You might recognize James Stewart as Vermont Public Classical's afternoon host. As a composer, he is interested in many different genres of music, writing for rock bands, symphony, orchestras, and everything in between. James received a Bachelor of Science in Music with an emphasis in composition from Takoa Falls College in Northeast Georgia in 2001. In 2007, James earned his Masters of Music in composition from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. In 2014, James received his Doctorate of Musical Arts from the Hart School of Music at the University of Hartford in Connecticut. He lives in Colchester with his partner Allison and four children, so he's a busy man. Please welcome James Stewart. Busy is correct. Thank you so much for having me back. I've talked at the E many times already, but this is my first time since the pandemic being able to see your face while delivering a lecture, so that is a great joy. It is really hard to do a lecture directly into your laptop camera in your basement, staring at it going, I have no idea if anybody's actually listening or paying attention. But thank you for being here. And also, thank you for being here on a gorgeous spring day in Vermont, which, as my co-worker Linda Radke will say, spring in Vermont is beautiful. Last year was on a Wednesday. It's a short period of time before summer hits, but I'm so glad that you're with us and with me. You can listen to me on the radio through Vermont Public Classical every weekday afternoon, except for this week because I took this week off, but from 3 to 7 p.m. And also, I'd like to invite you to check out Timeline, which is a podcast, also a radio feature that we put out that is all about the development of Western music. It's kind of how it began. We have over 200 episodes that cover a wide breadth of music history and music theory and musical concepts. The reason why I did it was when I was working on my DMA and getting my doctorate, I was also working as a tutor. And when I was getting people ready to take their oral and written comprehensives in music history, I would just have them take a sheet of paper and draw a line. And then I would tell them to put in everything they know in the music history, what eras and periods and composers and pieces that mattered. So what Timeline is as a project is basically walking you through my version of that Timeline. What is important? What composers stand out? And how can we follow along in this? And starting back in October, we released 10 different episodes of Timeline, all about composer Julius Eastman. And I'd like to invite you to check out that project at VermontPublic.org slash Timeline. Pretty easy to remember and easy to find. Also, thank you to everybody that's joining us via Zoom. I almost forgot. You're right there. Thank you. I want to make sure that you take a chance to listen and experience that project there at the website. What we're doing here this afternoon is more like a compendium to that content. So it's not like you're going to hear everything again. It's like I'm adding something to this whole dive into Julius Eastman and some of what this talks about. So again, that's VermontPublic.org slash Timeline. As we get started this afternoon, I want to say that there's a problem with the canon. What is the musical canon? It is this list of works that we are required in our music theory and music history and music appreciation. It is these groups of composers that we are asked to remember and that we then study.  It's sort of like the greatest hits of classical music. It's this curated list of quote-unquote important pieces and composers and works. It's a useful thing. It's very useful because when you talk about music, it's huge. And a canon allows you to be able to focus in on specific things like what's important? What is going to be in your textbook? Is this going to be on the test? Well, these will be. Now, we had a list of 200 works when I was taking my oral comprehensives for my doctoral studies. And each one had its own index card because I had to be able to recognize them by sight or by hearing. And so it was these index cards of what's important to listen to. It's like a museum. It's a museum of music. A museum of the musical works that you can explore. And just like a museum, it's curated. So someone else is deciding what is good and what is worth hearing and what is worth knowing. The bulk of all this curation of classical music started in the 19th century. And so when you look at our list, well, there's a problem. So this is what I did. I went to Google and I said, Google, show me a poster, a typical poster of the classical music canon. And these are the first two that came up for me. The first two posters of important musical composers throughout history. I want you to notice something about them if you can. Anybody see something interesting? You saw it right away. You saw it right away. Every single one of them. White men. There's also this very large poster that you can get for your classroom from Amazon. It covers an entire wall. And it goes, dives even deeper into music history. But every single photograph, every single name is of a rather wealthy white European man. This surprises no one. But we do have to ask ourselves why.  Is it because only white men composed? No. Because if you do any digging, you'll find that there are names and faces and music of a rich variety of individuals. A couple of years ago on Vermont Public Classical, we sat down and said that we wanted to expand our repertoire, expand our library, add more voices, add more people of color, add more women composers. It was going to be a large project because, yes, it is actually kind of hard to find, to find these works of women and people of color. And we found them, they're out there now somewhere easier to find than others, and some of the recordings come from you the long ago, archive recordings, or they were just released in the past couple of years. But there was a voice or two when we were making this particular push to add more diverse voices. There was a voice or two that said, aren't we concerned that the quality of our music will deteriorate? Aren't we afraid that the quality of the music is going to suffer? That was a real concern that was voiced in our meetings. The assumption is, if the music was good, wouldn't it have been noticed already? After years of research and listening, I found that that's not true. It's not true. There is great music out there by individuals that most people haven't heard of, and that just aren't being performed or played, and why is that? Why are some composers remembered and celebrated in others' art? I've been thinking about this issue for a while, and I had a couple of ideas. About a year ago, I wanted to do a project on Richard Wagner, a composer who's been gone for 150 years. I wanted to talk about the problems with Wagner's racial, political, and societal views and the way that his music has been used in the last 150 years.  I wanted to talk about what do we do with great art made by not great people? It was also a way to maybe address some of the horrible stories that have been coming out in the world of classical music. Recent years about contemporary figures that have tales of abuse and harassment. All of us are questioning what do we do? What do we do with this art? What do we do with it? So I worked on this Wagner project for a while, and I realized I didn't like what I was doing. I felt like I was just tearing someone down, or as my kids, and I have four, but as my kids say, throwing shade. And really, I don't want to think that way, and I don't want to do that. See, I like a lot of Wagner's music. I may not like a lot of what Wagner stood for, but I like a lot of Wagner's music. And I guess what I really wanted to do was make room. Make room for others. I'm going to get to Julius Eastman in just a moment, but I have a couple of other short stories of composers that I want to speak to about this problem with the canon. And a couple of months ago, I got an email from a Vermont public classical listener, who was a big fan of what we had done with the Julius Eastman project, and was asking if we could do something similar with another composer of color, the 18th century French composer, Joseph Ballon Chevalier de Saint-Georges. Anybody ever hear of Chevalier de Saint-Georges? A couple. Oh, there's a part of that story, because there's so many stories. Yes, maybe Marie Antoinette, but we'll get into that in just a second. Let me tell you about Saint-Georges. Saint-Georges comes from a wealthy family. His father, named George, George Saint-Georges. His father inherited a large coffee and sugar plantations in the First French Empire. This is where they established cities like New Orleans and Montreal. So that stretched all the way across to what is now Haiti and all the way. And Saint-Georges' father, George, ended up in a little bit of a fight with a man and injured him. We're assuming maybe with a sword. Injured his nose is what we know. They went their separate ways, but this injury became gangrenous, and the man died three days later. And Saint-Georges' father was condemned as a murderer, and he fled into exile. He fled to what is now modern-day Haiti. It didn't matter.  They hung his effigy, took away his title and everything else that was about him, and he went to what is now Haiti, took his wife, his daughter, and his mistress, which happened to be his wife's slave named Nanon. And while they were there, Joseph was born. Now, Joseph, a couple of years later, George, Joseph's father, was actually exonerated, and all of his name and title was re-established. And so with this newfound privilege and wealth that was brought back into the family, George sent Joseph back to Paris to study. And Joseph was a fantastic student and a fantastic athlete. He was great at just about anything he put his hands to, whether it be marksmanship, whether it be horse riding, but especially good at fencing, which was big at the time. And he was a fantastic fencer.  The 17-year-old Chevalier des Saint-Georges, or this seasoned veteran. And what the betting really was about wasn't necessarily about young versus old or new versus, you know, it was more about the color of St. George's skin. So there was a whole push in France at the time for the abolition of slavery. And so those that were betting were betting on those lines. St. George cleaned his clock and won. His dad bought him a brand new horse carriage, buggy, basically like a brand new car. Now, in the middle of all of this, St. George was also a fantastic violinist. He studied with Jean-Marie Leclerc, one of the founders of the French violin school, and he also studied composition with Gossick. He directed many major orchestras in France and helped and commissioned and conducted the world premiere of Haydn's Paris symphonies. He was a friend of the Queen Marie Antoinette, and his star in Paris was Rising. So he was on the shortlist for the coveted position of artistic director of the Royal Academy of Music at the Paris Opera. This was the big time. This was going to be one of the biggest places that a composer or a musician could be in the country. However, the other artists, the singers, the divas, protested and appealed directly to the Queen. They said in their statement, quote, their honor and the decency of their conscience made it impossible for them to be subjected to the orders of a insert a deeply racist slur here about St. George's parentage and the fact that he was mixed race. It didn't matter what St. George accomplished or how skilled and talented he was. He would forever be marked. He could not marry somebody in his same stature, same social class. He couldn't hold a position of honor. He had come as far as he could go. And that's probably why he joined the French Revolution in 1789. Now, the French Revolution started with the promise of to abolish slavery. And St. George was appointed a colonel and led the first corps of light troops consisting of all colored men in Europe. The very first regiment of such. They nicknamed it lesion de St. George after him. However, the problems continued. He was accused of unrevolutionary behavior, whatever that means, stripped of his command and imprisoned for 18 months. When he was released, he was not reinstated. He was a vagabond for a few years. He even traveled to Haiti to fight in the Civil War there on the island. He died in 1799 in Paris.  There's a new movie out right now. It's called Chevalier. And it gets some things wrong. Actually, quite a bit. Even in the trailer, you'll see that it starts off, you see Chevalier at a concert of Mozart's music in Paris. Where he challenges Mozart to a violin duo. He defeats Mozart in that duo. And you hear Wolfgang ask, who is that man? All right, this is inaccurate for a bunch of different reasons. First, Chevalier was 11 years older than Mozart. Mozart and Paris did not mix. Mozart actually had a lot of disdain for all of the French people. No one in Paris knew or cared much about Mozart. And Chevalier was the famous violinist, the world-renowned swordsman. He would have been much more well-known. And according to many accounts, Mozart was quite jealous of St. George. It's possible that the two worked together on the score of Mozart's ballet La Petite Rienne or Little Nothings. Some also say that Mozart stole some of St. George's melodies and called them his own. Still others say that Mozart used St. George's likeness as the basis for his evil character in the opera The Magic Flute. One of the only characters of Mozart's opera where he demands that it be played by a colored person. Why am I making such a big deal about this? Because if you know anything about Chevalier de St. George, he has a nickname. What's his nickname? Does anybody know? In every textbook I promise you they call him the Black Mozart. Then that's kind of what the movie's doing, isn't it? Why is it that we have to see his talent through the lens of another? Why do we have to compare St. George and Mozart at all? Isn't this part of the systemic racism that held him back even in his lifetime? And one particular biographer asks, why is Mozart the White Chevalier? Here's a little taste of Chevalier's music. So why is the music of this amazing musician almost completely forgotten? That was the question. There's actually a really easy answer. Actually, May 20th, 1802, Napoleon Bonaparte reinstated slavery. This was after defeating an attempt of Haitian democracy. And so many biographers called this the second death of St. George. As one biographer described it, the second death. Because on the other side of Napoleon's reinstatement of slavery, all the work of people of color that showed serious artistic endeavor were dismissed or banished from thought. That's a quote from Napoleon. It's thought that as much as two-thirds of St. George's music was destroyed, including large operas and countless other treasures. So St. George was not forgotten. He was systematically erased. And I think that this distinction is very important because I've read many different articles about this composer. And they say something like, St. George wasn't the most prolific composer of this day, or something along the lines of, there were certainly greater composers than blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I feel that that's unfair. So much of St. George's legacy was stolen from us. We don't know how much music he actually composed. We don't know what works were destroyed. We cannot, in good conscience, make a blanket statement about St. George and his impact without that knowledge. And it's sad that the struggle that he had and felt at the end of the 18th century is still true for us in the 21st. No matter how much he achieved or how skillful he was, no matter how many articles or performances of his music that take place, the musical establishment still seems determined to keep him in the box of the Black Mozart. This is the same racism that was imposed by Napoleon, demanding that St. George be the slave of an Austrian master. Am I wrong? But you came for a lecture about Julius Eastman. All right. We'll get there. We'll get there. But first I want to tell you another story. A bit more recent. In 2009, in a broken-down abandoned house just outside of St. Anne, Illinois, dozens of musical scores and papers by composer Florence Price were discovered. In this forgotten treasure trove, there were two violin concerti, an entire fourth symphony left unperformed and forgotten. It's only been in the past decade that we've come to understand the genius and beauty of Florence Price's music. Price was born Florence Beatrice Smith in Little Rock, Arkansas. In 1887, she was one of three children from a mixed-race family. But in spite of racial prejudice, Florence's parents were well respected in their community. Her father was a dentist and her mother was a music teacher, introducing Florence to the piano. Florence was brilliant. She gave her first piano performance when she was only four years old, published her first composition at the age of 11. By 14, she graduated from high school as the valedictorian. Florence studied organ and composition at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. And to avoid discrimination, she told people that she was Mexican. Not black. It made her interactions easier is what she said. At the age of 19, she graduated and taught music in Atlanta. She married lawyer Thomas J. Price and they settled back in Little Rock in 1927. Oh, sorry, back in Little Rock. And in 1927, the lynching of African-American John Carter led to a wave of mob violence and intense racial unrest. And the Price family decided to leave Arkansas as part of the Great Migration. As many of the citizens left the deep south. Florence and her family settled in Chicago. She began to take advantage of all the schooling available in that city, studying composition, languages, and art. In 1931, Florence ended her abusive marriage. Suddenly, a single mother she made ends meet by playing the organ for silent films and writing music for radio advertisements. She lived with friends including fellow composer Margaret Bonds. And through Bonds, she started friendships with Langston Hughes and Marion Anderson. A few years later, Florence Price won both the first and third prize in the Watermaker Foundation Awards for her symphony in E minor and her piano sonata. This led to a performance with the Chicago Symphony marking the first composition by an African-American woman played by a major orchestra. Price's musical style was connected to African-American melodies, spirituals, and rhythms, and many of her pieces were inspired or based on folk tunes. There's lots of different examples. A stroke took her life in 1953 when she was 66 years old and after her death, her music fell out of favor. To me, a lot of her music sounds like Aaron Copland. It has very much that kind of feel to it. Now, in Price's case, there was no Napoleon that sought to erase her music. Her works were simply forgotten and left in an attic. Not because there wasn't good music there, not because it didn't deserve to be heard or have life, it just... Well, I think we know the reason. But a promise we get to Julius Eastman. I was a young undergrad student at a conservatory and I was taking a course called Introduction to 20th Century Music, something like that. It had that kind of title. Inside were a whole bunch of works by 20th century composers starting with, like, Ravel and Debussy, which is almost 20th century. And then by the end, we were getting things by Crumb and Cage and those other kind of names. Somewhere near the back of the book, there was a piece called Eight Songs for Mad King by Peter Maxwell Davies. This is a setting of King George III quotes and it was out there. This was 60s. This was kind of craziness. And when I was reading through it, I saw these instructions in the music. It was all handwritten and rather sloppily handwritten and it had things like smoochy or break the violin here or like literally you're supposed to take a kind of play violin, throw it to the ground and stomp on it. It's fun. But I decided I had to learn more. I had to hear more and I wanted to listen and when I did, I heard something like this. When I listened to Country Dance, I was not prepared for what I heard. The music was playful and it was unsettling but that vocal performance was beyond description. Here was a performer that laid everything out there for the audience, literally destroying their voice for the sake of making you laugh, jump you out of your chair, kind of creepy out a little bit, especially there at the end. And it was my first introduction to Julius Eastman. That was him performing. And like many music students, I had barely heard of Eastman when I was in school. Beyond the recording of Eight Songs, all I knew was that Eastman had wrestled with addiction, had angry run-ins with other musicians, composers and the police and died penniless and homeless. And when I mentioned Julius Eastman to my professors, I'll never forget they told his story to me as a cautionary tale. Be careful lest you end up like Eastman. But his music tells a much richer story. And some of the folks in the classical world are just starting to really hear the music of Eastman for the first time in the past couple of decades, thanks to new books, releases of archive recordings. There's been a revival of Julius Eastman and the revival started for me with an email from John Kalaki. John Kalaki was a state senator. He also helped Ren the Flynn for several years and he wrote an article. And the article was called, Arts Appreciation Long Overdue, homage to Julius Eastman, fierce black queen iconoclast. That was the title. And with the title like that, I was like, yeah, I'll talk to you, let's find out more. I want to know more. John shared that he wanted to write the article because he really wanted to talk about the glory of Julius Eastman and not the tragedy. In 1976, Eastman was interviewed in the Buffalo Times and he said his aspiration was to be what I am to the fullest, black to the fullest, a musician to the fullest, and a homosexual to the fullest. And Eastman lived up to all three of those ideals. One of the benefits of talking to somebody like John Kalaki is that I got to hear what Eastman was like from a person with firsthand knowledge and not just from a Wikipedia biography. John and Julius' past crossed quite often. John would see Julius a lot in New York City in the 70s at performances and he also saw him at the gay clubs and he described him as this outrageous, outsized persona. But he had a lot of struggles. He had a lot of struggles in his life. He struggled economically to make a living. He struggled with substance use and in the mid-80s he was evicted from his apartment in New York for non-payment of rent.  And Julius looked at them and said, I don't need them anymore. And walked away and started living in Hyde Park. He died in 1990, homeless and completely forgotten. I talked with another friend of Julius Eastman named Mary Jane Leach. She's a composer. She's also a native rematcher. And Mary Jane told me that when people found out that Julius had been evicted, they pulled together the resources and they got him the money to pay for his back rent. When they gave it to him, he ended up giving it to somebody else. So they needed more than I did. In 2005, Mary Jane Leach, an author, performer, composer, released a set of archive recordings of Julius Eastman's music entitled Unjust Malays, which happens to be an anagram of Julius Eastman. Unjust Malays? I thought that was fun. And in 2015, Leach wrote a book called Gay Gorilla. And that's a gay gorilla, G-U-E-R-R-I-L-L-I-A, the fighter. The Life and Music of Julius Eastman. It's also the title of one of Julius's glorious pieces. Mary Jane was getting ready to teach a course at Cal Arts. And Cal Arts had this big electronic music program going on where they were dealing with a lot of tape and a lot of instruments that were more like machines, right? And they wanted her to do a course on quote-unquote real instruments, okay? Your traditional instruments. And she was trying to come up with a list of pieces that she could use for this course. And she was like, oh, I want to find things for like five oboes and ten cellos. Well, Julius Eastman had a piece for ten cellos and it was called The Holy Presence of Joan of Arc. And the recording barely does a justice because imagine the ten cellos on stage all doing this together. And it evolves over time. We'll talk about his musical style in a second. He premiered in 1981 at the kitchen one of New York City's oldest nonprofit venues and she never found the score. In fact, a friend of Eastman said that he would use the pages of that piece of music to line his cat litter box at home. So with the score missing, Mary Jane turned to the performers because the performers that actually premiered that work were still around and she came to them and they happened to find a recording of that piece. And so she wanted to have that recording dubbed so that she could show it to her students.  So she's sitting there with this other composer, the one who had the tape and the composer was telling her how all of Julius Eastman's music was gone. That's really sad. And then she went looking for a little bit more of his music and realized that it really had disappeared. And this sent her diving into all these different places, universities, places where his music had been played. Finding archive recordings and archive scores and piecing together as much of his music as she possibly could. And he was very prolific. She found enough for that three CD set on Just Malays and she thought that would be it. That would be the end of the project, right? Did my job. But that was just the beginning because unjust Malays was widely influential and was beginning of the revival of interest in his music and today musicians of all stripes and genres are diving into the music of Julius Eastman and realizing it in their own varied ways. I had a chance to speak with a new music ensemble called Wild Up. They're in Los Angeles right now. And as an ensemble they play everything. They play 20th, 21st century music. Ancient works, premieres. Their works like to ride between the lines of theater and performance and pop and classical. And they've committed to producing a seven part anthology of Eastman's music. The first two volumes have already been released the new Amsterdam Records and they were actually nominated for multiple Grammy Awards last year. And in fact just last week, my kid told me about this, just last week they released exciting new single, a sneak preview of volume 3. They were also just recently featured in the New York Times for their Julius Eastman concerts. Oh, that's fun. Let's try that again. Well, this is one of the pieces. It's a stay on it. Oh, there we go. Let's try it again. There it is. And like I said, there's multiple volumes of his music that's coming out and the style of his music is a kind of interesting unique take on minimalism. We start off with a very simple idea and then you build on it. We'll talk about that in just a second. That's just the taste of what musicians are doing with Eastman's music today. But I also had a chance to talk with somebody who knew Eastman's music at the time it was performed and recorded and was actually at a lot of those places and Kyle Gann was his name. Kyle Gann spent 19 years writing for the Village Voice between the ages between the years 1986 to 2005. The Village Voice was the only publication in the country that had a dedicated critic for just new and experimental works. That and Kyle said that means that I went to a lot of weird concerts is what he said. However, by the time Kyle started at the Village Voice, Eastman was already invisible. Now he said he joined the voice in 1986 and Eastman's Eastman hadn't performed since 83 so he kind of disappeared. Then about 89 in 1990 he happened to see Eastman in line at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in line for a performance and just happy to see him, went up and talked to him and hoped that he'd perform again and maybe get to write about him in the voice. However, he died soon after that and nobody knew. He heard a rumor that Eastman passed away. It was eight months later that he actually wrote an obituary. It was the first chance that he had to write about Eastman in the voice. Eastman dies and the tragedy is that nobody knows about it for months. Kyle said that Eastman's influence at the time he was active in New York City was huge. I asked him why he thought, well what he thought was bringing about this revival of interest in the music and life of Julius Eastman. And this is what he said. Julius' story really hit people. They really identify with it. He has relevance in a lot of worlds that don't exist with the classical music world. Early in his career Eastman made a name for himself as a performer of other people's music. He was invited to join the Creative Associates that's an avant-garde classical music program at SUNY Buffalo's Center for the Creative and Performing Arts. He had a financial stipend with very few strings attached and began creating his own music. Kyle Gann remarked that there was this huge wall that separated popular and classical music. You could not cross that line. But Julius brought a pop sensibility to so much of the music that he created earlier than anybody else would have thought to do it. And his music stood apart from a lot of the composers at the time. You know, you can think about the minimalist music that was taking place in New York City Philip Glass, Steve Reisch it's the kind of thing that was happening but Eastman wrote in many different styles he also was big into early disco. There's some really great recordings. But when he went to write pieces like Stay On It or The Holy Presence he was using what he called organic music and by organic he meant that well this is his exact words. What I call make organic music that is to say the third part of any part, the third measure or the third section, the third part has to contain all the information of the first two parts and then go from there. It's like the Fibonacci one, one, two, three, five. It just continues and grows. It's organic right? And you get results like this. So in minimalism in the music of Philip Glass and Steve Reisch it's all about slow change but organic music is additive. It's about layering new things on top of itself and growing.  Repeating patterns that evolve and shift with infinite complexity defined by simple rules. And I think that's why so many ensembles are being drawn to his music. They can interpret it in a whole bunch of different ways. And also John Kalaki said he just felt like it was just very, very joyful. So there's a lot of life and joy in Julius' music. However some of his titles say something else entirely. One of the members of Wild Up said that in Eastman's case he was always trying to be provocative in a strategic way. So he would sometimes take these beautiful pieces and he would put these titles to them that would catch your attention. And I'm not even comfortable reading these titles. Not being who I am. Julius Eastman shows he wasn't interested though in my comfort. He was not interested. Which is evident because he would use the n-word and sometimes he would use homophobic slurs. And it sometimes caused controversy like when he performed at Northwestern University in Illinois in 1981. There were three of his multiple piano pieces two of which used the n-word in the title. And there was controversy around that. The titles were censored and there were protests from student groups and the compromise that they came to is that he would get up on stage and speak about his titles. So here's Julius Eastman, this amazingly talented composer and performer who's boldly challenging classical and academic systems and forcing conversations of complex issues simply by the titles he chose. And it seems like Eastman was much more than a musician. I spoke with composer-activist Daniel Bernard Romain DBR. I don't know if you know him. He played the violin at the City Hall in Burlington and he's worked quite a bit with the Vermont Symphony Orchestra. And I asked him about Julius Eastman because he's worked with Julius Eastman's music quite a bit and this was one thing that he shared with me. I think he had real aspiration, frustration and aspiration. I think the thing that we share in common is that our title suggests a perspective an opinion, a better world, a landscape. All titles have certain information. All titles. I love this. They betray and reveal a certain privilege or posture. So even Sonata number one, you're saying something. All arts are political. All of them. All the arts are. Swan Lake political. In C, political. I think what Julius Eastman has done, and I see this as a challenge, that the titles challenge us, provide and provoke us, I would say to a deeper understanding, a kind of intimacy. Hopefully the piece delivers. You know? And that brings me to this thought that John Colacchi said. He observed his hope that the world of classical music that there might be seeking to write the canon, R-I-G-H-T. Now first, we have to recognize and like we said before, the canon is constructed. It's not divine. It doesn't come from on high. It's something that we've built. Secondly, we should ask, would Eastman even want to be in the canon? Is that a goal that's worth pursuing?  And the canon needs to be shaken up every once in a while. So is there room for other music in this list of works that get performed so often? The third thing we must consider is that we do a disservice to the artists when we only look at a small percentage of their work that happens to be a little closer to the work that classical music establishment already does. This brings to mind this article that I read by musician Jace Clayton about the current resurgence of interest in Eastman's music. It's called, Reverence is a former forgetting. I wanted to make sure that I get this quote exactly right. First, we have to leave behind any idea of progress in canonizing Eastman alongside the positive enthusiasm about reconsidering Eastman lies a certain amount of performative wokeness. Eastman's face provides great optics to advertise an otherwise-stayed concert series of coming season.  Now that I've read and sung, who are we missing now? Good question. Wild Up had an answer to this. Their answer was spend time studying, rehearsing, and diving into the music. What they said was the only way to not disenfranchise this composer is to give it a lot of time. One of the Wild Up crew Richard Ballatudo said it this way, I'm curious to see in the attempts to write the canon in both senses with regards to Eastman, maybe that will fail, but in the best possible sense. We think what should happen is this thing over here with like, yay, we get to put this picture up with all next to all these other ones, and what will in fact happen is maybe that shelf with all those photos on it will be completely torn down and replace what they knew, something that holds all of these great experiences in music in a different way. And that's the idea that I'm really excited about. To tear down that shelf to change the posters of the classical canon and find a new way of giving space for different voices. To still recognize Mozart and Beethoven and the rest but let's make sure there's room in space for no erasures, no forgetfulness, no evictions. Imagine the impact on the world if you go in to a children's music classroom and alongside these faces you have Chevalier de Saint George, Florence Price and Julie Seisman alongside Mozart, Aaron Copeland and John Cage. This music doesn't just belong to long dead rich white men. It belongs to everyone. And if everyone could see themselves in it, see themselves represented in it, how would that change the perception of art form and enrich the future of music making? And that's the question I want to leave you with. Thank you. And I'd like to open up the floor to questions from you. I will do my absolute best. I can't promise that I know anything or everything, but we'll do our best. That's terrific. We love you. You always bring us such interesting. Now, Florence Price, haven't we, haven't I heard a symphony or a lane series playing some of her? Yes. There's been a huge resurgence of Florence Price in the last decade. And that's been phenomenal. She never got to see it. Any questions from people? Yes, sir. I'm not sure you told us where Julius Seisman was born and when he was born. He was born in Buffalo, New York Forgive me. He died at the age of 55 and 1990. I know three years before me. That's how I know. Other questions? I speaking personally I was raised on the canon and I thought your picture of the photos was good. That was cool. It's rather glaring there. My dilemma is when I sit and listen to that music and when I sit and listen to excerpts of the music of Seisman it's similar to some kinds of jazz as I think of the word jazz. That's another topic. I have a sense of, you know what if I in New York to go to this concert and I'm thinking, do I like this? Check the no box. I just don't like it. God forgive me, but I don't like it. I like your enthusiasm for trying something different and I like the fact that you say that everything musical or somebody else's quote is political but that's true about virtually everything. Exactly. Absolutely. And all things are social. You could say everything has an economic context but you get into the social sciences which is the same review. Absolutely. And history matters. I'll stick with that. The first person singular experience of saying to much music, not all of it by any means that new music in the last, say in the 20th century or beginnings of this one but I'm just curious how you respond to what I think of the artists who say I paid $200 for this ticket and I don't like it. How many people really love all the paintings ever done by Picasso? Picasso, the paintings. How many people love every single painting done by Picasso? Is Picasso a great artist that should be studied and appreciated? Yes. Do I have to like something to realize that it is worthwhile to be considered? No. In fact, look throughout history, even Mozart's music, if you look even at the movie Amadeus not that that should be the big pinnacle of, you know, histographic talk but if you look at the movie Amadeus what was, you know, criticized? Too many notes. There are quite a few people who talk the imagination of a new generation of people and that Wild Up group is all about finding something within that music that they can latch onto and bridging a gap between the popular world and the classical world bringing together and bringing more people across so that they're not just listening now to the music of Eastman, they're listening to the music of all these others as well. You're opening up a door where this art is about doing. So, you know, some of these pieces by Eastman aren't the ones that I would pick out and choose to listen to but I'm going to recognize the genius that's there and I'm going to recognize that other people are really enjoying it and see that enjoyment and see that importance and see that voice as worth putting my effort behind. Does that make sense? That's how I would respond. I would respond by saying that I am not the arbiter of what stays and goes. If that makes any sense. That is a good question because what that assumes is that there are people that aren't. What that assumes is that there are people that aren't born musical but I would argue the complete opposite.  I've had so many people come up to me and say well that was a lovely performance, that was a lovely talk about music, that this was all great. I'm just not musical. Do you realize that in another culture, many cultures across the world with you say I'm not musical that is akin to saying I'm not alive. There is no concept for that. Music comes out of our humanity. I was just talking with a couple of great music educators, the teachers at and Champlain Elementary School and what they tell me is they don't have to teach a 5 year old how to come in and sing a new melody. They don't have to teach them. They come in doing that. They come in singing songs about going to the bathroom. They come in singing songs about the color blue. They come in with that inside them in somewhere between the age of 5 and wherever we are right now that's been stifled because we've been told that there are people that are musical and people that aren't. We are all musical. All of us. And even if it's just to be able to recognize it and enjoy it, do you realize that we are the only primate on this planet that can do what we call rhythmic entrainment. We can listen to a piece of music and clap our hands along with it without seeing anybody else do it. There is so much that is innate in us in our musicality. So yes and no. But that what you feed is that which grows, right? That's correct. I'm just curious in your studies or just loving classical music do you know the name Santiago Cañón Valencia? Yeah. He's related in a way to my family but it's my daughter married into the family that he is a member of and they just are so proud of him. So I get clips or information and videos of him playing all over the world and I've learned to like it and I was never anyone who appreciates cello music. Didn't know about it so it's been fun. No. Thank you. Anyone else? Is there any questions over Zoom? I guess we wore them out in the annual meeting. Well this has been terrific. I always love that you bring us something we didn't know about because you're widening our horizons and that's what we want to do here at Triple E. Yay! Thank you, thank you. Thank you.


Today we're making some roasted carrots in the oven and if you've never had roasted carrots before you've got to try this You know that the flavors are just so much enhanced because Roasting them just brings out all their sweetness and that caramelizes them and the flavor is just way better I'm going to season these up with some olive oil and some fresh herbs and some lemon zest Which really brings out their flavor so I'm rocking Robin and I'm going to show you how to do it right after my chef joke Okay, so I'd like to start off here with chef joke number one and we'll have number two a little bit later Here we go. Did you hear about the carrot detective? He got to the root of every case So for a recipe today, I'm using tri-colored carrots, but you can use regular carrots if you want These are just plain cute. So I bought these at the farmers market and they are organic I'm going to twist off the greens and then I'm going to place these in a colander and give them a good scrub Under some water my carrots have some stringy stuff on them So I'm going to peel them before chopping them and by the way You can save those peels and use those in a smoothie soups salads or sauces Just place them in a Ziploc bag and toss them in your freezer So I'm going to start by cutting off both ends of the carrots and then I'll cut the carrots on the diagonal just because it looks pretty and Try and get them as uniform in size as you can so they'll cook up evenly and we'll place our carrots in a bowl So to season this up. We're going to keep it simple I'm using some fresh thyme here just peel off some of the petals until you have about a tablespoon or so Maybe a little less and chop it up. I like to get it nice and fine If you're not a fan of thyme you could always use fresh rosemary instead if you'd like we'll sprinkle that thyme over the carrots and add some olive oil about two to three tablespoons and Of course, we'll season it up with a little bit of salt Now I'm going to add some lemon zest to this it adds a little brightness to the recipe So what I have here is a jar of frozen lemon zest that I've zested from just a bunch of lemons And it's a great way to store it and you always have it on hand So I'll add a nice little pinch of that Give this a nice toss to distribute all the spices and the zest We're going to place this on a parchment paper covered baking sheet Try not to overcrowd your pan and get these into a single layer space them out so that they roast and they don't steam I have my oven preheated to 400 degrees Fahrenheit We're going to place it in the oven for 20 minutes and then after 20 minutes I'm going to lower the temperature to 375 and cook them until they're fork tender You know that'll be another 8 to 15 minutes. Okay. It must be time for chef joke number two How do you make gold soup? You put 24 carrots in it Now back to our carrots Here's what they look like after 20 minutes at 400 degrees Fahrenheit and I tested them with a fork And they're a little bit fork tender, but they definitely need to go longer to get more caramelized So we'll drop the temperature to 375 degrees Fahrenheit for another 15 minutes Here's our roasted carrots and they look amazing All right, I'm going to serve some of these up on a plate and we're going to garnish them up with some nice fresh parsley So one of the easiest ways to cut up your parsley is to basically shave it off of the stems and you get less stems that way And then just chop it up So go ahead and sprinkle a little parsley over the top and there you have it and Make sure to use parchment paper or even foil for easy cleanup. You're gonna love that and now I get to try these out Roasting the carrots just takes them to another flavor level. They're sweet Savory and you just want to keep eating them If you want to get more veggies in your diet and you want a super easy recipe that's fast to make Then you've got to try my pan grilled artichoke hearts that are seasoned with garlic and feta cheese Click the link on the screen and make it tonight If you enjoyed today's video, you can let me know by smashing the like button and leave me a comment down below And if you'd like to subscribe to my channel, of course We'd love to have you go ahead and hit that subscribe button and the notification bell So that you'll know when my new videos come out every week. Thanks for watching We'll see you back here next week for another rockin recipe


Okay, everyone. Here we go. Welcome to what the F is going on in Latin America and the Caribbean, a popular resistance broadcast of hot news out of the region. In partnership with Black Alliance for Peace, Haiti, America's team, Code Pink, Common Frontiers, Council on Hemispheric Affairs, Friends of Latin America, Interreligious Task Force on Central America, Massachusetts Peace Action, excuse me, and Task Force on the Americas, we broadcast 4.30 p.m. Pacific 7.30 p.m. Eastern right here on YouTube Live, including channels for the ConvoCouch, Code Pink, and popular resistance. Post-broadcast recordings can be found at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Telegram, radindemedia.com, and now under podcast at popularresistance.org. Today's episode, 219 years of Haitian independence, a history of the first revolution in the Americas. I'm really, really excited all of you to meet three of my friends that I have worked with for many years in the San Francisco Bay Area. I'd like you to meet my three friends from the Haiti Action Committee. We have Pierre LaBosier, Judith Mercuson, and Seth Donnelly, who I'm excited joined us. I wasn't sure we were going to see you today, Seth. Pierre is actually the founder of the Haiti Action Committee. He was born in Haiti. He is a veteran labor and human rights activist. And as I said, he's the co-founder of Haiti Action Committee, and he's also a board member of the Haiti Emergency Relief Fund. Judith's work, she is part of the Haiti Action Committee as well. And her work focuses on women in Haiti organizing and overcoming sexual violence, the impact of the United Nations and militarism, as well as U.S. interventionism. And Seth is a teacher in, actually, you're on sabbatical, I think this year, correct, Seth? And he is with the Haiti Action Committee as well. And some of you may know Seth and I actually met in Port-au-Prince a number of years ago. I actually think it was like spring of 2016. Seth was on the last day or two of your delegation that you were leading. And I think I was just starting mine, which Pierre, you helped us organize. So a lot of friendship and years of solidarity work here to share with the audience today. So it's really, it's always fun for me to have friends and activists join the program. So also, I should mention for the audience that Seth and Merck wrote a really fabulous report and I will include this in the program notes. The two of you wrote a human rights report on the 2018 Lasalline massacre. Am I correct? Yeah. Yeah. And I'll share the link to that report for the audience. So before we start this terrific conversation and really important conversation, I just want to tell the audience really to me and to the guests, of course, Haiti is the most important for those of us who do Latin America and Caribbean solidarity work. It's the most important country in the hemisphere. It was the first to thwart slavery and colonialism. And I think all four of us would share with you. We do not talk about Haiti enough. We should be talking about Haiti more, more, more, more, more. Which is why we are talking with you today in this episode. We were so certain that the news this week would be focused on the Cuban Revolution and the fabulous news of Lula's inauguration, excuse me, inauguration in Brazil. But we really want to talk about Haiti too because January 1st was the 219th anniversary of Haitian independence.  So on January 1st, 1804, Haiti became an independent republic following the revolution, which had begun 13 years earlier as a rebellion of enslaved people against slavery and French colonialism. Previously known as Saint Dominique, it was the most profitable colony in the world, generating greater revenue than all of the continental North American colonies combined. This immense wealth was generated by the sweat and blood of enslaved Africans who were being worked to death in their tens of thousands on coffee and sugar plantations. So with that, I'll ask the rest of you to join the conversation. Maybe we should talk Pierre since you were born and raised in Haiti. Maybe you can give us just a brief history of the revolution. And then I think it's probably for all of us to share with the audience really, in 219 years, how very little Haiti has been allowed, and I use the word allowed because of international and colonial pressures still existing to this day. Yes, thank you so much, Thel.  Yeah, this is the 219th anniversary of the revolution. And on the first stage of it was political independence, physical independence from France. And on that date, people named the land Haiti, which is the original name of the Arauats, but also in the African language, one of the African languages it means do not obey. And I'd like to point out that this was a upon Africanist revolution in the sense that you had people from different parts of Africa brought together and slave together, who was up together and fought against slavery. They could have named the island, could have Congo. They could have named the Dahomei or Angola, since many of them were from the various regions, but they chose to honor the original people, Haiti, and also because the name means also not to obey in one of the languages. So Haiti declared itself independent on independent nation. And I want to point out that in the struggle for independence and among the leaders, the revolution that you mentioned was launched initially by Bookman Dottie and a woman Cecil Fatima. They were the two co-leaders of that movement. And in the struggle for independence, many times the women are not given enough representation given their world in the struggle, not only as leaders, but also on the front lines as food soldiers in the struggle. So Cecil Fatima was once a need-beller and so many others who were really wonderful people in charge of this on struggling during that struggle. So Haiti upon its founding, declared itself a sanctuary nation. And I know Merck is going to talk about the whole issue with refugees and what have you. Haiti declared itself a sanctuary nation and called upon people of indigenous origins and people of African descent. Whenever they escaped from slavery or touch Haitian soil, they would become Haitian citizens and Haiti would fight for their freedom. I want to close briefly by saying that not only did Haiti declare itself a sanctuary nation, but Haiti also made it as part of its DNA, expressive solidarity with people struggling for freedom in independence and against slavery. In that respect, Simon Bolivar came to Haiti seeking assistant Miranda before him later on Simon Bolivar and Haitians provided him with shelter. They provided him with weapons, ammunition and many Haitians who were veterans of the war against Spain, Britain and France. Because during those 13 years, the enslaved Africans had to fight against all of those big powers in order to become independent and abolish slavery. So they went back with Bolivar at least on two occasions where he successfully was able to defeat Spanish colonialism. When he asked how should he repay Haiti and the Haitian president had told him at the time and the Haitian people had told him all you have to do is to abolish slavery. This is our only condition for payment. So I'll stop right there. Can I, I think that people don't realize like we think, oh, in those times people didn't have very much communication compared to now actually the Haitian revolution people on the Atlantic coast in particular throughout the Americas and certainly in what became the US were completely inspired. There was great communication in all that period. And they were greatly inspired by the example of the Haitian people. And it was a beacon really, a beacon of hope and determination for all the peoples of the Americas and certainly for the enslaved people in the US. The other thing that I think that we should say is two things. One, that they were punished Haitians as is often the case, they were punished for actually declaring their own freedom. And the port of Haiti was blocked, embargoed by the French, by Napoleon supported by Thomas Jefferson. And then they had to pay back. They had to pay back the people who had enslaved them which I'm sure people will talk about but was basically the equivalent of $22 billion that impoverished Haiti until the 20th century. And one of the reasons that often people say, oh, Haiti, it's so poor, it was made poor, it was intervened and it goes all the way back to that. And the other thing I think that people don't realize is the Haitian revolution helped create the United States because France was so impoverished that they had to sell the Louisiana Purchase and to Thomas Jefferson. And that of course doubled the size of the US and led to American expansion. So all of that, the history of Haiti and the history of the United States are completely intertwined and remain so to this day. You know, I think this is really fascinating for the audience to remind all of us that the Haitian revolution did lead to the Louisiana Purchase and to the doubling of the US at that time. This and Pierre, you mentioned Simone Bolivar and how Haiti financed his army twice to defeat Spain in South America or what the countries were, what are they today? Venezuela, Columbia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Panama. He saw what was happening to the north of the continent. He saw what was happening, what the US was doing, the expansion of the US and he was very, very much concerned about that. And I think that's a really, you know, all of that just ties all the history of the Americas and Latin America, North America and the Caribbean together. All was unfolding at the same time but he was so keen on warning, you know, South America specifically about the US expansion and what it could mean, what it actually has turned out to mean for them. If I may say, if I may add real quick, I know Seth would be, if I may add real quick that the whole idea of Pan-Americanism was not on the Bolivar's idea but it was also Alexandre Pétion, the Haitian president. On the two of them had seen that and had long discussions because Bolivar spent a long time in Haiti and Alexandre Pétion was a good friend of his and they talked about Pan-Americanism and it's unfortunate that the US back then exercised so much pressure on the countries of South America that had become newly independent, including Bolivar, that to their shame, they disinvited Haiti at the first conference of the Pan-American Conference. So Haiti, who was a partner in this whole, in the idea of coming together to fight against colonialism was excluded because the US wouldn't sit down with a country of former slaves of black people basically. So I just wanted to interject this. Yeah, I mean, that was what could be what we often talk as the first summit of the Americas. Precisely. Yeah. And Haiti was disinvited after funding in a single Bolivar twice. So, yeah. This is not pretty, it's very difficult. Terry, just to jump in on that, I was gonna add to Merck's point about the debt that the French extorted with US backing. As I'm sure many of your viewers and listeners know, in the, under President Woodrow Wilson, in the early 20th century, the US directly invaded Haiti and occupied and took over the debt collection directly. And actually during that occupation, they moved Haiti's gold reserves into the US. Citibank, I think Citibank got involved in the debt collection. And the debt, the extortion of the funds from Haiti was going all the way up into the 1940s, you know. And during that brutal occupation from 1918 to 1933, that Woodrow Wilson started and then continued all the way into FDR, they pressured Haiti to rewrite its constitution to open up for foreign ownership of resources. So we see that throughout this history, the colonial powers, particularly first France, but then particularly the United States have put their foot on the neck of the Haitian people so that the people cannot even manage, collectively manage their own resources for their own development. And that's exactly part of the struggle today, of course. All over, all over the world, particularly in the global South and the four of us specifically see it in Latin America and the Caribbean. And it was, you mentioned the debt. Let me just read this for the audience. In 1825, France finally agreed to recognize Haiti's independence, provided it compensates former enslavers to the tune of 150 million gold funds, 21 billion today. A ransom which deeply impoverished the government and was not fully repaid until 1947. Yeah. Which you mentioned, Seth, into the 1940s. I mean, how do you develop a nation?  And when the people have exercised their self-determination in, let me put it this way, when they've been able to translate their struggle for self-determination into an electoral victory, which was in 1990 with President Aristide. And then there, of course, US moves in with the coup in 1991 and installs a military dictatorship. And then again, the same thing happens in 2000. Aristide is able to be reelected in an overwhelming landslide by the poor majority. And one of his things around the bicentennial, because that was the 200th anniversary of 2004 approaching, was to tell the French, you have to pay back. And then in 2004, there's the second coup executed by the United States, France and Canada. And military troops, Pierre, military troops were sent, like in the early 1900s by the US, is that, am I... That's correct. And thinking that, yeah. Yeah, in 1915, the US came in and there was a... People won the march there and there was a movement to change the system. There were present armies that were in an uprising and several patient presidents were being replaced one after another. And the people were on the verge of that, that's when the US troops came in. And during that period of 19 year of direct US forces occupying Haiti, close to over 20,000 Haitians were massacred. There was the use of aerial bombing against Haitians and against the Haitian peasantry. And also that's when we first saw the first massive flight out of Haiti of Haitian refugees from that period as a result of this war and intervention. And I know Merck has been on the border. So that ties in very well with what she has seen today. That flight has not stopped. Let's talk about that. Let's talk about your recent trip to the border because that's a really nice way to segue to current day and to help everyone understand that despite liberating itself, nothing has really fundamentally changed for Haiti or nothing has been allowed to change is probably the better. The Haitians changed things for themselves. They haven't been allowed to see the fall. Well, I think we have to step back a minute because I think probably people have heard how horrible or how desperate the situation in Haiti is right now and that the country basically civil society has completely fallen apart. There is no government. The government that exists with Ariel Henri is he is not an elected official. He has been appointed by the United States and Britain and Canada. And he quite recently, in fact, I think in the last week, Pierre, he's declared that there's gonna be an electoral commission that he appoints himself that the broad sectors of Haitian society have rejected and the U.S. has said that he can stay in until 2024. At the same time, the U.S. and Haitian elite have weaponized gangs and there's mass violence in Haiti and nothing is quite functioning. And so all of this is leading to the threat of yet another intervention. And I know people have- It's almost like it's being orchestrated. Yeah. Absolutely. That's, it feels like that, you know, a lot. And what this has resulted in is a mass, massive immigration from Haiti and a refugee crisis. This is not just a migrant crisis. This is a refugee crisis. But at the same time, and perhaps people saw a year ago those horrific images of border guards on horseback, whipping Haitian refugees. And so they, they cooled that. But at the same time, in the last year or so, 30,000 of Haitian refugees have been deported and flown back to Haiti to this horrible situation. And that's in the United States. They're also deporting thousands. I think it's in the fall. 15,000 and Pierre and Seth can talk about this more were deported from the Dominican Republic back to Haiti. And so Haiti people's situation is, it's not livable. And so today, actually, the Biden made a speech saying that there's gonna be a new immigration plan for Haiti. And it's interesting that they lumped Haiti in this, Haiti, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba that no longer are people gonna be allowed to have just come to the border and have asylum. The ironic situation is that in order to like even be processed for asylum these days, you have to enter the country illegally. So you have to, it's completely nuts. So patients have to go and risk their lives either on over land through Panama or through Columbia to Panama and up through Mexico or over that today, I think it was 150 came to the Florida Keys. So either you have to risk your lives. And when you were talking about Haitians, half of the people that we're talking about are children and of those half of those are under five years old or you can't come. And now they're saying, well, that's not gonna work. So therefore you have to apply in your own country. You can't apply in Mexico. You have to apply in your own country on your cell phone and you have to get a security clearance and you have to have money and all that. And maybe, maybe they will give you asylum. They're gonna allow 30,000 people from all these countries per month. So that's gonna be 30,000 people with money. Yeah. I mean, that's a certain economic class that has a cell phone who actually has a paid account that's operable and can act, yeah. Yeah. That's an economic definition right there. Yeah, you're supposed to fly on a plane. And you know, in order to like even come, I mean, our experience at the border was seeing all these people who had paid thousands and thousands of dollars to cartels to even be brought here. I mean, the situation is so inhumane and disgusting that it's something that we really have to pay more attention to. You know, I will say also, just having spent so much time in Mexico the past year, particularly since February of 2022, what you are describing, Merck, is completely antithetical to the treatment of the white Christian Western Europeans fleeing Ukraine. Fleeing Ukraine, completely different treatment. Precisely. And people in Haiti are not only in Haiti, but throughout the world are very aware of that. The blatant racism, not only of what happened on the border, but how Biden as president of the US flew to Poland, I believe last year to kiss little babies from Ukraine to wall out the red carpet for Ukrainians which is the way refugees should be treated. But this treatment of people as human beings is being denied to black folks and to people of color. And so, you know, to Haitians and people of color. And this is the number of Africans. And when you will look at US foreign policy as created, not only in Haiti, but in these other countries, a hellish situation for the population there. Merck mentioned earlier about the weaponization, the weapons that are flooding into Haiti coming from the United States. And the US, there is a great deal of control over these weapons coming into Haiti to weaponization society and to really wage a war against the people of Haiti in order to make them leave their land, in order to take their resources. And this is what's going on.  People like, I think often people go, all of these places, they're such a mess, they're coming to the US for a better life, which they are, how ironic, because these are countries that are intervened. They are made poor, their situation is made poor. And it's really important that we tie when we look at the situation of the border that we tie the two things together, that we tie foreign policy and US intervention is the other side of how they're treating the people when they come here. And also, it's bipartisan. It's the Democrats and the Republicans. And we see that in the, you know, like you mentioned, you know, in terms of the deportations, Merck was talking about and expanding the use of Title 42, which they announced today too, right? That they're just gonna randomly, they didn't have to give a reason. But the other thing that the Biden and the Democrats have done is they've dramatically increased US funding for the Haitian police above the levels even under Trump. Trump had droopled it, but then Biden took it further. For example, last year, they put 48 million taxpayer dollars into bolstering the Haitian SWAT capability of the police. And so it's, you know, when you look at weapons, you look at training, you look at, and the police are demonstrably linked through massive evidence to the paramilitaries and to the gangs. There's no, there's zero doubt that like the killings, the extrajudicial killings, the massacres are linked to the police in case after case, such as the Los Aline massacre. So it is by design.  And this goes to the history too. When you look at it, I know that there have been several exposés of this. For example, the infamously known, Tonto-Marco's, you know, of the Duvalier era, they were trained by US military missions of Haiti. Trained, finance supported the Duvalier dictatorship, both Papa Doc and Baby Doc, finance supported by the... So what we are witnessing right now is a repeat, a rehashing on the FRAP organization that succeeded the Tonto-Marco's. Basically the same thing paramilitary, very brutal, people who use mass rape as a weapon against Haitian women and against the society in general to create a reign of terror against women in the society and the society in general. So what we are saying is the people's movement of Haiti have managed to stop this with President Aristida as president when he came back, but now we've had a coalition of countries like the US, France, Canada, what they call the core group of countries. They used to call themselves Friends of Haiti. They are a group of nine countries and also international organizations. Brazil is part of it too. And they have pulled themselves together and they decide everything that goes on on a daily basis in Haiti and all this reign of terror, Haitians attributed to them and people in Haiti calls them the core gang, not the core group, because they say they are the biggest, the leadership of the gangs that are making life so hellish for the Haitian people. Yeah, so it's like they make life completely miserable and then they say, life is totally miserable. And the head of the UN today said, Haiti is on the brink of an abyss, so therefore we have to intervene. And you know, the two... There's the human rights argument.  And it's interesting that you talked about the first Pan-American meeting because it's so contradictory. This week we, or last week we did see Lula gain the presidency in Brazil. But yet Lula was one... Brazil was the head actor when the UN intervened after the 2004 coup and had a brutal occupation under UN occupation, which hasn't completely ended and now it's threatening to go back again. So I think that we have to be... We have to really be cognizant of these contradictions and the use of Haiti as sort of this when everybody can't get along with the US, then they use Haiti as sort of a bargaining chip and say, okay, if you'll intervene in Haiti, we'll leave you alone about this. And it has been countries in Latin America that have actually agreed to that. And Terry, real quick, I would not be happy with myself if I don't strongly denounce Lula as I'm denouncing Bush, as I'm denouncing Biden because Lula as head of Brazil, he was very aware of the atrocities that were being committed by the troops as head of the United Nations forces. Haiti has been under UN occupation ever since the 2004 coup, which the French, the Canadians and the US initiated, organized, initiated and created a lot of paramilitary death squads to kill the Haitian people. This is continuing to this day. The occupation has been uninterrupted and so for them to pretend now as Merck said that they are going to come and restore and do this and now they are the ones who are managing this entire operation and trying to fool people. So I strongly denounced Lula because at the time people thought that socialist Lula that something good could have come out of him being the head of the United Nations forces but very quickly he showed these two colors by being, by conducting so many massacres in Haiti under their command. So whenever I hear people praising him, I'm in support of the people of Brazil and people in Brazil were outraged when they found out a lot of people but the information has been suppressed. So I strongly do denounce Lula for having the blood of the Haitian people on his hand. And the Brazilians were in, they were in the military command of the occupation. Yeah, so yeah. This is why I've really so wanted all of you to join the program this week because this week is so important historically, right? We have the celebrating the Cuban revolution, we're celebrating the reelection of Lula and his inauguration and somehow we fail to talk about Haiti and its Independence Day being January 1st, 1804 and all these historical events and threads that are playing out. And it's not as pretty as we all wanna think despite what we believe is on, what we believe we're seeing unfold throughout the hemisphere with center left to radical left government. Pierre, why are you talking about Brazil and Lula? What's happening with Mexico and Lopez overdore because he also has just recently agreed to support US interventionism in Haiti. Definitely, very much of a big disappointment. But I'll have to say this, I'll have to, let me give a powerful example of what solidarity is. The Cubans, for example, have been, it's been a different case with them the way they treat Haitian refugees with dignity. And that has been historical ever since the Cuban revolution. Cuba has been really treating Haitians, both the Haitians who were in Cuba and those who were refugees who happened to stop by Cuba they've been treating them with the kind of respect and dignity that is correct. And the Haitian people do not forget that. When the coup took place, only Cuba and Venezuela had refused to join the UN forces, when many of those so-called socialist countries of South America, of the Americas were actually flirting to join that and be part with the US in this venture. And so I wanted to raise that. So Lopez Obrador to me is following the same kind of racist attitude doing the bidding of the US in terms of it's really denying the Haitian people right to their sovereignty. It's as if Haitian lives do not matter. Not it's as if to them Haitian lives do not matter. So it's an expression of racism. It's an expression of showing the US that I can be as tough as you are. I can follow your dictates and I can treat we have no love laws for these Haitian people. So that's what's going on.  It's actually gonna be our episode next week. Yeah, you know, Biden is meeting with Trudeau and Prime Minister in Mexico. And... I'm Lopez Obrador, Trudeau and Biden. Right, right, Lopez Obrador. And so they've made these agreements and certainly this latest immigration policy, which I think is so interesting that they lump Haiti with Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua, which they don't have diplomatic relations and yet Haiti is in there too. They made this agreement with Mexico in mind. And there are thousands of Haitians now on the border in camps in Reynoso, which is opposite I think it's Camp McCallum in Texas and there are also hundreds in Tijuana and there are Haitians coming through the border at every juncture. So this is all completely agreed upon between Mexico and the United States and Canada has always played a role in terms of what's going on in... So what has happened or what's the foreign policy narrative, quote unquote, coming out of Washington, DC to have Haiti as she's lumped in with Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, which it's called the... I don't know, what do they call it? The Troika Terany is what the US refers to those three countries. Why are, what's happening? What's happening? Is there something specific happening in Haiti foreign policy-wise or trade-wise? Have they, are they buying oil again from Venezuela or what's happening? I don't think there's any kind of serious like lumping in terms of the governments. What's happening is they're just in light of the massive refugee crisis out of Haiti they've lumped Haitians together with some of the immigrants and refugees from these other countries but the US, the Biden administration remains steadfast in supporting the RL on redictatorship which as Merck mentioned has been ruling Henry came to power in July, 2020 after the assassination of President Moise. But... Which we all talked about. What's that? We all talked about that and I will share that episode with the audience because it's some great, it's really some important history as to how Haiti has the government it has today. I mean, it's kind of like meat the new boss in as the old boss. I mean, they're all part of the ruling PhDK, the tech colleagues, skinhead party in Haiti and its function has been to further privatize and open up resources including mining which the Canadians are very involved in as well as to wage war on the poor and dispossess the poor and wage war in particular on the mass lava loss movement. So the Biden administration is steadfast in supporting and they play out this fiction that this current government can somehow organize elections in the future which the people on the ground in Haiti know is a farce that this government can't be trusted whatsoever. But it's another US appointed government. Yeah. Precisely. And this falls within the same pattern of what we had seen. You had asked about 1915, the early 1900s and that's what the US had done. It's appoint people, puppets and putting them in. Same thing that it did with the Duvalier regime. The only time that I can say that the Haitian people have themselves chosen with the ballot their own representatives, their own president and leadership was in 1990 during those elections and also in 1995 during the elections of 95 and in 2000 when the Haitian people themselves had used the resources of the country and that used the people, the monies of Haiti and done their own elections. But other than that, it's been always staged, always stuff that have been put together either by the US or using the Haitian military that was directly funded by the United States and controlled even the elections of Papadog Duvalier that was also an imposition on the Haitian people. So, and that's why they was quickly moved in with coup d'etats to what the Haitian people, their choices, which was president Aristide and many of the local representatives of the family-level as political organization. So, go ahead. One thing I think is really important because sometimes it becomes very confusing about what should happen and about how people use the issue of humanitarian crisis and how people use the issue of human rights. And the first thing is, as you said, Terry the progressive people in the United States do not pay enough attention to Haiti, you know? And here's a black country and people are saying black lives matter and it has to also be about Haiti. They don't pay attention. And then many people get confused and they say, well, it is a humanitarian crisis shouldn't the United Nations go in? And I think that we have to be very clear that the United Nations in this instance is an imperialist power. And, you know, just because people wear blue hats doesn't mean that they're peacekeepers. Like armed peacekeepers, it's an oxymoron, you know? And the UN occupations in Haiti have been brutal and have caused cholera, rape and mass violence. And so Haitian people have to, you know they have to deal with the situation themselves. Sometimes the US has created and it's like the US creates complete mass chaos, violence, instability, and then says we have to solve it. But actually in country after country people have said this is our problem, we have to solve it ourselves. And I think the Haitian people have been very clear. Yes, it's a mess, but we have to get ourselves out of this mess and we can. And get all the foreign intervention pools out of there, institutions, tools, people that, yeah. Yeah, and the movement today in Haiti is to complete the promise of the Haitian revolution. The initial, the revolution of 200 that gave rise to Haiti 219 years ago. It was also a dream of our ancestors not only to break their chains, the chains of slavery and to end colonialism, but it was to free the land, meaning that so that the people of Haiti would own the land and its resources and create a better life for themselves and their children and their posterity. So what we are seeing is that this idea, this goal, these goals have never left the Haitian people. And that's what's fueling the movement in Haiti. You talk to any kid on the street. And I say kid in terms of their age group, you have little children, 12 years old, who take to the streets demanding education. You have elderly folks demanding the right to have to eat, the right to have shelter, housing, health care, food to eat and all clean drinking water. And this is something that the people are fighting for. For example, wages, decent, liveable wages.  And so this is the movement that when it came to power with President Aristide at its head was actually changing, beginning to change the structures of the society. The economic structures were being changed. And so that's why the US came in 2004, came before that in 1991 and again in 2004 to stop that process. And so in that respect, the war against the Haitian people is to destroy that resistance that's been going on since the time of 2,219 years ago when the people first created the nation of Haiti. And today they are determined to continue in that life to create a nation that is based on laws and on equality of our people. Wow. You know, I'm listening to you Pierre. I always, I always love listening to you speak, especially since your activism was so powerful. All three of you were active and it was so powerful. Here, I will share with you and the audience, you know, you're really, you are one of the few Haitians, born and raised Haitians that I know.  And I'm listening to you. I really, there's everything that you're talking about today is everything the Haitian people fought for and believed they won on January 1st, 1804. And you're still fighting as a people. You're still fighting for exactly the same things that you thought had been accomplished in 1804. And that's why I keep saying throughout our conversation that, you know, you're just, the Haitian people are not being allowed. It's not just Haiti, but Haiti is probably the prime example in the hemisphere of not being allowed to exercise the freedoms, the liberty, the independence that you won on January 1st, 1804. And I would think that that reflected, more than anything that reflects the failure of, inside of North America, inside of the US, of the movements here to really, you know, dismantle things the way they should have been, you know, and obviously there's been hard repression that the US government has used against many of those movements, like through Cointel Pro. So it's not to blame people who were the victims of repression inside of North America. But as a whole, inside of the United States, we still need our own homegrown lava loss to really take down the capacity of the United States to constantly hold human rights hostage in Haiti and everywhere else. One of the things that they have done, and when I said there, I mean, the various right-wing forces, it's to prevent the history from being shared. One of the things about the Haitian Revolution, and I have to say, I have to praise the Polish troops, who at the time when Napoleon had conscripted them and sent them over to fight against freedom, the movement for freedom in Haiti, once they realized what was happening, they defected from the French army of Napoleon and joined the Africans. And among them, there were Germans as well who defected from the troops of Napoleon when they found out that they were trying to restore slavery and they joined the Africans. And to this day, their descendants live in Haiti and in various regions of Haiti, the descendants of the Polish and the Germans who had defected and joined the revolution. So you see the Haitian Revolution was not only pan-Africanist, it was a humanist revolution. So these examples of the power of people uniting together against a system that's imposed upon us by a few greedy folks to create misery all over the world, that has to be, they don't want, those forces don't want people to know that true stories. And so this is a result of this constant demonization of Haiti, the dehumanization of the Haitian people. And to marginalize the Haitian Revolution to such an extent that even people who are very progressive minded, people who call themselves communist and what have you, do not feel the kind of connections with Haiti that normally they should be feeling because simply of the truth, the reality of what the Haitian Revolution has been about and the struggle of the Haitian people continues to be about. And I think also because the Haitian Revolution is very homegrown and doesn't look the way people are traditionally looking at what progressive movement should be or socialist movements should be. And so it's discounted. And I think that's very dangerous. And each country has, as I said before, each country has to determine their own destiny and their own model. And certainly one of the things I think that people realize when they go to Haiti is that Haitians are the most politicized people and they know very well, they can determine very well what their future can be if allowed to do so. And that's true in countries around the world and the US absolutely is opposed to that. And look at what Biden is doing in the embargo in Cuba. Cubans are coming because he's making life absolutely impossible and that's what's happening in all these countries, they're making lives impossible. And we have to stand up against that and we have to really support the self-determination in Haiti and around the world. And I think that's our great obligation especially as Americans.  And I will say, and the audience knows this, and the three of you know it as well, between October of 2020 and May of 2022, I was an international election observer throughout the Americas. There were legislative elections, there were presidential elections, regional elections all over the Americas in that 14, and then after May of 2022, Colombia and Brazil as well. And I will say what I saw in Merck, you're so reflecting what I saw in eight different countries, people voting for national sovereignty, natural resource sovereignty, and governments that were proposing an economic plan that would be beneficial to the majority of citizens. And you know, in some cases it's one step to the left of center or social Democrat and in other cases it's revolutionary left solutions but everything definitely, the majority moved at you know, the left of center. And it's national sovereignty, natural resource sovereignty and an economic plan benefiting the majority. And this is what Haiti's has fought and won since 1804. The example, Haiti's the example for everything that's beginning to unfold. It's example in both directions, right? Yeah. Yeah.  So one of the things that the movement in Haiti is appealing for is solidarity because we know that we can't do this alone. And the big powers, they all work together in coalition features. They call themselves coalition of the willing or this coalition or that coalition. Right now. The international community. Linda. Quote on quote. All friends of Haiti or the core group, they all join forces together. And the more we can, the Haitian people, they want the stories to be told. They want people to know truly what is the nature of the struggle in Haiti so that people can link up with them in solidarity. One by putting pressure on their respective governments, people in the US, people in Canada putting pressure on the US and the Canadian government. Just like the people in Brazil had put pressure on Lula when they realized what was going on in Haiti at the time and the world that Lula was playing in the name of the Brazilian people against the Haitian people. So it's that kind of solidarity that is needed. The other thing is that there are good examples of organizing at the grassroots level. People are building a new Haiti. People are building institutions, schools, local clinics, universities and that people are building in Haiti. And so these needs to be supported as well to because the monies of the UN, which is really our tax money, the tax money we gave that people of the world provide actually goes to the UN and they are funding a minority, a ruling, they call themselves an elite, but a ruling, greedy class of folks who are exploiting the people. So we need to change that whole structure where our hard-earned money, tax money is being used to press and repress people in Haiti and in other countries as well. So those are some of the things that come to mind. But the only way people can do that is by knowing the facts, knowing the reality, breaking through this curtain of lies that hide what's going on there and misrepresent the people of Haiti as if we're incapable or we are black people, we can't do things on our own, that kind of line, racist line that they are putting out there. So Pierre in our closing minutes, why don't you, well, all three of you share with the audience, Haiti Action Committee, what you do and what the audience can do to help your work, support your work and help raise awareness on Haiti.  Go ahead. Go ahead, Seth. Okay, well, a lot of our work is to, as you know so well, is to, through a series of popular education events in the larger community, pre-COVID, we would have a lot of in-person teachings since COVID, obviously webinars, but we used to, we've published a lot of literature to get out because the mainstream media obviously doesn't cover it. We organize street-level demonstrations. We've done many of those against the deportations, against the Biden administration's support for the dictatorship. Those have been some of the most recent ones. I think it's an organization that Pierre and Robert Roth co-founded way back in, I think it was 1991, right, Pierre? Is it, yeah. What makes Haiti Action particularly so unique is that it's got such strong ties, especially through Pierre, but also with Robert, with the mass movement on the ground and with the Law of the Lost Movement, there's a strong sense of the popular organizations. And so a lot of our webinars and our teachings directly incorporates these incredible activists and leaders inside of Haiti. We also try to raise, steer people who do want to make donations to Haiti Emergency Relief Fund, which is kind of like, well, it's not kind of it is, it's a nonprofit that is able to take donations and then get 100% of the donations to the grassroots movement in Haiti and to grassroots institutions like clinics and schools, et cetera. Whereas a lot of the major NGOs obviously they take money, they have a big markup and then the funds don't actually reach the people on the ground in Haiti. So HIRF, we always encourage people to check out HIRF. Haiti Action Committee, we always encourage people to go to HIRF to make donations as well, because that kind of tangible concrete support should never be underestimated. I think one of the ways that we support Haiti is that we support the University of the Aristide Foundation, UNIFA, and which has built this incredible hospital and university graduating thousands of doctors, nurses, engineers, physical therapists, dentists, like from the people. And this is a really great accomplishment in this past period when Aristide came back from exile and he came back because the Haitian people demanded it. He said he was gonna put his energy into education and they actually have built this amazing institution. And so people should go to Haiti, www.hadesolidarity.net and HaitiEmergencyRelief.org to get more information. And I think what Pierre said about finding out the truth and in other work that I do, we talk about historical denialism. And Haiti is a really good example of denying history and denying the relationship of Haiti to the United States. And I think we're really, for people who are watching, we're really obligated to like sift through all the lies and understand the relationship of Haiti and to get completely rid of this notion, oh, Haiti, it's so poor, it can't take a break. What's the problem? And to look and see the problem is actually US colonialism and imperialism from all these Western powers. And we really, I would just emphasize, we cannot call on the United Nations to bail Haiti out or the United States. We have to allow, we have to be very clear of no intervention. And that's especially true now. And we also have to be very clear that if the United States and other countries create a situation then we are obligated to take in refugees and that that's like our moral and ethical responsibility. Pierre, final words? No, I just want to thank you very much, Terri. And I want to say thank you to the people of Code Bank and also others who are members of the audience to thank them for their solidarity because I know many people are in solidarity with the Haitian people. And this conversation as well as others, it is so necessary for people to sift through the lies and it's so important. So I'm echoing what Merck just said and also Seth and you, of course, and your work. Thank you so much. Thank you, Terri, for your work, man. Yeah. We both feel pink. Yeah. I should just say because I, you know, we on November 1, we moved to popular resistance and Code Bank joined us as a broadcast partner. So let me just share with you and also just reiterate to the audience. The audience, a lot of you already know this, but so we are a popular resistance broadcast of hot news out of the region in partnership with and I would extend this invitation to Haiti Action Committee as well. And Pierre, we can talk after to join us as a broadcast partner given our new format. So we broadcast via popular resistance in partnership with Black Alliance for Peace, Code Pink, Common Frontiers, Council on Hemispheric Affairs, Friends of Latin America, Interreligious Task Force on Central America, Massachusetts Peace Action, and all of your friends over in Marin at Task Force on the Americas. So we're a wonderful, wonderful co, broadcast coalition now. And that is nine of us now broadcasting as a coalition for this project. And a huge shout out to Pia Rella and Craig at the Convo Couch for giving us Thursday nights at 730 p.m. Eastern some space on their channel, which has over 50,000 subscribers. So y'all have a really large audience tonight. Right on. Right on. Thank you. This is great. So, and then we do also broadcast to Code Pink Action on YouTube and popular resistance org on YouTube. So we simulcast to three YouTube channels. So y'all have been seen by a lot of people tonight. Well, we appreciate it, Terry. And, you know, then you can find us on Apple podcast and Spotify. And I will just share with the four of you. And I turn, I think the audience knows this after our live YouTube broadcast. I take the audio and turn it into a podcast and upload that to Apple podcast and Spotify on Friday mornings. Average episode downloads 2017 as of this morning. That's great. Well, since it's going to be a podcast, I just want to reiterate. I want to highlight. Www. Hady solidarity. Net. Www. Hady emergency relief. Org. Wonderful. And I'll put that in the program notes. For you two for the podcast to make sure. So thank you. Thank you everyone. Thank you. It's always so wonderful to be in conversation with you. I so value your work, your friendship and your time. And I just want to remind the audience will be live next week, 7 30 PM Eastern. On the convo couch, code pink and popular resistance for YouTube channel. Thank you, Terry. Everyone. Thank you. Thank you. All the best.