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Racism Doesn’t Stop at the Boards: Lessons from EVMS’ Yearbook

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The yearbook image of two young men, one dressed in blackface and the other in KKK robes, is searing and ugly, reminding us of our relatively-recent and openly-racist past. That one of the young men is — or even just could be — Virginia’s Governor Ralph Northam makes that ugliness feel particularly low, taste particularly galling, and disqualifies him from leading our Commonwealth away from the more subtly-racist environment that can still be found all over Virginia since the photo was taken in 1984.

Nonetheless, the photo depicts multiple realities, and one that is perhaps deeper than a young man acting a racist fool, is that this picture was actually published in the yearbook of Eastern Virginia Medical School (EVMS). And from that yearbook, it screams loudly about medical education at EVMS, what is expected of students there, and how blackness is both perceived and treated in places that promise to do no harm. Administrators at EVMS have apologized for the picture, and claim that there is no explanation for how it was published in 1984.

The explanation is rather simple: when EVMS graduated its first MDs in 1976, there was only one black member of the class. Though it’s difficult to confirm, there were likely no black faculty members. Diversity at EVMS and in American medical education has hardly improved; statistics about black male enrollment as first-years in medical schools across the U.S. between 1978 and 2016 are stark: there has only been a 39 student increase in over 38 years. In 2017-18, an astoundingly low 6% of currently enrolled male and female medical students across the country identified as black.

At EVMS, enrollment of black students is less than the national average at only 5%. In 2015, about 11.6% of the science and clinical faculty at EVMS were reported as underrepresented minorities. For EVMS and other medical and health professions, underrepresented minorities could include several groups as well as African-American — and considering the distribution of race and ethnicity in Hampton Roads, the EVMS students and faculty don’t even remotely mirror the people they serve.

So did students and faculty at EVMS in 1984 feel particularly invested in black members of their community? Not likely.

And yet whiteness and medicine isn’t a story unique to EVMS, Virginia, or our Governor. Not including historically-black universities like Howard and Morehouse, medical schools with the highest enrollment of black students in the U.S. top out at just over 8%. In 2018 in the U.S., only 7.6% of employed physicians and surgeons were black or African-American. And it is in systems like U.S. medical education — where there are few black professionals, few black faculty, and few black students — that systemic racism can live and breathe.

Unfortunately, racism isn’t something that is tested for by medical board exams. Medical students who have no black classmates, faculty members, or mentors grow up to be doctors who perpetuate racist stereotypes that kill people: black children are underprescribed antibiotics, and black adults are half as likely to be prescribed pain medication as white patients. Black women die of pregnancy-related causes at a rate up to 4 times that of white women, and women of color, even celebrities like Serena Williams, tell story after story of their pain being ignored by doctors. It was during a UVA study conducted in 2016 that these differences in prescription rates of pain medication were first described as just-plain-racist:

“Researchers find that a substantial number of white medical students and residents hold false beliefs about biological differences between black and white people (e.g., black people’s skin is thicker; black people’s blood coagulates more quickly) that could affect how they assess and treat the pain experienced by black patients.”

The University of Virginia Medical School is ranked number 26 in the nation in 2019. How are white students enrolled in one of the best medical schools in the country and still believe that there are real biological differences between black and white bodies like skin thickness or pain reception? In 2017, an image (below) from a nursing textbook describing “Cultural Differences in Response to Pain” made the rounds of the internet, eventually resulting in that text being pulled by the publisher. Though this book likely wasn’t used at UVA, it’s a clear illustration that stereotyped tropes about the biological differences between races are still actively taught in at least some medical curricula, and influence how doctors treat and prescribe their patients of color.

PHOTO: Mic.com

While Northam claims that the racist pictures aren’t him, on some levels that doesn’t matter. They still illustrate what life was like for white medical students in Virginia in 1984, and they give us clear insight into systemic racism that influences medical studies and practices in the U.S. today. How are Americans of color supposed to trust this system that so consistently fails them?

Perhaps one way forward is to consider how doctors are trained in even understanding the humanity of their patients. Many of my colleagues who are biological anthropologists are employed in medical schools across the country, teaching human gross anatomy to medical and nursing students. Anatomy, and medical education, with an anthropological lens is groundbreaking and lifesaving — it trains medical professionals to see patients as humans with diverse identities, needs, and lived experiences. But whatever the answer is, change in medical education and practice can’t happen too soon: lives, our community, and our Commonwealth depend on it. N

Confronting Racism: A Conversation to End Hate

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This September, a nationally-recognized exhibit is coming to the Virginia Holocaust Museum to start a conversation on which lives depend. “Break Glass: The Art of V.L. Cox – A Conversation to End Hate“ is a striking collection of found-object sculptures meant to shape a timely narrative about civil rights and equality.

“Discrimination never stops with one group, that has been my message since day one,” said Cox, an Arkansas native. “If you allow one group to be dehumanized and treated as second-class citizens then it will automatically bleed over into others. Discrimination is like a virus, it spreads.”

From the series of doors once installed on the Lincoln Memorial steps to protest a discriminatory Arkansas religious freedom bill, to an original 95-year-old bloodstained Klan Robe, the works offer a cathartic commentary of the discrimination and prejudice that plagues American southern culture.

After seeing the exhibit at the Longwood Center for the Visual Arts, VHM’s director of education Megan Ferenczy knew immediately the works would be invaluable installations in Richmond’s museum.

“This is really relevant to what we do here,” said Ferenczy. “It doesn’t necessarily focus on the Holocaust, but it focuses on the larger issues of discrimination, intolerance, and hatred in our own country.”

Ferenczy explained that most importantly, the works create a conversation that is crucial to the ignition of positive progress. Although many of the works aren’t directly commenting on the treatment of the Jewish population in America, they further an essential dialogue in a space where creating conversation is the mission.

“The purpose of it is to confront this legacy of racism,” said Angela Rueda, assistant curator at the VHM. “It’s shining a light on this legacy, where hate and bigotry hides, and then using that as a platform to start a conversation…to create a space where people can confront this and…reach a place of civility.”

“White Bread” – This piece was created after Cox read about “Klan Camp” for kids held this summer at the National Ku Klux Klan headquarters in Harrison, Arkansas. The teddy bear is facing backwards to represent the loss of innocence, and addresses children and early indoctrination

Many of the pieces are massive, like lifesize hooded figures, columns, and doors. “You enter the space and you’re immediately confronted with it,” said Rueda. Superficially, many of the pieces present messages that feel at odds with the space–like the gut punch of walking into a room and coming face to face with a Klan member–but deeper reflection reveals the stark juxtaposition of the intended use of these objects, and the way they are being offered to the exhibit’s audience.

Closer examination of each piece unveils hidden messages that, even when subtler than the iconic imagery of the white hood, still hits just as hard. For example, a mixed-media American flag–”Stained”– is actually created from pages of the Bible, ripped from their binding to represent the harm done when these verses are torn from context and used to oppress others.

“Stained”- Represents the damage the extreme faction of the ‘Tea Party’ has done to our country when the pages of the Bible are ripped out of context and used to harm others. Stained is created with over six hundred and six (606) individual pages of the Bible made into tea bags with real tea leaves inside.

Cox worked with ministers of different denominations when creating this piece, careful to tell her story, but to include the voices of others as well. “People rip pages out of the Bible every single day to harm others, you’re taking them out to show them that that’s wrong,” said Cox.

Rueda posited that while most people entering the museum are ready to face the atrocities of the Holocaust, they are not always ready to turn their eye inward on our own country, and the current perpetuation of hate and injustice in America today.

“This stuff is in our backyard. It’s right here in our state,” said Rueda, a fact made apparent by the recent one-year anniversary of the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville in August. Despite declarations of progress and advancement, white supremacists and fascists were more empowered than ever to hoist their Nazi-ideologies sans hood, and revive World War II era anti-semitic chants, like Nazi slogan “blood and soil.” It’s vital to confront these issues as a current national epidemic, and not arbitrarily confine them to a past that isn’t so long gone.

“Conformity”

“It all starts with conversation,” said Cox. “People don’t talk to each other anymore. We communicate behind keyboards, and behind cell phones. It’s important that we get to know each other again.”

According to Cox, the best way to do that is through art. “You can look at something and you’re impacted by it,” she said. “You see it, feel it, it moves you. It communicates something to you, and that’s been going on since the beginning of time.”

“Cease”

“When archeologists do a dig in an ancient civilization, the first thing they look for are objects. They look for murals, they look for mosaics, they look for hand carved tools. That’s what tells them about this society, this civilization,” said Cox. “The arts are very powerful.”

Works like this help create the language future historians will use to understand our culture, but more importantly, it’s inserting that language into our current narrative. Through her work, Cox provides a context that can begin to change minds–even those as deeply rooted in Southern culture as rural Arkansas, or as historically chained to toxic narratives as our own former capital of the Confederacy.

Cox is from deep in the Bible Belt, where miscommunication, isolation, and misconception are to blame for much of the area’s deeply intolerant rhetoric. Arkansas has only 70 percent broadband access, Cox explained, and much of south Arkansas lacks cell phone service. The ability to surf the web is a luxury not everyone can afford. “Sometimes messages get cherry-picked, twisted, and turned around to be a misleading statement, and then it’s spread into the population.”

“Freedom Fighter”

That makes the circulation of intelligent and thoughtful conversation critical, and is part of the reason why Break Glass is presented hand-in-hand with a number of educational components and opportunities.

The VHM is holding a professional development workshop for teachers to give educators the resources they need to have difficult and essential conversations with their students. “It empowers teachers and gives them the tools to have these conversations,” said Ferenczy. “If these conversations aren’t happening in the classroom, then where can they be had?”

They also invited reformed former skinhead Christian Picciolini to speak at the museum on Oct. 17, presenting to students, then later in the evening to the public. Once a leader of an American white power organization in Chicago, he is now the co-founder of a non-profit peace advocacy organization who works to get others out of a life of violent extremism.

Education is crucial to break the cycle of ignorance. Though it would be easier if our history remained rooted in the past, the cyclical nature of prejudice guarantees the repetition of inequality if a dialogue is never created.

“IT’S TIME WE START OVER AND TALK ABOUT HATE”

“The arts step up in times of need, in dark times,” said Cox. “They play a powerful role in our society in reaching across boundaries and bringing about change.”

For some, the Holocaust is ongoing, and it’s only through conversations like those created by Break Glass that we can shatter the established national narrative.

“There really isn’t ever an end to the Holocaust, is there? Yes, maybe we hold people accountable, and maybe justice in some legal sense is served, but for Holocaust survivors, the Holocaust is still going on, for their children it’s still happening,” said Ferenczy. “This hatred still exists, it never went away.”

Break Glass opens on Sept. 28 and will run through Feb. 11 at the Virginia Holocaust Museum. Admission is free and open to the public.

Photos Courtesy of V.L. Cox. Top Image: “Soiled” A 1920 (95-year-old) bloodstained Klan robe installation. The robe was kept intact, and Vox purchased the vintage metal signage to show the true level of hatred this robe and installation represents.

“I Have a Dream” – August 28, 1963

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On August 28, 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr delivered one of the most powerful, impactful, and gripping speeches in American history. The speech, given at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, brought around 250,000 people to Washington D.C. and in the shadow of Abraham Lincoln called for an end to racial discrimination and for the US to live up to its highest promise and ideals (something it has still failed to achieve).

Which is why 55 years later, amongst the tribalism, white nationalism, and xenophobia of 2018, King’s speech is still so essential. Not just for the sweeping oratory, prose, and poetry that most people in the US and throughout the world are familiar with, but also for what the Reverend(s) William Barber and Liz Theoharis of the Poor People’s Campaign recently said in an interview with The Guardian, “Like Dr. King, we must refuse to believe that the great vaults of the nation are bankrupt. Reigniting the movement of poor people that Dr. King and others called for in 1968 is the best way to honor his legacy. We are doing what he said –grassroots leaders in states across the country are building a moral movement to reclaim our nation’s lost soul.”

On the 55th anniversary of King’s “I have a Dream” speech, take a moment to read his address (below) and reflect on what 2018 has come to mean, not only for ourselves, but for our cities, communities, and country.

“I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free; one hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination; one hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity; one hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself in exile in his own land.

So we’ve come here today to dramatize a shameful condition. In a sense we’ve come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was the promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note in so far as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.” But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so we have come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.

We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy; now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice; now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood; now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children. It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. And those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content, will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the worn threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protests to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy, which has engulfed the Negro community, must not lead us to a distrust of all white people. For many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone. And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back.

There are those who are asking the devotees of Civil Rights, “When will you be satisfied?” We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality; we can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities; we cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro’s basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one; we can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating “For Whites Only”; we cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro in Mississippi cannot vote, and the Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No! no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until “justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations.  Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi. Go back to Alabama. Go back to South Carolina. Go back to Georgia. Go back to Louisiana. Go back to the slums and ghettos of our Northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.  Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.

I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I HAVE A DREAM TODAY!

I have a dream that one day down in Alabama — with its vicious racists, with its Governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification — one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I HAVE A DREAM TODAY!

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low. The rough places will be plain and the crooked places will be made straight, “and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.”

This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope.  With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brother-hood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.  And this will be the day. This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with new meaning, “My country ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my father died, land of the pilgrim’s pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.” And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.

So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire; let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York; let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania; let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado; let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California. But not only that. Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia; let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee; let freedom ring from every hill and mole hill of Mississippi. “From every mountainside, let freedom ring.”

And when this happens, and when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: “Free at last. Free at last. Thank God Almighty, we are free at last.”

Anti-Racism in Action: RVA Mag’s Photo Journal from Washington, DC

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This weekend, anti-racists, anti-fascists, student protesters, clergy, and everyday citizens proved that, when it counts, people will stand up against those who would seek to perpetuate violent and vile ideologies. That is not to say that the mainstreaming of white supremacy isn’t ongoing within the nation’s politics, but this past weekend in Charlottesville and Washington, D.C. proved the space for white nationalists, supremacists, fascists, and xenophobes to publicly gather is shrinking.

And every counter-protester who took to the streets this weekend, regardless of motivation or ideology, took part in a grand display of anti-fascism.

While that term has been politicized by those who attempt to rationalize the ideas espoused by white nationalists, for those who are seeking to challenge the worst excesses of this new complex political reality, it is the glue that ultimately binds people together. The unfortunate perception driven by mainstream media outlets, some misguided like CNN, others entirely nefarious like Fox News, is that these counter-protests and demonstrations are nothing but packs of violent anarchists, equivalent with violent white supremacists.

Let’s not forget, who actually killed someone last year? Not the disparate groups of people marching against racism and anti-Semitism. The counter-demonstrators, comprised of community organizers, young professionals, parents with their children, housing advocates, students, clergy, and faith-leaders, who, while disparate, were all committed to the idea that overt displays of racism and anti-Semitism have no place in our public squares.

RVA Mag was on the frontlines of both events, however, this photo journal is an account of the events in Washington, DC this past Sunday, when over 5,000 counter-protesters denied space for white supremacists to rally in the nation’s capital. The same white supremacists who marauded through UVA last year chanting “Jews will not replace us.”

This was a powerful message to send in 2018 when the president refused to publicly denounce the march planned by Jason Kessler, and, as of publication time, has just publicly referred to a black woman as a “dog.”

Some of the best photos from the weekend can be found below:

Landon Shroder: Managing Partner 

Counter-Protestors Gathering at Lafayette Park in the Shadow of the White House.

Counter Protestor Marching up 15th Street in Washington DC

Listening to Speeches in Lafayette Park

Two Columns of Counter-Protestors Converging on H St.

Counter-Protestors of all Kinds Linking Up in Lafayette Park

Hello! Wink, Wink

Black Lives Matter March to Lafayette Square

Branden Wilson: Staff Photographer 

Something for Everyone Fighting Racism

In Position, Adjacent to the White House

One of the Original Nazi Fighters

Everyday People Joining in the Counter-Protest

Marching up 15st Street with a Picture fo Heather Heyer

Veterans Protesting White Supremacy in Lafayette Park

Yedoye Travis Is Tackling Racism, One Podcast at a Time

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Imagine Shark Tank, but instead of a better toothbrush, white contestants pitch solutions for racism to a panel of black judges. In the first few episodes, they’ve proposed everything everything from reparations to white slavery and the Rachel Dolezal-linked concept of “transracialism.”

The show is Dark Tank, and it’s just been released by Yedoye Travis on the Brain Machine Network. Travis is a comedian and actor who came to attention for many via a viral tweet about wanting to host “Blue’s Clues” as the next Steve. He was named a “New Face” in comedy at the Montreal Just For Laughs Festival, where he opened for W. Kamau Bell, and has appeared on Comedy Central, on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” and even in a cameo on the dark comedy hit, “Search Party.”

Dark Tank album art, Travis headshot

Travis arrived in New York from Atlanta two years ago, and seems destined for a fast ascent to comedy fame. He’s having to adjust a little; when I caught up with him on the phone, he’s just dropped off his mom at the train, and he was running around between TV shoots. With a touch of self-deprecating humor, he said, “Normally I’m just sitting around at home, writing a little bit, and playing a lot of Donkey Kong.”

It’s part of his skillset. Even on the phone, he turns mundane answers into wry jokes, often at his own expense. He was similarly quick-witted when he came up with the Dark Tank concept, which developed after his friend and neighbor, comedian Leif Enoksen, asked him about collaborations. “Enoksen said, ‘you’re someone I want to work with, if you ever have an idea, hit me up’,” Travis recalled. He immediately thought of Shark Tank–a host, a panel of judges, a contestant–and Dark Tank was born.

Although the show is wickedly funny, it’s not light. The conversations cover serious ground. Travis is looking forward to navigating the potential awkwardness. “I’m excited to see some people really have to stretch when they know that black people are staring them right in the face,” he said.

In the first episodes released, Travis is kind to the contestants, although completely honest about the flaws and weaknesses of their solutions. As on his debut album, “Ok,” Travis addresses racism and racial issues on the show with a nuance and slightly-barbed wit that produces both laughter and discomfort in equal measures.

Yedoye Travis’ debut stand-up comedy album

In one early episode, a contestant suggests white couples be required to adopt black babies, or that science finds a way to make white babies black; although the panel starts with laughter, things turn serious as they discuss Rachel Dolezal, the woman who claimed to be black while working for the NAACP. The humor doesn’t stop, but it’s a deeply revealing moment of radio that lays bare the pain and trauma many people of color feel around Dolezal’s appropriation of their identity.

The show is recorded by Enoksen in his bedroom, which he described as “a recording studio with a bed in it.” Before turning his apartment into a studio, he used to lug 60 pounds of recording gear around in a backpack. His approach to Travis came even before he’d had the idea for the Brain Machine Network, which now hosts nearly a dozen podcasts. “He was someone I approached well before there was any talk of the podcast,” Enoksen said. “When I heard his idea, I said, that needs to happen immediately.”

Getting white people to share their views on racism in front of a microphone, especially in what many might see as a difficult political climate, was something Travis thought would be “labor intensive.” It was not. “They message me. Everyone’s seemed very eager to see if they can handle it,” he said. He did invite some people; they all accepted. Deadpan, he added, “Maybe white guys just have immense confidence that I don’t understand.”

White slavery was proposed way earlier than I thought it would be.

Other surprises came from the suggested solutions. “White slavery was proposed way earlier than I thought it would be,” he said. “I thought it’d be at least a few months in, but no, third episode.”

While he loves all of the podcasts he produces, Enoksen says Dark Tank is something special and different. “It’s just so good. When you’re recording a lot, you sometimes miss the jokes because you’re so busy. But with this, I was rolling in laughter the entire time. You can’t ignore it, it’s amazing.”

Nickelodeon said no to this

Travis said he’s planning to pitch Dark Tank to network TV, but reluctantly, admits that we probably won’t see him earn “that Nickelodeon money” hosting “Blue’s Clues” as Steve. “I’ve been so anxious about having to say this, but I don’t think I’m going to be Steve at this point. Most of my Twitter followers started following me after that saga, and I’ve been worried they’ll abandon me when I say I’m not going to be Steve,” he said.

While he won’t be the next Steve, he’s confident that his efforts might have helped steer Nickelodeon to pick an Eve. He said, “They almost exclusively interviewed black women from what I saw, so I think I at least pushed the needle in a good direction.”

And, even if his Twitter followers drop, he’s going to keep tweeting.

“It’s like the prewriting stages for me. I have a thought, I put it out there,” he said. Is it his writer’s room, I asked? “No. It’s like, I don’t want to say this to another comedian yet, but I’ll say it to the whole world first. It’s the dumbest writer’s room, I guess. Most of it is just dog shit.”

One man’s dog shit is another man’s comedy gold. I note that he’s followed by the New Yorker’s comedy section, Shouts and Murmurs. “They gave me a standing offer to write something for them. I guess, if they’re reading RVA Mag, they should know that I’m working on a good one.”

Dark Tank has just been released on the Brain Machine Network. Episodes are available on iTunes, Spotify, and coming soon to Stitcher. Travis says that bold people who have ideas for solving racism can reach him at [email protected]. Collage image inspired by Yedoye Travis’ Twitter profile.

‘Say Her Name’: The Sandra Bland Documentary and the Power of Speaking Out

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Anger, frustration, sadness, heartbreak. The air in the theater felt heavy. It was as if you could feel the emotions of the audience dance around you from one side of the room to the other.

These were the powerful reactions from the crowd following the Institute for Contemporary Art’s recent screening of Say Her Name: The Life and Death of Sandra Bland. The second installment in their new Cinema Series, the documentary explores the mysterious death of the political activist, a 28-year-old African American woman who, after being arrested for a traffic violation in a small town in Texas in July 2015, was found hanging in her jail cell at the Waller County Jail just three days later.

The screening was organized by Enjoli Moon, the Adjunct Assistant Curator of Film at the ICA, and was accompanied by a panel discussion with members of Sandra Bland’s family, the family’s lawyer, Cannon Lambert, and one of the film’s directors, David Heilbroner.  

Bland’s death was ruled a suicide, but made national news and sparked protests and outrage from the public, disputing the cause of her death and alleged police brutality. Ten days after Sandra’s death, Heilbroner, along with fellow filmmaker Kate Davis, started working with the family’s legal team, following the two-year battle between Sandra’s family and Texas authorities. With permission from HBO, the event was one of few, if not the only, premature showings of the film, which won’t be released on HBO networks until the winter.

Photo By: Sarah Kerndt

At the film’s conclusion, we needed a moment to take it all in, and thankfully we were given one. Following the end of the film, Moon asked everyone to take a moment to themselves. Amidst the silence, you could hear the deep sighs, the shuffling of tissues, and noses sniffling, but the silence did not last long. Over my left shoulder came the voice of a woman who requested we all say Sandra Bland’s name. Her voice was commanding, but the pain she was feeling was not lost in her words. Moon led us as a group to say Sandra’s name together…”Sandra Bland.”

“’Say Her Name’, in it of itself is a declaration to make sure that women, especially women of color, who are victims of police brutality that their voices and their memories are not forgotten,” Moon told RVA Mag in an interview ahead of the film on why she choose to screen the documentary.

Photo By: Sarah Kerndt

After playing the wallflower journalist, quietly observing the activity during this screening, I can confidently say this film is going to shake the very foundation of how people respond to stories such as Sandra’s. To hear audience reactions in real time with the film, to bear witness the standing ovation Sandra’s mother, Geneva Reed-Veal received upon her entry to the theater, and to be entangled in the call and response nature between the words Reed-Veal preached and the audience was both prevailing and agonizing.

This film cuts deep. In fact, the pain is so excruciating, Moon informed audience members at the start that several of the family members could not bear to watch the film. It was understandable. Sandra Bland’s self-titled internet series “Sandy Speaks,” where she provides personal anecdotes and opinions related to issues of injustice against black people, helped to guide us and unfold her story through her voice. Imagine witnessing a film containing such videos knowing the light and passion within your daughter or sister’s eyes was gone forever.

Photo By: Sarah Kerndt

The Q&A following the film proved to be the key that fit the lock, allowing people to air out the emotions building up inside of them. The tension in the room began to disintegrate as the family spoke and conveyed how they navigate their suffering. Reed-Veal’s attitude felt most contagious, the fire in her heart fueled by her continued search for justice burned bright, but paired nicely with her southern decorum and charming sense of humor. She was intent on making her points but was sure not to leave us without some good laughs.

Of the messages communicated to the audience during the Q&A following the film, the point driven home was, ‘Find your voice and then use it,’ in the words of Reed-Veal. If one message is clear throughout this film, it is the power of the individual voice. It was the power of Sandra Bland’s voice to speak out against injustice via social media, it is the power of her family’s voice to speak out against the injustice done to her, and it is the power of our voices to spread the word regarding this tragedy and encourage everyone to Say Her Name.

This film came to Richmond at an important time, when asked about the film’s relevance to our city, Moon had this to say: “When you look at the Sandra Bland Bill, and that having to do with mental health issues and how the police engage, when we look at Marcus Peters’ death that just happened, I think it makes it even more relevant in the Richmond story,” Moon said. “I think as Richmond continues to change as a city, we are becoming a more gentrified city and so with that we need to make sure that police value all lives and realize that all communities and people within those communities matter and all lives carry the same weight, and I think that in Richmond we have done a good job of that, and I hope that we continue to do so.”

The screening took place exactly three years after the initial arrest of Sandra Bland and will continue to tour until HBO’s release.