Nat'l Day of Panhandling for Reparations: Your Questions, My Answers
Thursday 13th September 2007 | 05:32 pm
Where: Portland, Oregon, USA
Feeling: 
rejuvenated
Listening to: Mary J Blige•Real Love
100 Americans Panhandle for Reparations
An interview with damali ayo, creator of National Day of Panhandling for Reparations
September 2007
Since I announced the National Day of Panhandling for Reparations, I’ve received some wonderful feedback, including some concerns and questions. I asked Heather Day to gather together these questions and put them to me. I hope this helps the conversation continue and deepen. Ultimately, of course, I hope it encourages more of you to join the performance and find out for yourself exactly what it is like. Experience is always the best road to understanding. – damali ayo
Heather Day: damali, you’ve been asked a lot of tough questions about your upcoming participatory performance “National Day of Panhandling for Reparations.” What do you make of people’s reactions?
damali ayo: I’m all about starting dialogue. So I’m glad people are talking to each other, though it’s not quite the caliber of conversation it could be. People often give art a quick glance, then react react react. We live in a sound-bite society and art just doesn’t fit into that mindset. Art asks you to slow down. That is one of my favorite things about this work especially. It literally asks people to slow down, to stop and take it in as they walk by on the street.
Even though I provide a lot of information and explanation on the web pages, people still don’t take the time to read, watch or listen. We live in a society where people are taught to react by lashing out instead of by learning. I wish that would change in general. I don’t mind criticism, but I wish our society was more knowledge-driven rather than reactionary. This interview is yet another attempt to engage people beyond cursory reactions. I hope people will spend time with it, and be encouraged to go back to the web page and read, watch and listen. If you are for or against the work, then write a letter to your local paper or favorite news organization, instead of writing me. Let’s broaden the conversation. This is a dialogue for our nation, not a few select folks.
HD: Let’s start with one of the most frequent issues raised: Isn’t it degrading for black people to beg on the street for reparations? Doesn’t this just play into stereotypes that blacks are lazy and looking for a handout?
From the performance statement: African Americans have tried several means to recoup reparations for the enslavement of our relatives, with little progress. Panhandling shows the last resort of African Americans after our government has ignored or denied all previous requests for reparations. Panhandling is an immediate means of exacting reparations. We offer ordinary citizens the opportunity to pay the reparations our government has denied us, or to walk past our presence on the street and continue to ignore our collective history.
da: The performance exaggerates how EASY it is to pay reparations, showing our fellow citizens and government that they are failing at such a simple task. We’re not asking for a meal or a job, we are asking for reparations. Reparations are not a handout. That’s an important point. It doesn’t equate reparations with a handout- it pairs the two to show the absurdity of equating them.
The performance exaggerates the begging feeling that African Americans might have as we ask and re-ask for reparations from our government. How many ways and times do we have to ask? No one should have to beg for what is rightfully owed to them. Many black people have told me that they either feel desperate, degraded and devalued in the reparations conversation or they just want to give up on it entirely. This performance shows our level of frustration in a clear tangible way to the American public.
The fact that some people want us not to beg is part of the performance itself. I hope that citizens all over the country see people panhandling for reparations and do all they can to stop us by encouraging our government to offer the reparations that African Americans are due.
HD: How do you define reparations?
da: Reparations is such a complicated concept.
35 performers and counting....
Register to participate in NATIONAL DAY OF PANHANDLING FOR REPARATIONS at http://reparationsday.com. Email damali ayo about this performance at reparations@damaliayo.com
An interview with damali ayo, creator of National Day of Panhandling for Reparations
September 2007
Since I announced the National Day of Panhandling for Reparations, I’ve received some wonderful feedback, including some concerns and questions. I asked Heather Day to gather together these questions and put them to me. I hope this helps the conversation continue and deepen. Ultimately, of course, I hope it encourages more of you to join the performance and find out for yourself exactly what it is like. Experience is always the best road to understanding. – damali ayo
Heather Day: damali, you’ve been asked a lot of tough questions about your upcoming participatory performance “National Day of Panhandling for Reparations.” What do you make of people’s reactions?
damali ayo: I’m all about starting dialogue. So I’m glad people are talking to each other, though it’s not quite the caliber of conversation it could be. People often give art a quick glance, then react react react. We live in a sound-bite society and art just doesn’t fit into that mindset. Art asks you to slow down. That is one of my favorite things about this work especially. It literally asks people to slow down, to stop and take it in as they walk by on the street.
Even though I provide a lot of information and explanation on the web pages, people still don’t take the time to read, watch or listen. We live in a society where people are taught to react by lashing out instead of by learning. I wish that would change in general. I don’t mind criticism, but I wish our society was more knowledge-driven rather than reactionary. This interview is yet another attempt to engage people beyond cursory reactions. I hope people will spend time with it, and be encouraged to go back to the web page and read, watch and listen. If you are for or against the work, then write a letter to your local paper or favorite news organization, instead of writing me. Let’s broaden the conversation. This is a dialogue for our nation, not a few select folks.
HD: Let’s start with one of the most frequent issues raised: Isn’t it degrading for black people to beg on the street for reparations? Doesn’t this just play into stereotypes that blacks are lazy and looking for a handout?
From the performance statement: African Americans have tried several means to recoup reparations for the enslavement of our relatives, with little progress. Panhandling shows the last resort of African Americans after our government has ignored or denied all previous requests for reparations. Panhandling is an immediate means of exacting reparations. We offer ordinary citizens the opportunity to pay the reparations our government has denied us, or to walk past our presence on the street and continue to ignore our collective history.
da: The performance exaggerates how EASY it is to pay reparations, showing our fellow citizens and government that they are failing at such a simple task. We’re not asking for a meal or a job, we are asking for reparations. Reparations are not a handout. That’s an important point. It doesn’t equate reparations with a handout- it pairs the two to show the absurdity of equating them.
The performance exaggerates the begging feeling that African Americans might have as we ask and re-ask for reparations from our government. How many ways and times do we have to ask? No one should have to beg for what is rightfully owed to them. Many black people have told me that they either feel desperate, degraded and devalued in the reparations conversation or they just want to give up on it entirely. This performance shows our level of frustration in a clear tangible way to the American public.
The fact that some people want us not to beg is part of the performance itself. I hope that citizens all over the country see people panhandling for reparations and do all they can to stop us by encouraging our government to offer the reparations that African Americans are due.
HD: How do you define reparations?
da: Reparations is such a complicated concept.
( keep reading... )
35 performers and counting....
Register to participate in NATIONAL DAY OF PANHANDLING FOR REPARATIONS at http://reparationsday.com. Email damali ayo about this performance at reparations@damaliayo.com