Partner Digital Presentation
They Still Want to Kill Us
Daniel Bernard Roumain, composer
J’Nai Bridges, mezzo-soprano
Yoram Savion, filmmaker
Play
On May 25, 2021, UMS and other arts institutions across the nation will premiere the short film “They Still Want To Kill Us,” an aria by composer and activist Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR), performed by mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges, and directed by filmmaker Yoram Savion, to mark the 100th anniversary of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. It speaks truth to what transpired: an atrocity all but deleted from history until recently.
About the Work (Statement from Daniel Bernard Roumain)
What happened to American citizens on May 31, 1921 in Tulsa, Oklahoma was a massacre by white people perpetrated upon Black people. A toxic mix of misinformation, bigotry, ignorance, and white rage ignited a race war that left hundreds dead and a nation still struggling for its identity. My son is biracial and I wonder and worry about his own fight for freedom and justice and self-identity in a country where we cannot agree on a shared morality.
It seems to me some white people still want to kill us (Black people) and the murder of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd and so many others is evidence of this blood lust sewn deep within the depraved, American psyche. Violence against BIPOC people is part of our American history, and the AAPI, the BIPOC, the LGBTQIA+, the disabled, and all those opposed to the privileged, global majority have always faced a choice: be still and silent or lift up your voice and move mountains!
The audacity and hypocrisy to ask God to bless America is not lost on me or many of my friends. God Damn America has its place. We all choose to move mountains and create new spaces for our communities. This is the work of social justice and global change.
What are the words and methods of The New Racism? Everyday we are witness to it. Together, we can fight back and find love among the willing.
DBR
Brooklyn, NY
March 21, 2021
This work of social justice and global change is produced by Rika Iino and Ichun Yeh of Sozo Creative with support from Phillips Theological Seminary in Tulsa, OK, and is commissioned by the Apollo Theater, Opera Philadelphia, the Fine Arts Center at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Capital One City Parks Foundation SummerStage Anywhere, Joe’s Pub, Stanford Live, University Musical Society at the University of Michigan, Zoellner Arts Center at Lehigh University, The Arts Center at NYU Abu Dhabi, Creative Alliance, Bill Bragin, and Washington Performing Arts with support from National Sawdust and the Lotus Education and Arts Foundation, distributed by ActiveCultures, Esty Dinur, globalFEST, ¡Globalquerque!, and HotHouse.