable enough to ask.

- I guess my last question is this.

Suicide wasn't really talked about at our dinner table.

It just was a subject that never came up.

It's a taboo subject.

How do you bring up the conversation about suicide?

- Just like we're doing right now.

Hopefully you're watching it on a television program, you hear it on the radio.

But this is what I tell parents.

They say, "Well, that's such a dark subject."

I said, "Well, it's even darker to talk about suicide after it's happened."

So what you want to do is again, use it proactively.

By mentioning suicide, it's not going to put and plant that idea in somebody's mind.

But what it may do is let them know, oh, other people are aware, other people are willing to give me help.

It's the secrecy, the quietness that allows this suicide bug to grow, and when it grows too overwhelmingly, that's where it comes to completion.

So we wanna have these conversations quick, we wanna have 'em often, and we wanna have 'em couched in love.

- Well, I appreciate you taking the time to talk about this very important subject.

And remember, we gotta have those conversations.

- Got to have 'em.

- Thanks a lot.

- Thank you.

- Remember to check out (lively music) our website, Milwaukeepbs.org for a list of resources and information about suicide prevention.

You'll also find links for the special screenings and events we covered on this program.

And don't forget the exclusive web interviews there as well.

Be sure to join us next month as we start our 31st season of "Black Nouveau".

For "Black Nouveau, I'm Earl Arms.

Have a good evening.

(upbeat music)