Alternate Roots

The morning after Trump was elected I woke in a cold sweat, with puffy eyes and a life-changing decision: I will quit all creative pursuits and become a lawyer. The United States is fucked and more than art we need litigation. As the day wore on, I slowly remembered all the reasons I would not become a lawyer–no money for law school, a disdain for logic and legalese, my disinterest in looking professional, etc. As that idea quickly faded, it was replaced with just a question: Does art really matter? 

There is one regional organization that would answer that question with a loud, “Heck Yes!” Alternative ROOTS was founded in 1976 at the Highlander Center in New Market, Tennessee, to respond to the specific needs of theater artists committed to social justice work (ROOTS is an acronym for “Regional Organization of Theaters in the South”). The organization quickly grew to include artists and activists of all stripes who were using creative ways to generate change and initiate world-changing conversations. 

In their own words:

Alternate ROOTS is an organization based in the Southern USA* whose mission is to support the creation and presentation of original art, in all its forms, which is rooted in a particular community of place, tradition or spirit. As a coalition of cultural workers we strive to be allies in the elimination of all forms of oppression. ROOTS is committed to social and economic justice and the protection of the natural world and addresses these concerns through its programs and services.

The organization is perhaps best known for ROOTS Week, a six day annual meeting and artists’ retreat in Arden, North Carolina. For six days and nights hundreds of artists and activists from around the country gather to perform, sing, dance, discuss, organize, and heal together. This year’s theme is Re/New:

In this political climate we need to RENEW: to pull the wisdom from the past forward with us, to make it – and ourselves – new again. We’ll gather at ROOTS Week to renew our spirits, recover our histories, revive our arts/organizing practices, replenish our Creating-a-Better-World toolkits, and re-vision the future that we are working towards, together.

I recently had the opportunity to meet the new ROOTS Executive Director, Michelle Ramos, and ROOTS board member, Tamiko Ambrose Murray, for a thoughtful and passionate discussion about this inspiring organization.

How did each of you become involved with Alternate ROOTS?

Tamiko: I had just finished graduate school when I was invited to be a camp counselor for ROOTS week. I had never heard of them, but decided to take the offer. The very first meeting I attended was brought to order by singing…and I thought…wow…where am I? 

That day was incredible. I witnessed people being open, brilliant artists and talking about eliminating oppression and building community. I left at the end of the day feeling like I had come home, that I had been a ROOTS member, and a cultural worker, before I even knew what that was. I also remember being a little bit upset, because ROOTS week had been happening for decades, 20 minutes from my house, and I was just now learning about it.

Michelle: I have been involved in arts advocacy, policy work, and activism nationally for many years, both as an attorney and as a retired dancer. In this world of advocacy there was this buzz about ROOTS week and Alternate ROOTS that would frequently surface. Alternate ROOTS was considered the gold standard and was something that everyone wanted to emulate or be a part of. I would also find myself in situations–on panels, conferences, etc.–with the then-director of Alternate ROOTS, Carlton Turner. Carlton was a great leader and a really big reason why the organization was so highly regarded. I admired him a great deal. So when I heard that he was stepping down, my first thought was, “Oh no!” But then my next thought was, “Who could fill this very important role?”

I started making a list of all the attributes the person would need. Who do I know with a background in arts advocacy, knowledge of policy and data, who is well connected at the national level? Who could be a good conduit for funding? When I finished the list I looked it over and thought, “Umm, this sounds like me!”

At first I talked myself out of applying because I am not from the South, and it was clear to me that whoever took on this role would need to have that background.  But eventually I decided to throw my hat in the ring anyway. When they called me in for an interview I thought, “Oh how nice, they are being very gracious.” And even when they called to offer me the job I was sure they had intended to call the other candidate, I could not believe it! It was that overwhelming.

I now understand they recognized that I am someone who would honor the legacy of the organization while also getting it out into the broader world. Because the world needs what ROOTS has. ROOTS is a Southern organization that has national impact but is in a bit of denial about it.  

The Myth of the Individual

We are born into a world spinning and webbed. We learn to be boys or girls, rich or poor, black, white, brown or yellow. These are not words, these are preordained categories, each carrying a history charged with expectations, scars, and protections.

We all learn to be human. We learn how to see and how to be seen. There is nothing natural about this process. We are constantly receiving feedback about right and wrong, correct and incorrect. We learn language codded with the culture of the victors. We eat food that has been cultivated for our convenience and pleasure. We are not learning, in fact we cannot learn, in a bubble, isolated from others or history.

We are dependent creatures, in so many ways. Consider just a few of the enormously complicated systems we depend on daily. The systems I am sure you are participating in right now. There are 450,000 miles of high voltage power lines and 160,000 miles of overhead transmission lines in the United States, connecting your home to a source of energy so you can turn on a light at the flip of a switch. Miles of pipes bringing clean (sort of) water to your faucets and carrying away your waste. There are people working everyday to ensure that those systems are safe and consistent. And you likely did not grow your own coffee, make your own clothes or build the chair you are sitting in. And these are just our material surroundings; consider the laws, languages, music, and ideas created by others impacting you.

And yet, some still believe in the myth of the individual. Believing that each decision they make is wholly theirs, with out influence, that their attitudes and assumptions were created in their brain; vacuum-sealed from the rest of humanity.

I think that the myth of the individual is protecting and making invisible white privilege.

White privilege is a system as much a part of our daily lives as the power grid and yet many deny its existence. What I hear over and over again (mostly from white people) is: I am not raciest, I do not hate black people, I have not been given any special advantages.

How have you suddenly untangled yourself from the elaborate web of culture, history, and humanity?

A system powerful enough to convince humans to enslave and dehumanize other humans is not one that is easily taken apart, and it is not one a single individual can just opt out of.

I learned to be white with out even knowing it. I was taught that people who looked like me invented civilization; I learned that my skin tone was the color of flesh colored crayons and that almost everyone on TV, in movies, in magazines and in Washington looked like me. I learned that I was normal.

We do not learn these things alone and we cannot unlearn them alone either.

We are not sitting still and motionless on a spinning planet and we are not capable of surviving outside the elaborate web of humanity, we are all stupidly, gloriously dependent.

100 Rejections

This year I resolve to focus on the negative. I plan to collect rejections. The more the better; at least 100 in 2016 is my goal. This is not a new idea of course, you may have heard the TED talk by Jia Jiang about his 100 days of rejection, or read blogger Tiffany Han’s advice in her program called 100 rejection letters or perhaps you remember learning about my personal favorite celebration of rejection: Salon des Refusés.

In the late 19th century the cultural gate keeper for visual artists in Europe was The Paris Salon sponsored by the French government and the Academy of Fine Arts. Each year the Salon jury would determine what artists were worthy of consideration and stage an elaborate exhibition celebrating their work. Inclusion in this exhibition was an absolutely necessary step toward a successful career as an artist at the time. This all changed in 1863 when the Salon jury refused two thirds of the paintings presented, including the works of Gustave Courbet, Édouard Manet, and Camille Pissaro. The rejected artists and their friends protested and convinced Emperor Napoleon III to stage a simultaneous exhibition of the works of art refused by the jury.

More than a thousand visitors a day visited the Salon des Refusés. The journalist Emile Zola reported that visitors pushed to get into the crowded galleries where the refused paintings were hung, and the rooms were full of the laughter of the spectators. Critics and the public ridiculed the refusés, which included such now-famous paintings as Édouard Manet's Déjeuner sur l'herbe and James McNeill Whistler's Symphony in White, No. 1: The White Girl. But the critical attention also legitimized the emerging avant-garde in painting. (Wikipedia). The western art world was never the same. Subsequent Salons des Refusés were mounted in Paris in 1874, 1875, and 1886. Numerous other exhibitions started to pop up with out official sanction.

A few years ago I curated a Salons des Refusés of sorts called Rejected!. I asked artists and writers to send me work that had been rejected from juried exhibitions or rejection letters from any artistic or professional pursuit. We filled three small rooms with a vast array of wonderful rejects.

One entire wall, floor to celling, was covered with rejection form letters that read almost exactly the same; “ Dear _____, Thank you for applying for_____we received many qualified applications….the decision was very difficult….

The other walls were loaded salon style with lovely and strange paintings, photographs, and prints. Sculptural objects and video installations filled the floors and flickered on monitors.

All of the writers and artists who participated were very accomplished, talented and confident creators and all of them had many rejection stories to share. The rejections were the fruits of their labor, some offering valuable lessons for their own practice or lessons about the politics of selection panels. But more importantly the rejections were the evidence of their ongoing efforts and perseverance. Most also realized that rejection of one work, or one application is not a rejection of them as a person, it did not affect their self-worth.

The only way to avoid rejection and failure is to never reach outside your comfort zone, never try to accomplish anything. These artists were not successful in spite of their failures, but because of them.

So for 2016 I plan to join the ranks of the rejected, pile those form letters high and revel in the fruits of my labor.