#CharlestonStrong Machine Performance On the 1 Year Anniversary of Emanuel AME Church Massacre Charleston, SC from Southerners on New Ground (SONG) on Vimeo.
TRANSCRIPT
*Blog post below
00:05-
We’re better than Ferguson. We’re Better than Baltimore.
We’re better than Ferguson. We’re Better than Baltimore. (loops)
00:22-
Enter person doing the Black Power salute (repeats)
00:36-
All Lives Matter! (loops)
01:07-
We are hurting. (loops)
01:27-
Where’s the church? (loops)
01:44
Enter person patting others and oneself on the back. (repeats)
01:55-
Enter person huffing and sighing, saying “Oh My Gosh” (repeats)
02:28
Everyone stops.
02:30-
Person reads:
“This is a #CharlestonStrong machine. It is a living, breathing mechanism that thrives off of grief tourism and willful ignorance; a way of patting oneself on the back for profiting off of violence and historic suffering. This what it looks like when targets become hashtags and but tears never fully form, let alone leave the body. This is what it looks like when a community under attack is always forced to move through trauma instead of being allowed to feel and heal, much less forgive and forget. This is not what a strong Charleston look like. We are hurting.”
03:05
We’re better than Ferguson. We’re better than Baltimore. (loops)
03:06
We’re hurting. (loops)
03:08-
All Lives Matter! (loops)
03:10-
Where’s the church? (loops)
03:20- 03:52
Group gets louder and continues to escalate.
03:53-
Group pauses, drops flowers, and walks away.
SONG members in Charleston, South Carolina, performed street theater this past weekend in honor of the one year anniversary of the Emanuel AME Massacre to disrupt the predominant theme of #CharlestonStrong that continues to resound in the city and doesn’t acknowledge that long standing systemic white supremacy in South Carolina. The following is a reflection from the performers.
“This is a #CharlestonStrong machine. It is a living, breathing mechanism that thrives off of grief tourism and willful ignorance; a way of patting oneself on the back for profiting off of violence and historic suffering. This what it looks like when targets become hashtags and but tears never fully form, let alone leave the body. This is what it looks like when a community under attack is always forced to move through trauma instead of being allowed to feel and heal, much less forgive and forget. This is not what a strong Charleston look like. We are hurting.”
This is the speech performed in the middle of the street theater piece that traveled from Marion Square to the Daughters of the Confederacy building to Waterfront Park. The body language of spectators and the general lack of engagement illuminated the need for the above speech and spoke volumes to the apathy that tourists and white Charlestonians feel towards Black pain and expression. Yet as the year anniversary of the AME massacre loomed on the horizon, another tragedy struck on June 12th. In the case of the massacre at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, we see yet again how a community that has never known safety in this country was horrifically attacked and had their grief immediately erased. Charlestonians came together for a vigil to remember the Pulse victims, yet the event turned out to be thinly veiled (white) gay pride event that was more of a commercial for a local gay bar than a space for mourning. The Charleston mayor went on to say, with endorsement from the local white gay population that, “we must be Orlando Strong” in the same way that we have been Charleston Strong.”
There is a wide disconnect between those who are a part of communities still trying to heal and those on the outside who immediately think that our strength must come from denial of righteous emotional expression. Actions such as the performance of a Charleston Machine are created and performed as a way to hold a mirror up to the general public. In the same way that the Black community, the LGBTQ community, the Latinx community, and all folks who embody intersections of any of these identities must be able to hurt and cry and be angered by our lack of safe spaces and the targeted attacks that plague us, so too must those with the privilege of not being affected by such tragedies understand that their silence or hurried erasure of our suffering makes them complicit in each affront.
With each new case of vigilante or state violence against black and brown bodies, what should become more and more apparent is that all people deserve to stand in the full embodiment of their humanity. This action was the next piece in what needs to be a culture shift towards full justice for our hurting communities. The one year anniversary of the AME massacre marks a year of unheard cries, untold pain, and a general lack of accountability to the Black community. Charleston is not strong yet, but we as survivors, warriors, and people deserve to live in a Charleston that is.