[bright music] - Announcer: The following program is a PBS Wisconsin original production.

- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, "If you want to say that I was a drum major, "say that I was a drum major for justice.

"Say that I was a drum major for peace.

"I was a drum major for righteousness.

And all of the other shallow things will not matter."

Today, as we celebrate the life and legacy of Dr. King, we reaffirm that the movement he helped create continues across the country today.

His words captivated us to listen and motivate us now to continue the fight for racial equity.

Hi, I'm Angela Fitzgerald.

This is a special presentation of Why Race Matters, a PBS Wisconsin digital series elevating issues affecting Black communities.

In the next hour, we'll present two conversations featured in the newest season of Why Race Matters.

To see additional episodes, you can visit whyracematters.org or watch on the PBS video app on Roku or other streaming devices.

Our first conversation comes from an episode centered around critical race theory, or CRT for short.

In it, I speak with Dr. Gloria Ladson-Billings about exactly what is CRT and why it's been a topic of conversation and strong reactions across the state.

After that, I speak with a Milwaukee artist about how Black art, joy, and trauma can sometimes coexist and be a revolutionary act.

But first, let's find out why race matters when it comes to CRT.

Critical race theory, or CRT, isn't a new framework or way of thinking, but it has received renewed attention due to anti-CRT legislation created across the United States.

So what is CRT, exactly, and why is it producing such a strong reaction in some states, so much that some lawmakers are pushing to ban teaching it in schools?

Let's find out Why Race Matters when it comes to history, racism, and education.

[upbeat music] Critical race theory, or CRT, can be a controversial buzzword today.

But that wasn't always the case.

In fact, it isn't even a new concept.

CRT dates back to the 1970s and '80s as a framework for legal analysis that was created by several legal scholars to suggest that "race is a social construct and that racism "is not merely individual bias or prejudice, "but something embedded in systems, policies, and practices."

CRT suggests that because racism is so deeply ingrained in the fabric of our nation, even well-intentioned decisions made by individuals can help to fuel racism.

And for some, therein lies the perceived controversy, resulting in the creation of anti-CRT legislation.

In Wisconsin, the Legislature passed a bill in January 2022 that would limit the discussion of racism in K-12 classrooms, including any teaching that, quote, "an individual, by virtue of that individual's race or sex, "is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously."

The bill was vetoed by Governor Tony Evers.

Critics of anti-CRT legislation say that if America desires a more equitable future, then we must be willing to acknowledge the atrocities of the past and their influence on the present.

National Academy of Education President and Professor Emerita at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Dr. Gloria Ladson-Billings, joins us to share more about the importance of CRT and its application in and outside of the classroom.

So, Dr. Gloria Ladson-Billings, thank you so much for joining us today.

- My pleasure.

- So, can you start off by telling us a little bit about yourself and the work that you do?

- Well, I am Professor Emerita of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

That's just a fancy way of saying I'm retired.

But I will confess, I am failing at it.

[Angela laughs] I am the world's worst retiree.

I've been fascinated by the education of Black people in this country because it's such an incredible story.

And so, where I see inequities in that education, I always want to kind of probe it and explore it and try to make sense of it.

- I appreciate you coming in to talk with us about a very important topic.

For some, it's the topic when it comes to race right now.

CRT.

- Well, and I want to be clear that the context that we are in right now, on the heels of some horrific massacres of people, mostly people of color, and clearly the one in Buffalo being driven by racial hatred, it's very timely to talk about this particular topic.

But rather, just saying to someone, "Oh, I study critical race theory," or "What do you know about critical race theory?"

I often start with the question, "Tell me how you explain racial inequality?"

- Mmm.

- Because I think the explanation that one has really kind of makes them, you know, puts them in a context for understanding the world.

So, if your explanation is, "Well, people just need to work harder."

Millions of people need to work harder?

I mean, think about it.

If you start off by saying, "Well, there isn't any racial inequality," then I don't actually think I can have a debate with you because we don't see the world the same way.

On almost every social benefit, whether it is health, wealth, education, employment, we can see racialized disparity.

So, how do we explain it?

In a classroom with students, typically graduate students, I want to be clear.

I would probably say something like, "Well, it's not as if we haven't had explanations."

We have.

From the time Black people arrived on these shores to about the mid 20th century, 1950s, our explanation was pretty much biogenetic.

So ingrained in our thinking that many universities, many colleges, had departments and programs in eugenics.

We said that was a science, that this group of people is biogenetically inferior.

Now, I would imagine that a lot of thinking people did not buy into that well before the 1950s.

- Hopefully.

- But I use the mid 1950s as a marker because it's at this point that we have the Brown decision.

And Brown is a landmark decision.

Everybody knows Brown v. the Board of Education.

However, from a critical race theory perspective, we don't see it merely as an education decision.

We see it as a foreign policy decision.

Because you have to put the legal cases, the Supreme Court cases, in a broader context.

1954 is the heart of the Cold War.

And part of the propaganda that the then-Soviet Union is using is to say to non-aligned nations like Angola or India, "You don't want to be associated with the United States.

Look what they do to people who look like you."

So that there's all these examples of lynching and dogs being sicced on people, failure to allow people to vote.

So there is great pressure on the nation.

- Right, we looked bad.

- To look better, right?

Because the Soviets are exploiting this.

I mean, you can find editorial cartoons, you can find op-eds all about "Look how the United States treats Black people."

So, it's not, it's why not only did the decision have to come out in favor of Linda Brown and the plaintiffs, it needed to be unanimous.

It needed to make a statement.

So at that point, we're saying the problem is not biogenetic.

The problem is lack of opportunity.

That's a pretty good explanation.

- It is.

- Unfortunately, not long after that, Richard Nixon's administration, and, in fact, I wrote a paper about the Brown decision in which I was able to find a statement from one of Nixon's, part of his administration, H.R.

Haldeman, who was also disgraced in the Watergate scandal.

But he tells, you have Haldeman's diary in which he says Nixon has told Mitchell, that's the Attorney General, to start filing cases to roll back Brown.

And keep filing it, filing them until it's totally rolled back.

And so, we have all these cases that come back.

We have Milliken, we have Dow, we have San Antonio v. Rodriguez.

So the "opportunity" explanation's seemingly not holding up.

Another example is voting rights.

1960s, right?

So, that's an opportunity.

What is happening now?

Affirmative Action.

It's a Lyndon Johnson initiative.

And it has been fought over and over.

The Fisher case, the Gratz and Grutter cases out of Michigan.

So critical race theory comes along, and it comes along in the late 1970s.

- And that's part of the frustration for some is that this isn't a new argument.

This has been around for decades.

- No.

And so when people say, "They're trying to foment a revolution," I always say, "This is the slowest revolution I have been a part of."

I will be dead before we have any movement.

[Angela laughs] But critical race theory comes about in law schools.

At the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where they held these critical legal studies conferences, those were folks who said, you know, the way that law is taught and the way that we understand it doesn't take into consideration the situation and the condition of other people, other than people who were already well established.

And so, it was mostly around people who were poor, women.

And it was a group of Black legal scholars, as well as other scholars of color, who said, "You guys have forgotten about race."

So, the critical race theorists emerge in these Wisconsin workshops.

And what I find really interesting is people always want to make it a sort of Black-white issue, but I show people that among the major proponents are people like Richard Delgado, Mari Matsuda, Sumi Cho, Tomas Rivera.

I mean, these are all folks who have done work in this area.

They're not Black.

They're trying to figure out how do we explain persistent generational racial inequality?

- So, in short, for someone who's never heard of CRT or maybe has heard of it, but doesn't really know what it means, what's the simple definition that you use to help people understand?

- Well, you know, I try to tell people it is a legal look at racial inequality.

Its whole point is to try to explain the inequality, try to make sense of it.

Because it really, you know, after all of these years of having been in this nation, you know, some of the longest-standing people in the nation are Black.

You know, in some ways, I often say, "Who's more American than a Black person?"

Because we have deep and long roots here.

So, I think that the whole point of critical race theory is to try to make sense of why the inequality persists.

- So, would you say that that is the current sort of reasoning that exists?

Like, we've graduated from all of these other points in time we had other ways of thinking about inequality, to now it's systemic.

There's an issue with the system.

- And we're saying it out loud.

I don't know if you remember, but not too long ago, one of the major advertisers, I can't even, I won't say it 'cause I'll get it wrong, but some, one of the major advertisers did an entire series called "The Talk."

- Mmm.

- Where Black parents, you'd see these little snippets where Black people would tell their children, "If you get stopped by the police, be polite.

Don't let anybody call you such and such word."

I mean, okay, when did we all get together and have this conversation?

[Angela laughs] It turns out that that's part of our systemic understanding of this is the way it works.

That yeah, you do expect to have someone follow you around.

Now, I remember teaching a class where students, you know, and my work is not to make students think like I think.

My work is to make sure they think.

So I'm happy to hear a well- reasoned, well-thought-out, well-substantiated conservative argument about something.

More so than a knee-jerk liberal one.

I want you to be thinking.

So we had a discussion once where a young lady talked about she was in a store, a local store, purchasing groceries, and she'd left her checkbook.

And the manager or the cashier, I'm not sure who, told her, "Oh, not a problem.

"Take your groceries and when you come back by, you can pay."

Well, a Black student in this class said, "Well, that wouldn't happen to me."

[Angela laughs] And she said, "No, it would, it would," you know, "They're really nice there."

And he says, "I'm telling you it would not happen."

So they went back and forth and so he said, "Let's do this.

"Because I do live in your neighborhood, you know, "that's, we know each other.

"The next time I need to go to the store, "I'm gonna call you and I'm gonna have you go with me "and I'm gonna purchase what I need to purchase, "go through the cashier's line, but I'm going to say that I don't have my wallet."

They did it.

And as soon as he said he didn't have his wallet, he was told, "Okay, well, put the groceries "over there on the side and then when you, you go home and get your wallet and then come back."

So she was mortified.

Because it was this local family, it wasn't a chain, right?

And it was like, "Why would they let me just, you know..." So, it's those kinds of "aha" moments.

Often, some colleagues and I say, you know, we'll call each other about something and someone will say, "I had a CRT moment."

[both laugh] In other words, it's just one of those things that's happened again.

- I so appreciate that example.

Not only because it's relatable, but because it does help to kind of simplify the conversation.

Although I can see some people taking that, especially the grocery store example and saying, "Well, oh, that particular person that was working is racist," versus calling attention to the system.

- Mm-hmm.

- So how would you help someone kind of delineate between like, there's individual racism, yes, we don't want to ignore that, but systemic racism is way more insidious in some ways because it can fall under the radar in ways we don't always recognize.

- Well, I don't deny individual racism, but racists grow up in a context.

So let's go back to the Buffalo massacre and that, that individual, yes, I'm gonna buy that he's mentally ill.

Anybody who would shoot up people like that is mentally ill.

But what's the context that was feeding his mental illness?

Well, when we check his computer, he's in all kinds of hate groups.

When we see the manifestos, what his whole point was.

So, it's a both/and situation.

There are individual people who are racist, but there's a context that feeds into that racism that happens systematically.

- And so I brought up the individual racism part because I feel like that's somehow tied to the opposition, like the current opposition.

Because like you mentioned, CRT is not new.

It's been around for decades.

It's provided a legit explanation behind why there are disparities still because some people like to believe that that was so long ago.

Why are we not X, Y, Z?

Well, the system didn't change this whole time, so why would things generally improve for a group of people the system was never designed to benefit?

But I guess I'm curious, from your vantage point, why now?

- So, let's be clear.

Much of what people are, quote, "against" is not critical race theory.

When you say, "Oh, I'm against anything that's, you know, that's anti-racism."

Well, that's really not critical race theory.

We've been doing anti-racist workshops for a very long time.

When you say you don't want to have any discussion on race, when you say we don't want white children to feel bad, you know, when I first heard that, I thought, "Well, my God, where were you in the 1950s and '60s when I was in school?"

[Angela laughs] Because I had to sit through Honors English classes reading Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn with the liberal use of the N-word and all of my white classmates sniggling and giggling.

Right?

I had to sit through Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind.

Nothing about education is about just making you feel comfortable.

Sometimes we learn the most in the midst of discomfort.

So I think what's happened is this broad net has been cast, and if you go back and look at some of the architects of the anti-CRT work, you see the strategy was brilliant.

So you have someone like Christopher Rufo, who is at the Manhattan Institute, who says, and I want to make sure I say this pretty carefully, but he says, "We're going to take all of the cultural insanities that Americans dislike."

Now, think about that.

What's a cultural insanity and who are the Americans?

- Right.

- We're gonna take all the cultural insanities that Americans dislike and lump them into the category of critical race theory.

We're going to turn the brand toxic.

- Mmm.

- So now anything that deals with race, inequality, diversity, equity, inclusion, now all critical race theory.

So, when we can't talk about all of history, as James Baldwin says.

He says, "If you feel compelled to lie "about any part of the history, you're likely to lie about it all."

- And that's the danger, kind of, when you mentioned the danger of kind of compromising how we approach education and not only demonizing history, but also demonizing the explanations that are made available as to why, why things are the way they are.

So then you have students coming into classrooms and teachers not being equipped to even discuss what's happening right now.

So like, what can we offer if we can't talk about the reasons why these very impactful, triggering, traumatizing things are happening without those tools that we're saying, no, it's illegal.

- You know, and our founders, you know, these are really smart guys.

These are smart men.

Thomas Jefferson's someone I just find fascinating.

I've got good things to tell you about Thomas Jefferson.

But there's contradictions.

Because at the same moment he is writing these magnificent words, "We hold these truths to be self-evident," he's got a woman, an enslaved woman, with whom he is procreating.

I don't know what the nature of their relationship is, but I know that in his notes from Virginia, he talks about Black people not being anywhere equal to white people and that the best thing we can do is just get rid of 'em.

Whoa, whoa, you're making more of 'em!

You know?

So there is this incredible contradiction.

Should I not say that George Washington was number one, more interested in farming than governing and that's pretty well-documented.

He rode back and forth to his farm every day that he was in the White House.

Mount Vernon was his passion.

Should I not say that when he was president, and remember the capital was in Philadelphia at this time, it's not in Washington, D.C. Pennsylvania had an ordinance that said you could not, if you were enslaved and you came to Pennsylvania, at the end of 60 days, you had to be manumitted.

You had to be set free.

Washington brought his slaves with him to Philadelphia and on day 59-- - Angela: Didn't stay 60 days.

- They went back to Maryland and then they came back on day 61 and started the clock all over again.

- Wow.

- Now, you've got to be thinking about this.

You can't just be thinking, "Oh, well, you know, okay, so y'all are not, you know, slaves anymore."

These contradictions, these human flaws are part of making these people real to our students and not turning them into idols.

- 'Cause I think the extremes can happen on either end.

- Mm-hmm.

- Because we're all flawed, whichever end of the spectrum we may land on.

- Dr. Ladson-Billings: Mm-hmm.

- So I love that you highlight, like, okay, there may be some good here or something here that is worth discussing, but let's not ignore like you're saying-- - Dr. Ladson-Billings: Correct.

- The flaws or the contradictions.

- I think it's important for us to understand that if we don't get to a place where we can actually hear one another, where we can actually express our deepest fears and concerns, we tear at the fabric of the nation.

And CRT was never designed to do that.

- And for a special group who might just feel tired... Like you said, this isn't anything new.

This has been going on for so long.

What would you say to that audience?

- The historian in me always takes the long view.

I am from a family in which my great-grandparents were chattel slavery slaves.

And I'm inspired by sort of the father of CRT, Derrick Bell, who says just because something is impossible doesn't mean it's not worth doing.

So, my great-grandparents were in an impossible situation.

They were in bondage.

But I bet every day they thought about "How can we get out of this?"

And so, then my grandparents, on both sides, mother's side and father's side, were sharecroppers.

An impossible situation.

You could never get out of sharecropping.

You could never get ahead.

You could never own property.

It was impossible.

But they still fought against it.

Then my own parents grew up in state-sponsored segregation, legal apartheid.

My mother could not try on a hat in a downtown department store.

An impossible situation.

Where you have to sit in the back of a bus, and you have to knowingly go to a substandard school if you got to go to school.

Impossible.

But they fought against it.

So then here I am, an endowed professor with 10 honorary degrees.

Go back to my great-grandparents, right?

So, people who are willing to fight against the impossibility, who understand that just because it's impossible, doesn't mean it's not worth doing, is what encourages and emboldens me.

My expectations for the next generation and the generation beyond that are quite high because I know we have this capacity.

In fact, our youth don't even think about race the same way we do.

And so, that's encouraging.

- Wow.

You're making me tear up a little bit with your, your breakdown, but that is so true.

Thank you for that.

- You're welcome.

- And with that, thank you so much for joining me today.

I've so enjoyed our conversation.

Feel like I could talk with you all night.

- Well, thank you for having me.

- Thank you so much.

- Appreciate it.

Thank you.

- Critical race theory is one framework to acknowledge the foundations of racism in the United States and its impact today.

Regardless of any discussion around education policy, there's a painful yet very real history that exists for Black Americans, as well as other historically marginalized communities.

This series is called Why Race Matters because we acknowledge that, while highlighting those in our state working to hold systems, structures, and ourselves accountable to create a more equitable Wisconsin.

Our next episode of Why Race Matters centers around art and Black joy.

I sit down with Milwaukee artist Anwar Floyd-Pruitt as we discuss how he incorporates identity into his work, and why finding Black joy can be a revolutionary act.

- When you think of Black art, what comes to mind?

From paintings, to sculpture, to film, it provides a medium for conversation and reflection.

It can bring attention to serious issues and create momentum for social change.

But it's also a place to celebrate culture and community.

Today, we'll talk to an artist who explores identity in their work.

Let's find out Why Race Matters when it comes to art and Black joy.

Black visual art has a rich history in the United States.

When Black people were forced to come to this country, many could only make utilitarian art.

As time progressed and Black people fought for their rights, they became painters, sculptors, and embraced other artistic mediums.

For some Black artists, joy is fundamental for their art-making process and for the reception of their work.

In this episode of Why Race Matters, we'll talk to Anwar Floyd-Pruitt, a Milwaukee-based artist.

We'll discuss his practice, the importance of community, and the intersection of Black art and joy.

How are you doing today, Anwar?

- I'm well, thank you.

- Good, good!

And thank you so much for joining us for our conversation today.

- My pleasure, and thanks for having me.

- So, to get us started, I feel like you're a multi-hyphenate who does things in a lot of different arenas.

So, what might be the simplest way for us to introduce you to our audience?

Like, how would you like to be described?

- I have to write bios all the time and they're constantly shifting.

- Angela: Okay.

- I would say that I usually say that I am an interdisciplinary artist from Milwaukee, Wisconsin... - Mm.

- ...working in community arts, performance, and self-portraiture.

- Hmm, okay, I love that!

So, can you break that down?

Like, what is interdisciplinary art?

- [exhales] Well, you know, many, a lot, you know, I've been in art school or was in art school for 7 of the last 10 years.

And so, a lot of my classmates and professors were very specifically focused in terms of their medium.

People working in metals, people working in ceramics, people working in printmaking or painting, and I've tried them all.

And at this point, I haven't landed on a single medium that feels most like home.

- Angela: Mm-hmm.

- And so I continue to, you know, just work across medium.

And I found that I was sitting in my studio one day and I wanted to build a people-powered kinetic sculpture.

And I spent some time.

I was twiddling my thumbs and kind of going through my brain and I thought, "Huh, it sounds like a puppet."

[Angela laughs] And so, that's how I got started in puppetry.

- Angela: Got it; oh, wow.

So, you literally have, it sounds like skill sets that are broader than just one specific area.

So, kind of spreading yourself out gives you the creative freedom to explore those different areas, puppetry being one of them, it sounds like.

- It's not really about like the fear of being pigeonholed as much as I haven't landed on, like, a singular definition myself.

And so, I, you know, I'll embrace them all, particularly when there's an opportunity to sort of share that knowledge or creative spirit because every time I teach something, I also learn something, particularly when working with young people.

I had done some work with incarcerated youth, both here in Madison, as well as in Milwaukee.

And I just knew, I learned that, you know, that there are some kids there who are sort of like chronically incarcerated and it is, you know, it's a system that we live in as well as sort of maybe lack of support when they get out, you know, that leads to that revolving door.

And then, I also-- but I met some kids who were like really, really engaged in the arts.

And I could see that when I would bring art experience to them, particularly, this puppetry experience over the last couple years, their eyes would brighten up because it's fun.

For one, it allows them to be the visual artist.

And then there's a-- I designed these puppets to be easily... easily designed, fabricated.

So anyone with $5 at the dollar store can make, I think, their own puppet show and-- - Angela: Really?

- Yes, and go perform for children's events.

And so, that really excites me to offer something to someone that they can take and make their own, and puppetry is that.

- I feel like you touched on so much in terms of like first expanding, I think, the mediums that are included when we traditionally think about art.

Like, I would not have thought about puppetry, which I'm thinking like Sesame Street and like those sorts of like, you know, Jim Henson.

Like, that's my point of reference for puppetry.

I would not have thought about that as an art form, but the way that you frame it, it very much is.

But I also appreciate how when you describe your community and performing arts work, it's also broadening like, what that means and taking us in the direction of talking about access because these incarcerated youth might not be the same people you see in an art museum where your medium is available.

Like, you're taking it to them and in doing that, they're being exposed to, like, a form of art that they might naturally connect with and who knows where that could take them.

- Yes, and it's one of the things I love about working with, you know, young people or just working with, you know, other artists or creative minds in general, is that epiphany.

We were kind of talking about that.

And I can see a young person engaging with, like, the puppetry perhaps, or, you know, the writing of, you know, family-friendly rhymes as something that really says, they think, "Wow, there's an opportunity in this.

"I can see this as, you know, as marketable, as a way forward, as a way to, you know, express myself."

- So, I wanna shift gears for a bit and kind of talk about the art world in general and the significance of art, especially Black art, and within this particular period of time that we're in now with just so much happening.

The pandemic, so we're navigating our way through that still being a thing, even though, thankfully, you know, safety restrictions have lifted a bit as of this point.

We'll see if that remains.

But also, just all the racial unrest and things that have been happening nationally, as well as within our state.

What do you see is a significance of Black artists as it relates to telling the story and conveying, in some ways, the struggles while also highlighting the celebrations that take place within our culture and racial group?

- Absolutely, absolutely.

That, you know, that question makes me think a lot about my educational experience over the past few years.

And, you know, when I did my BFA at UW-Milwaukee, entered as a 36-year-old freshman.

- Angela: Love it.

[laughs] - And, you know, but I'm from Milwaukee.

And a lot of my work in that sculpture department was about race, was about some of the struggles that I saw in the Black community in Milwaukee after moving back to Milwaukee from New York City.

And one of the things that was great about it is that I felt like I could make work about the Black community, but then also for the Black community, because I was, you know, certainly like I was deeply ingrained in the Black community in Milwaukee, through youth work, as well as just my whole family.

You know, my whole family is there.

And that made it easier for me to make heavy work 'cause I had a support system, you know.

When I moved to Madison for grad school, there were fewer-- I wasn't connected to the Black community in Madison as much.

My family wasn't here.

There weren't many Black students or faculty.

And so, I really had to make this decision about if I wanna make work about this sort of these heavy topics and do this heavy lifting.

Do I have the support, you know, when I leave the studio, when I go home, when it's time to start, like, writing the artist statements, dissecting it, sharing it with my class in critique?

And am I willing-- Am I prepared to have someone critiquing the work who's from... - Deeply personal.

- ...which is deeply personal, but that's what grad school is all about.

It's about that critique.

And it wasn't necessarily that I was going to shy away from that critique completely, but I just knew that I was, like, in this for the long haul and that I didn't want to leave graduate school exhausted and in a terrible mood.

[chuckles] - Angela: Mental health matters.

- Anwar: And so, and mental health matters incredibly.

And so, what I decided to do was make it a little more personal.

So it's still my work, a little more personal.

So it's still about Blackness because I was working in self-portraiture.

So as much as it, for me, it was about family, you know, history, family history.

And so, there's that family component that locks it in as something personal, but then there's that history component that we all share, you know?

So, it's an interesting way to sort of talk about some racial issues without the... without the main focus of it being racial issues, but more being my family's personal story, which is certainly sprinkled with, you know, experiences related to race and racism, but also sprinkled with experiences due to, like, geographic location, you know?

My mom's from West Virginia.

- Angela: Oh, wow.

- So then there's like, you know, some West Virginia pulled into the work that isn't specifically racial, but the way I sort of approach that is these are all these different versions of myself.

These are all the different people who I have the potential to be or could be.

This is the sweet son, Anwar.

This is like the Anwar who's upset that the Bucks lost.

You know, these are, this is the uncle.

This is the, you know, the student.

And just really broaden the definition, I think, for myself of who I am in this world, who I will be, and let other people know that they also have those options.

- That is so beautiful.

And I love how you kind of combine this idea of like, there is depth within what you are sharing.

There's a lot that is packaged when you have so much, like, history and culture embedded within your work, but there is lightness as well.

There can be joy as well.

There's a celebration.

So it's not an either/or.

It can be both.

It kind of depends on the interpretation of the viewer, but for you, as the creator, that's what you're essentially embedding with what you're creating.

And what you take from it, you know, you can't control that, but at least this is what is-- what I've put into my work.

- Absolutely.

You know, it's a celebration of self, a celebration of family, a celebration of overcoming struggles.

And, you know, some people would say that just being Black and alive in America is a revolutionary act.

You know?

That to be Black and alive, and full of joy is a revolutionary act.

And I don't consider myself a revolutionary all the time.

It's not like a badge that I wear, but if I can contribute to...

If I can contribute to sort of to positive feelings, as well as, you know, the deep conversations that are complicated and... And, you know, that hurt sometimes.

But I also want to see our people smile.

I wanna see people smile at us.

- That's super powerful.

And I love how you are taking upon yourself that responsibility of putting your work out there, even at the risk of it maybe not being understood or received in the way quite that you had envisioned that it would be.

It kind of goes back to your school experiences of like, the critique, how you're putting things out there in grad school, because they're potentially subject to critique and that helps you.

I think the goal is to help you improve as an artist, but that can be hard to take.

So, multiply that times a thousand, million, trillion on social media, where it's definitely open to critique.

What did Erykah Badu say?

"I'm an artist and I'm sensitive about my stuff."

- Yeah, absolutely.

- So, it's that thing of you pushing past what could be those negative aspects of social media engagement because of responsibility and the impact, the positives there, the potential positives there are so much greater than whatever those bots or those trolls might have to say.

- And I think, you know, it sort of brings me to another show called Collateral Damage and it's a show about mental health.

And I have three self-portraits in that show.

And I would say that that is some of the most challenging work for me right now to have up because it does bring up these conversations that are quite uncomfortable revolving around, one: mental health and mental illness.

But then also 'cause my work in that is specifically about PTSD and an experience I had on State Street while painting a Black Lives Matter mural.

So, yeah, so it's, you know, it's complicated, but it's important because, you know, well, one: men and mental health.

You'll find fewer men seeking help for mental health concerns.

And so, I think in that sense, it's important for me to be in this show.

- Absolutely.

- To show that men also deal with mental health concerns, which actually puts my experience on State Street at this strange intersection that has been something I've needed to think about a bit recently after giving an interview about the Collateral Damage show is that I was painting a Black Lives Matter mural, someone who is self-identified as a vet, but I can only identify them as a drunk, white man, older than me, in the middle of the day, came up to me and said, "Well, you know, why doesn't my life matter?"

I was holding a large stencil that said "Black Lives Matter" many times.

He came up and he attacked me.

And in the end, he damaged the stencil.

But it was the middle of the day right there outside of the-- I guess, the Warby Parker at State and Gorham and... you know, he kind of rushed into the bus stop, attacked me.

I punched him once in sort of self-defense.

And, mind you, I am 44 years old.

I was 43 at the time.

Maybe I was 42.

I'd never punched a person in my entire life because I am still a man of peace and I've lived this peaceful life.

And I guess that also speaks to a certain amount of privilege to not have been attacked.

- Angela: Not have to fight.

- Anwar: But is that really privilege?

- Angela: I guess it depends on who you ask.

- Anwar: It depends on who you ask, right?

- But I think to some extent, yeah, because if you're in an environment that's not, where you aren't consistently having to engage with violence, then absolutely.

- Anwar: Sure, sure, yeah, yeah.

I mean, it's what I would wish for everyone.

To not have to constantly engage with violence.

And so, you know, I punched this man.

There were three young Black men on the bus stop who saw that go down and they were, you know, were willing to jump in and help me.

And I was like-- I stopped them from jumping in, you know?

And then the guy yells, "Well, I'm a veteran!

Why doesn't my life matter?"

And... [exhales] - Angela: So that's what provoked the attack was his perception that your sign signaled to him that his life didn't matter?

- Anwar: Right, right.

And what a failing.

What a failing on the part of our community, on the part of culture, right?

What a failing on the part of whoever are supposed to be his resources so that he thinks that his life does matter.

Believes that.

- Right.

- And you know, it left me, and again, you know, 42 years old, never really been in a fight like that.

- Mm-hmm.

- And it left me not wanting to go to State Street.

- Right, because you didn't feel safe.

- Anwar: It contributed to me leaving Madison.

- Wow.

And you know, what's funny about that in a, not literal "ha-ha" funny, but ironic funny, is you mentioned you're from Milwaukee.

I think the perception could be that like, that's the scary city by comparison to Madison.

- Sure.

- And you're like, "No, this made me feel unsafe.

"Henceforth, Madison as a city - Right.

Feels unsafe to me."

- Right, right.

The pieces in Collateral Damage, one of them is called "State Street State of Mind."

And it's a self-portrait, and I'm kind of turned to the side.

My head is down, and it's like how I was navigating Madison and State Street after that incident.

Very suspicious.

I haven't spent much of my time being extremely suspicious, you know, looking out for that person lurking, that danger, you know, right there.

And that was my experience after that incident, on top of living by, near the police station.

So, my neighborhood, you know, being sort of ground zero for a lot of noise, a lot of police, a lot of activity, a lot of fights.

And then, we went into that first COVID winter and that was, you know, and it was very lonely.

So, then one of the pieces in that show was called "Mired-Winter Wallow," where it was, you know, the first winter after this incident.

My hand was broken because I don't punch people.

So, I didn't use a very good technique.

[chuckles] And, you know, and I look at that piece and I think about, mmm... not to-- I think about my responsibility for my own health.

You know, I spent a lot of that winter alone, which was actually kind of had to be the case.

We were isolated, you know, due to the pandemic.

I was just living with my cat, but probably didn't have to drink as much as I did, you know, as, like, sort of this like coping mechanism.

- Angela: Right, from that feeling of isolation, as well as the trauma you had experienced prior to that point, it sounds like.

- Yeah.

And, you know, 'cause the neighborhood was always loud and I had some like, rowdy neighbors who also were, sort of, some suffering from, like, mental health concerns.

So, one of the paintings is like, my face sort of slightly obscured by these white lines that look like Venetian blinds, you know?

- Angela: Like peering out into the world?

- Yeah, and like, what's going on outside of my window?

So, you know, as much as this show is not about race, these specific three pieces are 100% generated by my experience of racism on State Street.

And the work doesn't necessarily push into this so far, but not just that singular incident, but a series of incidents that led up to that from, you know, and it's what I think is like sort of complicated for white Madisonians perhaps-- I don't know 'cause I'm not one-- is like, yes, this guy who assaulted me was drunk in the middle of the day.

I don't know if we've all seen him, but that's like a certain portion of the population who we're expecting the poor behavior from, perhaps.

Whereas, I'd also been, you know, verbally assaulted or threatened by, you know, white Madisonians on, you know, expensive bikes in their Greg LeMond Tour de France outfits, right?

So, I wish it was just localized.

I wish I could point to a person suffering from mental health concerns, a person who is dealing with some sort of, you know, housing insecurity and say, "Well, that's where the problem lies."

And I think that's what makes some of this work complicated for me is that the problem is bigger than that.

- Absolutely.

- It's just a pretty easy scapegoat to point to.

- Mmm... you've said... - And that's where I get, like, that's where I'm kind of getting fired up about this work in particular.

And have like largely chosen not to, you know, not to talk about it too much.

- Angela: Because there's so much, like, I didn't expect you describing your artwork to lend to this whole backstory and this whole set of experiences that like, I wanna give you a hug, [Anwar laughs] like, are pretty traumatizing.

I'm like, I'm sorry that you experienced that and you were not doing anything that I guess is explicitly harmful to anyone, but yet it elicited that particular response and how even you mentioned that the series itself isn't about race, but as a Black artist, you can't extract your lived experiences from the work that you produce.

- Right.

So, it's all gonna go together.

- Yeah, it's all woven in there.

- Angela: Right, it all goes.

- It's woven in there.

- As well as like our bigger need to talk about, like, mental health and what are the nuanced ways that we can talk about it that don't minimize personal responsibility.

'Cause I think that's where it gets tricky.

'Cause we could say like, "Oh, racism is a mental illness," but then we're all mentally ill from that standpoint.

- Sure.

[laughs] - Angela: And then, where does responsibility fit into the equation?

So, I think that does generate a good entry point to talk about like, what is actually going on if I'm getting these same or similar sets of responses from these different vastly groups of people?

Like, what's the commonality here that we can kind of address and where does mental health fit into the conversation?

- Anwar: Sure, sure.

I mean, and I think in this debate right now about critical race theory in Wisconsin and it sounds like some people are worried that teaching critical race theory will put their white children into a place of mental duress.

It might negatively impact their mental health.

- Angela: Right, so we can't remove mental health from the larger topic of, like, we need to address these are systemic, historic issues that are still pervasive and we're not really doing a good job of dealing with, so how do we do that in a way that doesn't ruffle feathers, but I guess it's okay to ruffle.

But how do we move things forward?

- Right, right, right.

[Angela laughs] We can't even have the conversation because someone's feelings are gonna get hurt.

Yet, my lived experience... - Right, like, your physical safety is... - Anwar: It's okay for me to constantly, you know, to deal with those situations about racism.

So, it's, you know, it's going to take, I'm not gonna say an artist, but it's going to take an artistic approach to communication to get people... on board, to get people to perhaps find the common ground, to get people to find a way forward that, well, unfortunately, there's no way forward without people getting out of their comfort zone.

- Right.

- And so, if we're gonna even try to create a way forward where people don't have to leave their comfort zone, then we're actually not.

We're actually not trying, or we're not putting our efforts, our eggs in the right basket.

- Angela: Absolutely.

It's "Whose discomfort are we prioritizing?

- Anwar: Sure.

- Anwar, thank you so much.

I was gonna ask you if there's any, like, closing thing you wanted to share.

I feel like you kind of gave us a mic drop moment already, but if there's anything that you would like to say to those who are watching.

- I... Wow.

[laughs] - If you had nothing else, it's fine, too.

- Yeah, I guess I don't.

You know, it all usually comes out sort of fluidly.

And maybe I'll prepare a pithy closing statement moving forward.

[laughs] - Angela: For next time.

- For next time, yes.

- Thank you so much.

- Thank you.

This has been great.

- Same.

Art is inherent to Black communities, yet at times, art is not supported as a medium for self-care, with financial setbacks preventing Black people from fully diving into the arts, creating generational setbacks.

Despite this, Black artists still find ways to create impact with their work while instilling joy, confidence, and well-being.

Watch additional episodes at pbswisconsin.org/ whyracematters.

[melodic chime music] [lively string music] - Announcer: Funding for Why Race Matters is provided by Park Bank, CUNA Mutual Group, Madison Area Technical College, Alliant Energy, UW Health, Focus Fund for Wisconsin Programs, and Friends of PBS Wisconsin.