Leadership Breakfast: Dr. Fahamu Pecou
This Tuesday we hosted our first virtual Leadership Breakfast with Dr. Fahamu Pecou. Dr. Pecou is an interdisciplinary artist and scholar whose works combine observations on hip-hop, fine art and popular culture. Pecou’s paintings, performance art, and academic work addresses concerns around contemporary representations of Black masculinity and how these images impact both the reading and performance of Black masculinity.
Artist Statement: My art raises questions about the types of images and representations that come to inform contemporary readings and performances of Black male masculinity. By engaging with various stereotypes and misconceptions about Black men–both those imposed and those assumed–I attempt a critical intervention concerning the visible and invisible threads that make up our collective understandings of Black identity.
Incorporating various expressions of "Blackness," which includes the visual iconography of Yoruba (Ifa) spirituality, the somatic attitude of hip-hop bravado, and philosophy of the négritude movement, I work to re-member the fractured Black body. In mining the Black experience both historically and contemporaneously, I can dynamically engage this theme with work that though rooted in the Black experience, provides meaningful engagement across all walks of life.
Rohit Malhotra
All right. I think we are we are live. This is very, very exciting. Good morning, everyone. I am so excited to be having this conversation this morning. I know this is the first time the Center for Civic Innovation is doing a leadership breakfast virtually, or digitally, or whatever the kids are calling it these days on the 'gram, on the 'book, on the BeLive. No idea. I clearly have aged myself through that response alone. But I'm very, very excited to be having this conversation with an incredible, incredible person this morning. I'm going to just kind of set the tone a little bit before we get to the conversation with Fahamu. Just so folks who are joining can get settled in and get, you know, whatever you do in the morning. This is the first time I have worn pants in probably three weeks. So really appreciate the opportunity to do that, I remembered how to do that. You know, the leadership breakfasts that are here that the Center for Civic Innovation is doing is actually a program that we've been doing since the day that we opened. We always said that it is so important that, as Atlanta is growing and changing, and so many things are happening in our city, that we have conversations with the leaders who are really at the front lines of that change and people who we think bring a perspective on, "Why is Atlanta the way it is right now, and where does it have the opportunity to be better and lead it to its greatness?" And especially at a time like now, these conversations are increasingly more and more important. I want to start by just saying, thank you to the incredible people who continue to do this work, especially in light of the current public health crisis, whether that is frontline workers in hospital settings or people who are working at restaurants, or service workers, or our artists that are bringing light to what's happening. Those who are being paid and those who are being underpaid, those who are not being paid at all. Just a shoutout to everybody who's weathering this. It is a weird time, but something we've been saying a lot at the Center for Civic Innovation is, inequality has existed well before COVID-19 in this city. And that's a conversation that we have been trying to have for many, many years. This gives us a shining light on why these conversations are so important and why we need to use these conversations to propel us to action. So, our Leadership Breakfast series was created to humanize leaders in Atlanta. To have a conversation, not just about policy and the issues that we're facing, but also to get to know who they are. Usually we do this in our beautiful offices in south downtown Atlanta, in the old Rich's department store, where everybody gets to sit in slightly uncomfortable chairs, and we feed you slightly uncomfortable breakfast, and very, very good coffee is made by us in-house. Shout out Trader Joe's for the sale on coffee. But hopefully you were able to get your coffee this morning and you'll be able to have this conversation with us. The format today is, I will be asking Fahamu a number of questions over the course of the next forty-five minutes to an hour. But we also want to hear from you. If you have questions, or things you want to know, or things that pop up, please, please comment and write your question in. We will get to questions at the end. Luckily for here, we will be looking for questions that end with question marks. So be very conscious of that. You could hit the shift slash button, and there's a question mark at the top. So hopefully, that's helpful for you as well. So, very, very excited. I was telling Fahamu before, we've had Leadership Breakfasts for five and a half years now. And you have been one of our most popular folks. People have said, "Oh, my God, like, the Dr. Fahamu Pecou is going to be speaking at a Leadership Breakfast." You might be the first person CCI is interviewing that has a Wikipedia page. Like, this is big. So we are we are just so excited to have you this morning. I wanted to kick us off with the same question that we ask every single person that does these breakfasts, which is not what you do. We're going to get into your work and ADAMA and everything. But why do you do what you do? What drives you to do what you do?
Fahamu Pecou
Well, first of all, really thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here. Good morning, everybody. And I'm kind of blown away by the response. I don't think people would respond so enthusiastically if they knew that I was actually not wearing pants. You know, I figured it's gonna be a waist up kind of thing.
Rohit Malhotra
It's hard!
Fahamu Pecou
But, why do I do what I do. Honestly, you know, I do it because I have to. You know, when I was an undergrad student at the Atlanta College of Art, I had an exhibition for my senior show. And I remember standing back watching people react to this work, which was highly personal, but at the same time, it dealt with some subject matter that had to do with overcoming trauma and overcoming tragedy. And I remember watching people's reactions to that work and seeing how the work moved them. People were moved to tears. People were coming up to me and telling me things like, "I haven't spoken to my brother in 17 years, but your work makes me want to call him and, you know, patch things up," or, you know, "I was abused as a child. And your word makes me want to address that abuse." And I remember thinking in that moment, like, "This is what I want to do." I want to make art that means something that will help people, that will push the needle, that will change the world. Rather than just make pretty pictures. I want my art to do something. I don't want it to just look good. I want it to help us, to move us, to change us, and to make us better. So that's why I do it.
Rohit Malhotra
Yeah. I mean, it is so clear in everything that you do that that intentionality just screams out. And so where does that come from? Where did you grow up? Where is home for you? Is Atlanta home?
Fahamu Pecou
It is now. I've been here for over 20 years, but I was born in Brooklyn, New York. But when I was five years old, sadly, I lost both of my parents and I was adopted by family members and moved to South Carolina. So I grew up mostly in Hartsville, South Carolina. And growing up, art was always, not only something that I enjoyed doing, but it was also a coping mechanism for me. It was an escape for me. And yeah, I've always, always, always, always had a pencil in my hand. And if I didn't have a pencil in my hand, I was making something out of paper. And if I wasn't making something out of paper, I was biting my sandwiches into the shapes of animals and playing with them, you know? So I was always creating stuff. And I knew from a very early age that I wanted to be an artist, even when I didn't know what that meant, or even when people told me that, "Oh, you have to be a starving artist." You know, "Artists don't make any money until they're dead." All of those kinds of things I heard growing up. But it never deterred me. I knew that it was something that I wanted to do. It's almost like breathing for me. Creating was almost like breathing for me. Even if I wasn't, if I couldn't do it, I had to find a way to do it.
Rohit Malhotra
Yeah. You know, it is your childhood. A lot of people see [art] as just something you go see in a museum, or maybe you'll go buy a piece somewhere. But you talked about it as healing. In what ways was it? Why do people use art as healing? Why was that helpful for you in your journey of entering a new life, almost, at such a young age, and having to discover that? What role did art play and why is that so important that at such a young age?
Fahamu Pecou
I always tell people that in the future, historians will tell us what happened. I think there's something very powerful in that kind of expression, regardless of its form, whether it's visual art or music or poetry, film, writing, whatever it may be. Art is truly the connection, the spiritual connection between us and the world that we live in. I really love the fact that through art, you can communicate beyond words. There's a way that art communicates and expresses and articulates things that we don't always have the vocabulary for. And I think that's why it's so important. I think that's why it becomes such a healing thing, because we can connect to a song or to a painting or to a poem in a way that someone offering a comforting word may not necessarily be able to get through to you. But hearing that that music, hearing that rhythm, hearing that harmony, seeing those colors, seeing those patterns can soothe you in a way that words can't. And so I think, we've seen this over the course of human history, that human beings always have to find a way to express themselves through some kind of creative medium or through some kind of creative expression. And that's why art is such a powerful tool and such a powerful agent of healing and transformation.
Rohit Malhotra
Yeah. We work with an incredible woman named Malika Whitley, who I think you know, and she tells that same story. She always says art saved her life. And it's why she works with so many youth who are experiencing homelessness, to introduce art into their life, not as, "That's going to be the end-all, be-all." It could be the one thing that makes sure that they save their own lives. It is a survival tool. Tell me a little bit about your parents. Tell me a little bit about your upbringing.
Fahamu Pecou
Sure. So my father was born in Panama and immigrated to the US when he was about 16 years old. My mother was from Hartsville, South Carolina, and migrated north to New York after she completed high school. They met in Brooklyn. My father's family owned a brownstone in Brooklyn. And they rented out apartments to people. One of those people happened to be one of my uncles, my mom's older brother. So when my mom made her way to New York, she stayed with my uncle for a little while and she met my dad, and they hit it off. And the rest is history, as they say. Shortly after I came about, third in line. I have an older brother, an older sister, and then a sister who's younger than me. But my parents were very, very much involved in the Pan-Africanist movement of the late 60s and early 70s, and in fact, had big plans to repatriate to the continent. And so a part of their dreaming was in instilling African values in myself and my siblings, which is why we have the names that we have. My name, Fahamu, actually means "understanding" in Swahili. But around the early, mid-70s, my father began to experience symptoms of schizophrenia. And ultimately, despite his attempts to try to seek help––because I think at that time, in the early 70s, mid 70s, the diagnosis for schizophrenia was still not very clear. And so despite his attempts to try to seek help, he would often be told that nothing was wrong with him. They would send them back or they would hold him in an institution for a week or two and send him home. But unfortunately, in January of 1980, my father had a complete psychotic break. He ended up murdering my mom while my siblings and I were there in the next room. And then he marched us to the police station down the block. He turned himself in. And that was the last time that I saw him until I was twenty-two years old. And so, again, for me, creating art was something that allowed me to work through some of that trauma. When we were moved down south, nobody ever asked us or talked to us about what happened. We didn't have any therapy. There was no counseling, any of that stuff. And so art became therapy for me in that sense. When things got really crazy or hectic, because even that situation in South Carolina was completely unpleasant, art was my way of escaping while the world was going crazy around me. I can find a corner and a sketchpad and I would just draw. And so, by the exhibition that I referred to earlier, really sort of recounted that narrative of my early childhood. And again, it became a really powerful retelling, a powerful account of overcoming trauma and using art as a way to overcome trauma that a lot of people were able to connect with and identify with and really were moved by.
Rohit Malhotra
Were you encouraged to use art? Was that something you found on your own, or was that something that, someone said, "Take a pen, take a pad of paper, and, express yourself in this way?" How did that come to you?
Fahamu Pecou
You know, I don't know what first prompted me to start drawing, but I've had some of my older cousins and my older siblings talk about the fact that, even at like two and three years old, I was very creative. I loved singing 60s soul songs, like a little two-year-old with a little pot belly belting out these like classic soul songs. But one of my first memories after losing my mom was being in the first grade. And you remember those spiral notebooks, there'd be red or blue or yellow or green. I would sit at home and watch cartoons all day long. And I would try to draw the cartoon characters. So I might draw Fred Flintstone on the cover of my notebook. And then I figured out that with the eraser, I could erase the color out of the notebooks. I would sort of do a sort of subtraction technique to color the characters that I was drawing on my notebooks. And at school, all the children would be like, "Oh, wow, can you draw Bugs Bunny on my notebook?" "Can you draw a Mickey Mouse on my notebook?" And I just really loved the attention that I got from doing it. My teachers were always amazed by the kind of stuff that I would draw. And I loved school so much. I really loved being in school. I really loved making my teachers proud. Back the in the early 80s in South Carolina, we lived in a town that was pretty segregated. So the elementary school that I went to was all black. Most of the teachers were black. And it was like a family. So the people that lived in the projects that I lived in were also the teachers at the school that I went to. They also went to the church that I went to. And I remember my second grade teacher, Mrs. Peterson, she would give us a spelling test every Friday. And if you got a hundred on your spelling test, she would call you up to the front of the room. And she was a big woman. She would call you up to the front of the room and she would envelop you in this humongous big bear hug for getting a hundred on your spelling test. And man, if I didn't get a hundred on my spelling test, I would be brought to tears because I wanted one of those hugs from Mrs. Peterson. But it was that kind of affirmation that I received in school that really encouraged me to continue drawing. But what drew me there in the first place? I'm not exactly sure. It just was something that I felt compelled to do.
Rohit Malhotra
Do you think that you would have had a different experience if your teachers didn't look like you? Did the teachers reflect the same demographics of the school? Were the majority of your teachers also black, or was that just your students? Because that's what Atlanta is supposed to be like, right?
Fahamu Pecou
Yeah, exactly. Which is why I think Atlanta resonates for me in so many ways, because I grew up in a community where black visibility was everywhere. My entire world from the time I arrived in South Carolina at five years old. Until I went to middle school, I never saw anyone, I never engaged or interacted with anyone who wasn't black. I think there may have been, like, the librarian at my school may have been white. But that was the only white person that I had any interaction with. Everyone was black. And like I said, everyone was a part of the same community. So in addition to the positive affirmation, the negative reinforcement when I did something that I wasn't supposed to be doing was also there. So if I did something in school that I wasn't supposed to do, I got in trouble with the teacher. And back then, teachers could spank you. The principal might spank you. And before you got home, you know, I'd be walking from school to my house. And the neighbors would be like, "Your aunt gonna get you for what you did at school today." So you've already been in trouble at school, now you're getting reminded all the way home, and even at church. The same teachers that I had at school were my Sunday school teachers in church. I was in the choir with him at church, you know, all that kind of stuff. So it's like my entire world was made up of this village. It was a community. And I'm reminded of that here in Atlanta as well, where black visibility is just as pronounced, where you see black people from all walks of life, all economic strata, anywhere and everywhere all the time. And that's a very unique thing, because you don't see that in a lot of other places. I can drive outside of Atlanta 30 minutes, and I might not see another black person for a couple of days. So that kind of visibility, that kind of affirmation of my existence, my presence, the diversity, the complexity, the nuance, all of that stuff is really powerful and really impactful. And that's why I love Atlanta so much.
Rohit Malhotra
Yeah. Did your siblings also take up art or were the people around you also artists, or were they kind of looking to you to be the artist that they needed? What was that relationship like?
Fahamu Pecou
My siblings were all creative. My parents were also very creative people. My mother was a model, she was a seamstress. She was what I would call a master of the domestic arts. She could do anything, you name it. Cook, sew, make things, jewelry, all kind of stuff. My father was also an artisan. He would make jewelry, he was a drummer, he played the saxophone. And growing up, my two sisters and I were always in any kind of choir or glee club we could get attached to. My elementary school had a glee club that I sang in from kindergarten till I graduated in the sixth grade. My older sister started in the band when she got to middle school. So when I got to middle school, I joined a band. I picked up the trombone and I played trombone all through middle and high school. My younger sister, also very beautifully voiced singer. We always danced together, I would choreograph dance routines for us, and we would perform at talent shows and all kinds of stuff. So we've always been very creative, always doing really creative things. But everyone always knew that Fahamu was the artist. Like, I was the art guy. Everyone knew. If I did anything other than become an artist, I think people's heads would've exploded.
Rohit Malhotra
It's fair, right? It's kind of like the artist friend in a group of friends gets very selfishly used sometimes. And it's like our saving grace to express to us, to show us what we're feeling in a way that is not able to be expressed in words or on paper or through the normal means. So it's a really powerful thing. Are you still very close to your siblings? Are you considered the baby? I know you have a younger sibling, but you're on the lower end of the spectrum. So as an older sibling, I know that you know what that means. But are you still close?
Fahamu Pecou
Oh, yeah. We're all very close. In fact, just as we started to talk this morning, I got a text from my younger sister like, "Hey Mu, just checking on you." It's interesting, though, because we're close, but we're not close at the same time. We might go two weeks, a month without speaking to each other, but when we talk, it's like we haven't missed a beat. And we don't live close to one another. One side effect of the traumatic space that we came up in is that, as close as we were, we were also very independent in a sense, like trying to figure out how to make sense of the world on our own. And so as we each graduated high school, we just left and never came back. My brother left. He got in the army when he graduated high school. He did a little time in army and then he went to college. My older sister, she left and went to college. And once we left that place in South Carolina, we just kind of went our separate ways. But we've always maintained contact with each other. And our family gatherings are always special because we don't see each other often, when we do get together it's always a good time.
Rohit Malhotra
Yeah. Did y'all have to process your grief separately, or did you lean on each other for that as well? Or was it a very independent experience and everyone had to kind of figure it out on their own?
Fahamu Pecou
It was a very independent experience. And the side effect of the trauma of it all, and not really having any sort of formal outlet for counseling or being able to talk to anybody about it, was that we also went really inside what we experienced and what we all witnessed. We never even spoke to each other about it. And it wasn't until I started working on this exhibition, my senior exhibition in undergrad, that we actually ever had a conversation about it. I'll just kind of tell a quick story. When I was at ACA, it was my junior year. I'd just got Goodie Mob's album, Soul Food. It was just before the holidays. And I remember that I was sitting in my dorm room and I was listening to the album and a song came on. It's called Guess Who? And on that song, each one of the guys talks about their mom and how their mom was there for them and cared for them and stuff. And even though I didn't have my mom in the physical, I've always, always, always felt her presence, like felt her literal hand on me. Anytime I was about to go astray, it was like a little nudge. Anytime I was about to do something that I wasn't supposed to be doing, even a stranger will walk by and say something to me that felt like, "Oh, wait, somebody is watching me and making sure that I'm not messing up." So anyways, I listened to that song. I felt everything that they were saying. It was like visceral. Like, I really felt that deep inside. And while the song was on, I just kind of put it on repeat. And I just started making something with my hand. I had this wooden box in a corner in my dorm room. And when I was done, I made what's called an nkisi, which is a fetish figure from the Congo that is imbued with the spiritual essence of a loved one, or a leader of a community, et cetera. But I made one that was dedicated to my mom, and it had her portrait in it, and where the wound would be, where the belly would be, was a portrait of me and my siblings at the ages that we were when she died. So mind you, my brother is six years older than me, my older sister is four years older than me, and my younger sister is eleven months younger than me. And I made this piece, it sat in a corner of my room for a while, and as my friends from school would come by, they would see this piece and be like, "What is that? That's beautiful. Tell me about it." And again, I had not talked to anybody ever in life about what happened with my mom. And so I decided that––not even decided. I was compelled, now, to explore these feelings that I had inside of me, all of these years. And so when I went home for the holidays, my siblings––this was one of the rare opportunities where all of my siblings happened to come home for the holidays––and I went to each of them about the night that mom died: "Can you write down for me what you remember from that night?" Because I had a recollection of what happened. This is like my first cogent memory. But I wasn't sure if what I remembered actually happened or if this was something that I composited from movies and things that I've seen over the years. So I didn't know if it was real or if I'd made it up. Anyway, everybody went their separate ways and they came back and they gave me what they wrote down about what they remember from that night. And when I read all of the pieces, I realized, one, that what I remembered was actually pretty accurate. But two, I learned a lot of details around things that I didn't know about. My brother's, of course, was the most detailed. He was eleven at the time. My older sister was eight, I was four, and my younger sister was three, so hers was the most brief of them all. Anyway, I took those stories that they wrote. I took their recollections that they wrote, and I began to make pieces based on each person's account of what happened. And that became the exhibition.
Rohit Malhotra
Wow. You are just so powerful, and through this comes so much trauma and so much processing that you have to do to get to this point. And you know, in art when you're creating it, one of the things I hear the most, particularly from folks who are working in communities that have had high levels of trauma, is just, reliving it is like going through it all over again, again and again and again. So when you're producing this art, which is coming from a source and an inspiration of grief and trauma, how do you separate the beauty of the creation of the art from the reliving of the actual trauma itself? How do you make sure that you balance that? How does that work for you?
Fahamu Pecou
You know, the thing about tragedy, and the thing about trauma, is that if you allow it to be, it can also be generative. It's not just destruction. The most appropriate analogy I can think of at this moment is a doorway. A door works both ways. You could come in a door, you could go out of a door. And tragedy or trauma can be generative in the same way. So, as traumatic as that experience was, as tragic as that experience was, it also became a catalyst for me to create and to also connect to other people in ways that I might not have been able to do otherwise. I'm not the only one of my siblings who has been able to transform this trauma into an ability to serve. My younger sister is an evangelist, and her ministry centers on overcoming trauma. And she has had some other experiences as well, even later in life that include sexual abuse, that she has also folded into her practice and into the way that she approaches trauma and approaches healing and approaches overcoming circumstances. So for me, it's not even necessarily about trying to strike a balance. It's about understanding how everything that we experience in life positions us or prepares us for what comes after, what comes next. But only if we allow it to. So for me, there's no such thing as loss. It's only lessons. And what can I learn from this? What can I take from this? What can I use from this to advance me through the next phase of my being, in the next phase of my experience? So I'm making light of this to some degree, but I hope I don't come across that way because I know some people have experienced trauma, and I know people experience trauma in very different ways. But I've always found comfort in knowing, like I said, that my mom was able to be there for me in ways that she couldn't be in the physical. All throughout my life. And that has animated my work, and it's animated my being. It's allowed me to see things and do things and express things that I may not have been able to do otherwise. So I always say, my mom wasn't here because she had to be there so that she could mother me in a way that she couldn't mother me in the physical. And that's very powerful. That's very comforting. And that's very assuring. Because in my spiritual practice of Ifa, we don't believe that when our loved ones die that they're gone; they're just in different rooms. We're still connected to them. As long as we call them names, they continue to exist and they continue to work with us and through us. And again, I think that becomes a really powerful, healing, comforting way for us to deal with trauma and tragedy, is to understand that ultimately, it can be generative when we allow it to.
Rohit Malhotra
Yeah. Man, your words are art in so many ways, too. So thank you for that. I want to get into your current work as well. But even before we leave that, I think what you're speaking to is just something that we just don't talk about enough, not only in, as you mentioned before, in the black communities, but also in immigrant communities, Indian-American communities where my family comes from. My father lost his father at a very young age, and didn't talk to anybody about it. There was no outlet. It was just "Well, just work harder," like, "Live up to that legacy." And there was no way to actually process that. And now, in the fourth quarter of his life, he's just now coming to terms with, "Maybe I should have talked about that. Maybe that was some conversation that I should have had. Maybe I would have been a different person because of that." Why is it that trauma and grief is so difficult to talk about in black and brown communities? What makes it so taboo? And do you think that's changing, and does it need to change? And how do we change it? I think there are a lot of artists probably out there who are processing a lot, just the same way you are in your art, but at the same time, their identity tells them that therapy or processing your grief is a form of weakness. What would you tell them? How do you counsel them?
Fahamu Pecou
Yeah. I mean, the first part of your question, why is it so difficult? Why is it such a taboo within black and brown communities? On one hand, I think, particularly amongst black Americans, the legacy of slavery and oppression and racism and all these kinds of things have created barriers for us to really express and articulate grief. And this is central to the dissertation. My dissertation at Emory was about, how do we, as a community, begin to process trauma and process grief in healthy and healing ways? Because for so long we weren't allowed to. In fact, that humanity was so deprived that we weren't allowed to express feelings of any kind. Like, "You can't be tired. You're a beast of burden." "You can't be joyful. You need to be out there working." "You can't be sad. What do you mean you're sad? You're here to do a job." So we weren't allowed. We weren't given the space, we weren't afforded even the consideration of our humanity enough to be able to articulate grief in those ways. And I think that has carried over generationally as a form of protection from our parents and our ancestors. "Don't let them see you sad. Don't let them use that to hurt you. They will use that to harm you." And so in some ways, this kind of tough exterior, this kind of hard exterior, was about self-preservation. But at a certain point, that self-preservation and that walling up of yourself becomes self-destruction, because with no outlet for those emotions and for that kind of thing, you end up destroying yourself from the inside out. And so I think it is imperative that we learn how to articulate and express grief, and that we learn how to work through trauma. And mind you, we have had ways to do that. We've found ways to subvert those oppressions that denied us our humanity. And it's come out through our art, through our creative production. That's how we've been able to do it. But I think that there needs to be other tools and other devices to help move through that more efficiently and more effectively, more impactfully. And I think that there are a lot of people who are now moving into that work and moving into trying to specifically deal with the post-traumatic stress that black people have been living with––and brown people and oppressed people all over the world have been living with for generations and generations and generations as a result of white supremacy and oppression and all these things that have denied us our full breadth of our humanity.
Rohit Malhotra
If you were talking to a group of investors or funders who say, "I want to fund the arts. I really care about the arts. It is very important to me, the well-being of our artists are very important." If they ask you, Fahamu, "I'm willing to invest a sizable amount of capital into something really meaningful for the well-being of artists." Where should we start this investment process? Where can we actually build the infrastructure to support artists better in their journey? Or is it not an infrastructure that's needed, it's more of a one-to-one, individuals have to just figure it out? Is there anything that we could be investing in better that you think could improve this?
Fahamu Pecou
Yeah, I think at the end of the day the most significant or most impactful way to begin to see the idea of healing, and art as healing, is in early education. If we could shift our perspective or our concept of art as this extracurricular activity and understand the the importance of it. You know, art isn't just about making pretty pictures. It is us at our spiritual core, the very essence of ourselves speaking. It's a language. Art is a spiritual language. It supersedes whatever nationality, or Latin language or whatever that you speak. Art is a spiritual language. And if we can begin to understand that and begin to work with that from a more early age, I think it would transform not only the way we view artists in society, but it will also change the way we view ourselves because we see that art as an extension of who we are. It's not something separate, it is actually a part of who we are. I'm working with Annie Casey Foundation currently. They commissioned me to create a program called Advantage Point, which attempts to do that. We work with high school, young black males high school age, to transform the way that they see themselves through art. The program essentially introduces them to artists working in various disciplines as a way for them to see that where they are in the world is a very unique perspective and a very unique position. It's a vantage point that no one else shares. And when they are able to express themselves and articulate their existence and the things that they're feeling and thinking through the art, I've seen them literally open up. I've seen the color in them change going through this program, because it really does affirm you in ways that other forms of education that we put so much focus and energy on don't. And think about, if we really tapped into using the arts as a way to educate and to teach, we might transform the way people connect to some of these other fields like math and sciences and stuff like that, because all of that is also art. It's just the way that we teach it. We've made it so regimented and so sterile that people are not able to see how it connects to them. They're not able to see how math connects to them. They're not able to see how science and biology and technology connect to them. But art allows us to read through those spaces in a human way, in a spiritual way that transforms our connection to it and our relationship to it.
Rohit Malhotra
Yeah. It reminds be a lot of the work of Alex Acosta and Soul Food Cypher. They are getting so many young men to be able to express themselves––and women, actually, who have been coming in and sometimes really spitting up against the men in a way that they weren't ready for. And I think creating those spaces for connecting to the world through the power of art is just so important. So you came to Atlanta. You talked about your love for Goodie Mob and all of that. I mean, I consider anything basically between Virginia and Georgia just north Atlanta. So, I mean, that makes total sense that you were an Atlanta fan from the beginning. What brought you to the city, though? What brought you to come to Atlanta?
Fahamu Pecou
To be honest with you, when I decided on coming to Atlanta, I knew absolutely nothing about Atlanta. Absolutely nothing about Atlanta. And when I was looking at colleges, I knew I was gonna be an artist. I actually had planned on being a cartoon animator. When I was about nine years old, I read in an encyclopedia that a cartoon animator could make up to a thousand dollars a week. And that was my answer for solving this whole starving artist thing. Like, "I can do this and be an artist and make money? I'm gonna do that."
Rohit Malhotra
"I'm going to make Fred Flintstone black. It's going to happen."
Fahamu Pecou
No, literally, if you ask anybody that I went to high school with, they will tell you that my dream from the time I was nine years old till I got to Atlanta College of Art, I was gonna be the black Walt Disney. That was my thing. But I was looking at colleges and I knew I wanted to do animation, and just kind of searching, trying to find a program for animation, I saw that the Art Institute of Atlanta had an animation program. And so I planned on applying to the Art Institute of Atlanta. But as fate would have it, I think my high school art teacher actually sent some of my work to a recruiter from the Atlanta College of Art who came to my high school to meet me and convince me to come to Atlanta College of Art. He was like, "At Art Institute, you'll get an associate's degree, it's a two year degree. But if you come to Atlanta College of Art, you'll get a fine arts degree. It's a more substantial degree, it's a four-year program. You'll be exposed to the fine arts." I had no idea what the fine arts was. All I knew was I liked to draw. And mind you, growing up in South Carolina, I never went in a gallery, I'd never been in a museum. I just drew cartoons all the time. That was what I did. Anyway, I arrived in Atlanta summer of '93, literally had a box about this big with my clothes and sketchpad and a couple of pencils and $40 in my pocket. That was it.
Rohit Malhotra
Did your family know? Like, "He's not coming back, he's gone to Atlanta forever." Did everyone know Fahamu is now going to be an Atlanta guy, or was it "Ah, he'll be back. Go enjoy Atlanta and we'll see what happens in the future"?
Fahamu Pecou
Like I said, the experience that I had in South Carolina, the home life was very traumatic. Which is probably why I loved school so much. That was my escape. But the home life was very traumatic. So there was no going back. I had no intention of ever going back there. My goal from the time I got there was to get out and get gone. I always love to share this story because I had this––he was technically a cousin, but I called him my uncle growing up. He was an older guy. And he was one of these kind of dudes who... he wasn't your role model. Let's put it that way. When I was younger, he would be homeless, he was the alcoholic, he was on drugs, he was in jail, in and out of jail. And by the time I was in high school, he had kind of cleaned up a little bit enough that he had this job working for the city, doing stuff like fixing potholes and repairing sidewalks and stuff like that. Real, real hard labor stuff. And I had maybe two weeks before I was leaving South Carolina to come to Atlanta. And this uncle was like, "Yo, you got a couple of weeks before you go, you want to make some extra money?" And I was like, "Sure." He was like, "Well, you come work with me, you can make up to $20 an hour." Mind you, this is like 1993. Twenty dollars an hour? He might as well have said a million dollars. So I was like, "Yeah, I'll do it." This is August in South Carolina. The first day I'm on the job, he wakes me up at like 5:30. He's like, "All right, the truck is gonna be here at 6:00, so you gotta get up and get ready." So I'm up. I'm ready. Six o'clock, I'm on a truck. They take us to our first job site. It's a sidewalk that's cracked. And they're like, "We need to repour it." So they put a sledgehammer in my hands and they tell me to break up the concrete and the things so that they could clear it out and repour the concrete. So I got this sledgehammer. It's 6:15. It's 98 degrees outside. I'm ninety pounds at the most. The sledgehammer probably weighs more than me. I'm hitting this thing with everything I got. Pow, pow. And my uncle sees me, he's like, "Hey, man, slow down. It's gonna be a long day." I'm like, "Nah, unc, I'm good, I got this. I'm having fun. I haven't had a sledgehammer in my hands before." Pow. Then I feel my ears pop and I couldn't hear anything. And then everything goes black. I'm like, "Unc I can't see, I can't see." And he's like, "All right, all right." They come over there like, "He's having a heat stroke. Get him some water." [They] pour some water on my neck, then sit me down on the curb. Slowly, my hearing and my vision come back. I'm sweating. I'm exhausted, out of breath. The foreman comes by, he sees me. "Send him home." I'm back in the house by 7:15. 7:15 that morning I'm back in my house. And later that evening after my uncle got off work, he comes in. He hands me a hundred dollars. He's like, "My foreman told me to give this to you. And he told me to tell you not to come back."
Rohit Malhotra
"I think you should go be an artist."
Fahamu Pecou
So my uncle is like––and this is why I love him and I thank him and I cherish him to this day. He says to me, "I took you out there for a reason. I know you wasn't cut out for that, but I knew..." He was like, "I've messed up my life and this is all that I can do. This is the only thing there is for me. You have a choice. So now when you go off to school and you start goofing around and you think you want to start doing all kinds of crazy stuff, remember that when you mess up, this is what you have to look forward to. You need to be someplace in an air conditioned office with your feet under a desk." And with that, I left and never looked back.
Rohit Malhotra
I love that. One of my favorite quotes is by John Adams. He said, "My father was a revolutionary so I could be a businessman and so that my son could be an artist." And ultimately, there is a goal for the ultimate freedom. The ultimate form of expression is is to be able to be an artist and to have that choice. Really beautiful story illuminated by your uncle, which is just awesome. And so you ended up in art school. Tell me a little bit about, if I'm an artist right now and I'm thinking about art school... I know you went to art school in the 1930s or whatever, because you're 180 years old, apparently. But should I go to art school? And particularly if you could tell me a little bit about the demographics of who goes to art school. So often we hear about representation being a challenge and an issue. So as an artist, should I go to art school?
Fahamu Pecou
Yes. First of all, say yes. And I'm going to share a little bit of why I think that was important, especially for me in my own journey. As I said before, growing up, never went into a museum, never went into a gallery, didn't know anything about art. I just like to draw. And I knew I wanted to be an artist, but I had no conception of what that meant. And so I arrive––I never forget. My brother drove down from New York to take me to college. So he and his college buddies drove down, they picked me up, took me to my dorm room. I got my little box in my hand. We get on the elevator. The elevator gets off on my floor. The door opens and there's this white dude covered in tattoos with piercings everywhere, and long pink mohawk. And I've never seen anything like this in my life. I've been in South Carolina, small town South Carolina my entire life. The doors open, I see the weirdest-looking white dude I've ever seen in my life. My brother laughs, pushes me out of the elevator like, "Have fun at art school," pushes a button and closes the door. So it was culture shock for me. But this is why I say my mom has always been right there. So my roommate, when I get there, is a guy from St. Thomas. He's about three or four years older than me. Super chill, super laid back. Nothing riles him up. Just the coolest, coolest guy. But he became my big brother. If it wasn't for him. I don't know how I would have made it. He took care of me. He literally took care of me, and his family took care of me. They would him a care package, they would send me one. But guess when his birthday was? November 11th, the same day as my mom. And he looked out for me those entire four years I was in school, he made sure I was good. I've got to give him a shout. Jermaine Richards. That's my boy to this day. My first day of class, my first class was with Larry Jens Anderson, who's a phenomenal artist here in Atlanta. And we walk into the room. And Larry wrote on the board: "What is art? And so people start throwing out answers to what they think art is, and this was the first time I ever considered that question. I had no idea what to say. I was dumbfounded. I was like, "Oh, what is art, actually?" And that question became like one of those little cartoon clouds, it's following you everywhere. For four years, that cloud was over my head. Which kind of brings me back to the beginning when I told a story about that exhibition that I did as a senior, was when that cloud finally broke up and parted and the sun came out. Because in that moment of watching people interact with my work and see my work and the responses in their head, I realized in that moment what art was, or what art could be. And that shifted everything for me. And so I say all that to say that I think, for a person who wants to become an artist, that art school can be a powerful vehicle. I was exposed to concepts and ideas and methodologies and theories that I would not have gotten at the Art Institute of Atlanta, I'm sure. I met people and had built relationships with people that changed the way that not only I saw art, but the way I saw myself. There was maybe between 5 and 10 percent of the student body at the Atlanta College of Art when I was there [who] were black or people of color. We only had one black professor at the Atlanta College of Art. Like I said, it was a culture shock, but very quickly, I could not see myself, and it became traumatic for me again. Because I didn't have I didn't have Mrs. Peterson's hug anymore. I didn't have that village that had surrounded me. And some of the ideas and some of the things that I was interested in, and I was thinking about, were so foreign to the faculty that they couldn't connect with me and they would push me away from what I was wanting to do.
Rohit Malhotra
What an ironic thing to come to Atlanta and not see blackness. I mean, you're one of the first people who, the culture shock was not us as the black mecca, but instead us as tattooed Little Five Points.
Fahamu Pecou
And it wasn't even Little Five Points because, mind you, the Atlanta College of Art was in the building where the Woodruff Arts Center is. We were the top three floors of the Woodruff Arts building. And so my world of Atlanta, for first two and a half, three years that I was here, was literally Art Center MARTA station to Lindbergh Plaza to Lenox. That's all I knew of Atlanta. That's all I knew of it. And after bumping heads with a few professors, I found out that I could take classes at any college or university in Atlanta and get credit for it at Atlanta College of Art. So I was like, "I want to go to take classes with a black art teacher. I'm going to Morehouse." But at the time, Morehouse didn't have art classes. So somebody was like, "Well, if you want to take art classes, you gotta go to Spelman." That sounds even better. I happily go over to Spelman. So my first day getting off the train at West End to walk up the block to Spelman was culture shock in a completely different way. It was a one-eighty. All of a sudden, it's black people as far as the eye can see all over again. And there, I met my mentor, Dr. Arturo Lindsay, who really pushed me. Like, Arturo––again, this is my mom and my dad influencing my life. Arturo [was] from Panama, immigrated to Brooklyn around the same age that my dad did. So now he comes into my life and he sees me. He sees something in me that I don't see myself. 'Cause I was kind of given up. I was kind of, you know, I'm completely disconnected from anything. Literally at the point that I started going over to Spelman, the semester before, the administrator from Atlanta College of Art brought me in to tell me that I was on academic probation. My GPA had gone from a near four to less than two. And they were like, "If you don't get your grades up by the end of this semester, you're out of here." And the only thing I could see when he said that, as he was talking, I saw that sledgehammer. I started getting heart palpitations. And Arturo was no-nonsense. He was the kind of professor like, if class started at 10 o'clock, the door was locked. So if you were on the other side of it, you weren't coming in. And he quickly challenged me in ways that I hadn't been challenged before. He didn't let me slide through the cracks. He stayed on my back. He would curse me out in critiques. He would dog me out. But he challenged me because he knew that I could do better than what I was giving. He knew I could give more. I'm saying all that is to say that these experiences in college and these experiences in art school helped me become the man that I ultimately am. And I don't know that I would have had that if I hadn't had that experience. I always tell young people who are interested in art, even if you don't go to an art college, if you're interested in art, make that your major. And I know that in the black community and in brown communities, people often like, "Art is not a real job. Go get a real job." But we're seeing more and more that that's nonsense. Art is just as real as anything else. We need art more than we need insurance-men. We need artists more than we need real jobs. I try as much as I can to talk to young people and to show them an example of a living, breathing black man who's an artist who can pay his bills and take care of his family through his art. Arturo was the first person that I saw that looked like me, that had that. I remember when I went to the house for the first time, I thought it was a mansion. It was just a regular house, but I thought he lived in a mansion. But he became the example for me that this is real. This is possible. And I think for our young people, they just need to see us. They need to see more artists successful. They need to see more artists that look like them being successful. And I think for their families too.
Rohit Malhotra
I think about the work of Terri Bradley and Brown Toy Box, where what she's really trying to do is show examples of black surgeons, black astronauts, really put that in front of parents, including black artists, and just showing that there's such a huge spectrum. Being black is not a monolithic experience, or there are so many ways to be black, you just have to see it. Which is really beautiful. I wanted to pivot to representation a bit. Tiffany LaTrice, who runs TILA Studios––a lot of where she has educated us and is a fighter for this city is around the representation of black women in museums and gallery spaces. And the statistics on that are just shocking. Did you see that reflected in art school? And also, why don't we have more art by black female artists? What is the anchoring reason? Is it that not enough black female women are pursuing art? Is it that they are not producing art? What are you doing as an ally in that to make sure that... you know, it's amazing to see you. But I want to see 10,000 of you and 10,000 female versions of you as well. So how do we process that? How does representation come into play when it comes to art?
Fahamu Pecou
I think that that representation is key, because sometimes it's difficult for us to imagine or to envision or to create something that we haven't already seen before. You have to see it in order to manifest it. And I think the challenge kind of goes back to the statement that I was making before about the ways in which black and brown families often deter their children who are interested in careers in the arts or interested in becoming artists from following that path. I can't tell you the number of times I've been invited to HBCU's to show my work or do studio visits with the students there and talk about my experience, and to hear from department leaders and faculty members that the art program is not being properly funded. So they can't support majors and they can't get the funding because they don't get the numbers of students majoring in the programs, and they can't get the students because the students who do come in and want to make that their major, the parents pull them out of the program and make them go take courses in something that they can, quote unquote, get a job in. It's systemic. These disparities are systemic. It's not just an arbitrary thing. I think we have to really work to change the narrative that the arts are not a viable career path. And again, I think one of the beautiful benefits of going into an art school or majoring in an arts program is you get exposed to the multiple pathways that exist within the arts economy. I know a lot of [people] who were interested in art and they love to draw and they love to paint, but [said], "You know what? I think I'm really more interested in becoming a curator." "I think I'm really more interested in becoming an appraiser." "I'm more interested in becoming an art dealer." "I'm more interested in running a nonprofit that supports the arts." "I'm more interested in starting an institution." So if you don't get into those spaces to see that these things exist, it's more difficult for you to then find your way into those paths. And so I think it's imperative that we begin to change the narrative, one. Two, that those of us who are working in this field, that we are deliberate and intentional about making ourselves not only visible, but accessible to young people who are interested in following that path. I try to mentor and work with as many young people as I can. I get a lot of people emailing me, asking how they can work with me or intern with me. And I don't always have space to provide internships and stuff like that. But I'll tell them, you can always ask me any questions that you want. You're always welcome to come and visit. And I'll answer any questions that you have and try to advise you as best as I can from my position. And another thing that I'm doing, you and I have spoken about this briefly, I recently started a museum called ADAMA, the African Diaspora Art Museum of Atlanta. And one of the express and explicit goals of this institution is to be that beacon, to be that visible representation of the diversity within the black art economy. And not just here in Atlanta, and not just here in the United States, but globally, to really engage the global black conversation on art and culture of the 21st century. And our goal, our ambition is to build this institution in a community of black people where they can see it, where they can walk to it, where they can touch it, where they can connect with the artists. Because as we know, most of the arts institutions here are in parts of the city that are not always accessible to people of color or to black people. So we are very intentional about being in a neighborhood like the West End or Pittsburgh or on the south side or the west side where there's a larger community of black and brown people so that they have access to us in a real way.
Rohit Malhotra
That's awesome, man. I'm so excited about the work of ADAMA, and I can't wait to see as that grows and your vision comes to life. Atlanta so desperately needs it. So thank you for taking the initiative to start that. I have two final questions, and then for everyone who is watching, if you want to put questions in the chat box. I know a couple of questions have already come through, so I'll make sure to get to those. But if you have questions for Dr. Pecou, want to make sure that we can get to that. At a certain point, I wanted to hear about your PhD story. And I'm so excited. The last time we sat down face to face, you were just Fahamu Pecou, the artist, and now you're Dr. Fahamu Pecou. It's very important to me that we say that. When I when I worked for President Obama and people would call him Obama, I was like, "No, that's President Obama! He earned that title!" You earned that. So I wanted to just congratulate you there. So two last questions. One builds off of what you just said, and one will bring this home to the connection between our work and yours. The first is around the value of art. You talked about, yes, we need to make sure it's not viewed as an extracurricular activity and we need to make sure that people can see themselves in the art. But ultimately, at the end of the day, when someone sees an artist or they see art, the value of that art is in the eye of the beholder. The beautiful piece of art that you have behind you, which is, I think, a portrait of me, so thank you for you for that, I appreciate that. But if I see that portrait, then I might see it as extremely valuable, whereas the person next to me might say, "I don't get it. I don't see it as valuable." Or when people are commissioning art, someone may say, "Well, I want to pay a couple hundred bucks for that." When we work with Living Walls, and how conscious they are about making sure artists are paid a fair wage for their work, or Dashboard, but they have to fight for that. Oftentimes they have to try to trick or convince or get philanthropy to subsidize the true value of art. If you look at a time like right now, we're really feeling the effects of what happens when you don't invest in art. So how do we change the way people actually invest dollars? Not feelings, not applause, because my Kudos to you and applause doesn't pay your bills, doesn't take care of your kids. How do we make sure we actually value our artists in dollars as a valuable part of our economy? How do we get Invest Atlanta and the people who measure economic prosperity of our city to include artists in that? Because that has to change. "Starving artist" shouldn't be something that we have to say anymore.
Fahamu Pecou
Right. To your point, I called Georgia Power last month and gave them a round of applause and it did not work for paying my bill. But, yeah, I think it goes back to what we were talking about before with respect to investing in the art. I think when we make these investments in the arts in schools and in early education, when we see that and seed that into communities from an earlier age, we see that it changes how people then respond to the arts as adults. So when we learn, when we begin to experience or transform the way that we experience art as, like I said, not something extracurricular, but as an extension of who we are, that changes the way we then value art. Because we understand that it is a part of who we are, it's essential to who we are. And it's essential to how we connect to one another, how we connect business and industry. Art is the through line. There's not an executive or a political leader or academic leader who isn't in their house right now with art around them.
Rohit Malhotra
When we look at the money, though, it's always going to the same types of buildings that you originally walked into in Atlanta. It doesn't seem like there's a lack of funding for marble buildings and fancy art. It always seems like there's a particular type of art or particular type of artist that always has to beg for being valued and seen. It seems like the narrative of, "It's an extension of us, it's our story, it's important," people aren't buying it at the end of the day. I'm worried that we're seeing art as charity. And art is not charity, its fundamental to how we thrive. I'm trying to break through that and change that, and it seems like an uphill battle.
Fahamu Pecou
Yeah. I think there's a lot of work still to be done in creating really significant levels of engagement across all sectors in the arts. And when I say all sectors, I don't just mean in terms of disciplines, but also in terms of social discourses. This is why I think ADAMA is important and essential, because it helps to tell and propel a story about particular experiences that are not always given the space in other institutions. The High Museum, I love to death. I'm on the board. But the High Museum can only do so much. And it's almost surreal that we live in a city like Atlanta, a major, major global metropolis that has like, two arts institutions. Every other city has four or five or six that are representing different voices. Every voice needs to be at the table, right? And we see this all the time when we talk about diversity and inclusion in corporate spaces, or in marketing and advertising. We critique and we challenged a kind of tone-deafness that happens when a board of all white men make decisions about what's important for this diverse community of people. So the way that we challenge that in those spaces is by pushing for really deep and impactful diversity and inclusion measures that ensure that multiple voices from multiple walks of life and from multiple experiences are all around the table. We need to do the same thing in the arts in terms of institutional representation in the city. All of those voices need to be around the table in the city. And it can't just be one museum trying to be that voice for everybody. So we need an ADAMA in Atlanta to counter the High Museum, to talk to MOCA GA, to talk to the contemporary, to talk to the History Center and to talk to the Civil Rights Museum. We need all of these voices together, because here and only here can we really say that we are representing everybody and that we are taking everybody into account, everybody's voice into account.
Rohit Malhotra
I love that. I think it's the greatest reflection of what the Atlanta way is supposed to be. And that is so true. My last question, and then we have a couple questions that came in, and then we'll let you go about your day. I know you've got kids that are practicing math, and yelling at sure, I'm sure, so I'm sure you've got plenty to do. But the last question from me is the role that artists should play in public policy. This is something that I know we both have a mutual friend in, Killer Mike. Something Mike and I talk a lot about is, he's like, "Look, I sing and dance for a living. But I'm from Atlanta. That's what I fight for." And we were connected for the first time, you and I, through a mutual friend, Bem Joiner, who was also part of the founding team at CCI. And this was the challenge we grappled with, which is, when it's convenient, we like to have artists at the table for public policy. We like to display their art and be like, "Look how much we care about the arts." And we tell this glorious story of Atlanta through its art scene, and on the back of its art scene. But when it comes to actual public policy, when it comes to the displacement of the communities where that art actually comes from, or the actual voice suppression of artists during times where they feel like their voices actually need to be heard, regulations and restrictions on what art can be produced. What is art? Honestly, public policy gets to decide that sometimes, regardless of what the public may say. So what is the role for artists in our policy, policymaking, being at the table, in our legislation? How do we make it so that Atlanta isn't only just, as Bem says, influencing everything, but also that it is having an influence on its own progression? It seems like Atlanta gets so worried about everybody else that it forgets to take care of where it came from, and the artists like you who make this a place that everybody wants to be in. They don't want to be here for the fancy buildings. They're here because of you. They're here because of people like you. So how do we capitalize on that and really own that as a fundamental part of who we are?
Fahamu Pecou
First off, shout to Bem and Killer Mike. Both really good brothers and both I've learned a great deal from. And to that point, I think one of the things that I love about Bem the most is the way that he––Bem is everywhere. I think he has clones. I don't understand how he does it, but he's at every table. And this goes back to, if we're talking about being genuine in terms of how we are making policy that serves a community, every voice of that community has to be represented. We don't need a puppeteer. We don't need somebody to speak for the arts. Artists need to be able to speak for themselves. One of the earlier ideas around ADAMA, before became an institution, one of my earlier ideas for it was to be an advocacy group, because I think that's one of the things that Atlanta, in particular, lacks when it comes to the arts. In other cities, you have really strong advocacy groups that will petition and challenge and protest and go to the meetings and be vocal about what the art community in those particular spaces need. Atlanta doesn't have that. And so oftentimes, things happen, and the artists and the creative community are the last ones considered. "The building is up now. Oh wait, let's get something on the wall."
Rohit Malhotra
"You can make something for me, make it look pretty. I need to make sure that people feel safe and comfortable here," right?
Fahamu Pecou
Yeah, and we have to shift. Again, this goes back to the point I've been making all along. Art is not outside of us. It's an extension of who we are. It is who we are. Sadly, Atlanta is in a place, still, of recovering from its own trauma within the arts community, which goes back to––I believe it was in the 1940s with the crash that killed a large contingency of activists and advocates for the arts in Atlanta and Paris. And I don't know that the city ever fully recovered from that loss. The Woodruff Arts Center was created as a result of that. But there's still so much more work to be done. Again, the Woodruff Arts Center, amazing space. Doug Shipman, amazing leader, one of my very, very good friends. But the Arts Center can't be everything for everyone. We need multiple voices to make the Woodruff Arts Center's voice even more loud, to project that voice even more. Making a reference to my Glee Club days, if I'm standing outside singing, a few people might hear me. But if you join me, Rohit, and Killer Mike joins me and Doug joins me and Ran from The High joins me and Tiffany LaTrice joins me, and we're all singing now together in unison, in harmony, a voice goes that much further. A voice reaches that many more people. And the more of us who come together to make ourselves and our presence known, the more impactful we can ultimately be.
Rohit Malhotra
I love that band. I hope that even beyond this conversation, I want to do that. You hold me to that. I'll hold you to the same. And I think there's a huge opportunity. We can work with organizations that have been doing arts advocacy for a long time. Shout out to C4 and a number of organizations that have been on the ground grinding at this. I think if we can all come together and really centralize around some key principles, I would love to be a part of an effort like that. So we will definitely follow up on that with you. And you're the perfect catalyst for something like that, as you always have been for these types of conversations. So thank you for bringing that up. So last, we had a couple of questions that that came in and we will end with those. The first question is, you know, throughout this whole thing, we didn't say the word "COVID" once. So yes! Take that global pandemic.
Fahamu Pecou
We defeated it. We defeated it.
Rohit Malhotra
Yeah, exactly, exactly. Let's just open everything now. That's the closest public policy has gotten. So the first question comes from our Senior Director of Programs, Sagdrina Jalal, who asked, how do you see the effects of the blindness to black humanity playing out during the current health crisis? So I'll repeat that. How do you see the effects of the blindness to black humanity playing out?
Fahamu Pecou
I think it's pretty evident when you look at the disparities in the numbers of cases and the numbers of deaths that have been a result of this virus. There's been so much, not only misinformation, but disinformation that has really skewed the way communities are being impacted by the virus. But I think there's also other factors that come into play, which primarily have to do with economics. So you have communities of black and brown people who don't have the luxury of staying at home. Some of them are the ones who have to make those deliveries and work the grocery stores and the restaurants, and they have to be out. You also have people where the home environment is not safe. And so there's all of these factors, these mitigating factors that go over, above and beyond the health crisis, but that are really rooted in socioeconomic crisis that has just been gaslighted by this virus. So I think even beyond trying to overcome the health crisis, what's been laid there is something that people have been arguing and pushing and trying to fight for a really long time and just have not been able to get their voices heard. A deaf ear has been turned to the complaints from these communities. And we now see more than ever that these points are valid. It's similar to, for decades, the black community has complained about police overreach and violence in black communities and excessive force amongst police officers, programs like stop and frisk, which disproportionately impact black and brown people. And people were like, "No, you guys are just complaining. Quit your bellyaching." Until that stuff started to play out on television where you see cops shooting people and choking people out on your television screen, and now they're like, "Oh, wait, this is a real problem." Oh, it's been a real problem. And so it's the same thing with this COVID stuff. We've been saying that we're disproportionately impacted from lack of access to healthy food and healthy options. We're disproportionately impacted from having jobs that allow us to have safe home environments, et cetera, et cetera. And now you're seeing it play out in real time. And so we have a lot of work to do.
Rohit Malhotra
Yeah, I agree. Inequality existed well before COVID-19. Atlanta was named the most unequal city of the United States just a few years ago. It continues to be the most unequal city in the United States. That means when things like COVID hit, it disproportionately affects communities that have been hit for years and years and years and years. And so when the levees break, they only break in poor black and brown communities. That's just always how it is.
Fahamu Pecou
That's where the deepest cracks are.
Rohit Malhotra
Yup, exactly right. So thank you for pointing that out. Last question we have comes from a person with the last name "Charles." I don't want to butcher your first name. And they said, "How did you know your mentor was the right person for you?"
Fahamu Pecou
That's an interesting question, because we joke about this all the time. But when Dr. Arturo Lindsay, when I first came to him to take his class and I walked into his room, my chest was puffed out, and he was like, "You go to the Atlanta College of Art. Why are you at Spelman taking a painting class?" And I was like, "Because I want to study with a black teacher." He was like, "Well, first of all, don't come to me because I'm black. Come to me because I'm good." From there, it was like a pushing match. It was this sort of back and forth. But even when he was very tough for me, even when he was very hard on me, even when he was cursing me out, somewhere deep inside, I knew that he did it because he cared. And there's a lot of people out there, teachers and professors and whatever it may be, who demand stuff from you, but lack care and concern. And there's something that is really different when you understand why someone is demanding more from you. This is something that I talk about with my son all the time. He's eleven years old and he hates doing math. Sometimes his work will be sloppy and I'll be like, "Do it over, go write it over." He breaks down, and he's crying, "I don't want to write. Why do I have to write it over?" And I tell him all the time, "If you do it right the first time, you don't have to do it again. And I demand that you do your best always, because if you do your best, it doesn't have to be perfect. I just need to know that you tried." And I think Arturo was that way with me. He wanted me to try. He wanted to see me try. He could see that I wasn't trying it. And ultimately, that relationship became really special and powerful for me because, through him pushing me, I saw myself become better. And that's how you know that you had to have a good mentor, is when the mentor is not there to stoke his or her own ego, but to push you to become better than where you are. And when I can look back at my work and see myself achieve and accomplish things that I didn't even know were possible, it changed me. I was like, "Wow, I can do this. It's easier than I thought it was going to be. All I had to do was make an effort." And I think that's the mark of a good mentor, is that they push you to do more than you thought you can do.
Rohit Malhotra
Yeah. My teammate, Sagdrina, always says our job in management is to hold people to their greatness. And I really, really have learned from that. So that's beautiful. All right. So I want to end this on a high note. You said you used music as a way to get through a lot of good times, tough times, all the times. And you like 60s soul. So let's sing this together. You'll know the words immediately. We'll just do the first part. But I would love to bring people home to have a great, great rest of their day. So I'll start with, "I got sunshine...".
Fahamu Pecou
On a cloudy day...
Rohit Malhotra
When it's cold outside...
Fahamu Pecou
I got the month of May.
Together
Well, I guess you'd say...
Fahamu Pecou
What could make me feel this way? My girl...
Rohit Malhotra
Thank you so much, man. I appreciate you so much. I'm so in love with you and who you are. I know you said as a kid you wanted to be the next Walt Disney, but it is my true belief that children in the future will say they want to be the next Fahamu Pecou. You're really special, man. You're such a gem and such an important part of Atlanta. So we're so, so grateful for your time.
Fahamu Pecou
Thank you. Thank you very much. This was a thrill. I really enjoyed it. And shout out to everybody who's been watching. Thanks, Atlanta, for tuning in. Appreciate you.
Rohit Malhotra
Yeah, man. Check out ADAMA We're so excited. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Have a great rest of your morning.
Fahamu Pecou
You, too. Peace.