Aymar Jean Christian: Revolutionary Times

This weekend I sat down with my dear friend, scholar, media producer, and social practice artist Aymar Jean Christian. Aymar and I met at a #BlackLivesMatter panel at the University of Chicago, shortly after the acquittal of George Zimmerman. At the time, we were both relatively new to Chicago and trying to find our creative and political home. We clicked right away and have been collaborating on creative projects, supporting each other’s work, and building community ever since. Currently, Dr. Christian is an associate professor of communications at Northwestern University and the co-founder of OTV a platform Chicago-based intersectional television.

Aymar: I’ve heard a couple of times people use the metaphor of a birth process and we’re just in the contractions and we know that change is coming and it’s not going to be easy and comfortable, but we’re all in one place. 

Irina: That’s a really interesting metaphor that I haven’t heard. And now I’m wondering if we’re going to have a C-section? Have we made plans with our doula and now that’s no longer possible? Are we going to give birth in an elevator? This is not the birth that we all expected. 

Aymar: We definitely did not have a plan with a doula. Societally what we really do in birth in the US is we do a lot of C-sections. We also disregard what women of color are saying about their own bodies. I think we are doing some of that stuff. The trillions that congress and the Fed have thrown around are C-section stuff but we know there’s a whole lot of other things going on and we might want to take our time and sort our issues before we ... 

Irina: Right, who does a C-section benefit and who is harmed? Who gets to decide? Who gets to have agency in that decision? And what expertise is trusted? 

Aymar: Ooh, yes. Hospitals are my most triggering place as a Black person. It’s one of those things that I can speak from direct experience. I think a lot of white people don’t think of the hospital as a scary place because they get treated like human beings there. Sometimes we do; but, it’s such a profound experience to be in a situation with someone when they don't give a shit about you and genuinely don't see you as a human. It’s an undeniable thing because it’s generally uncommon. In your day to day, even as a Black person, if you surround yourself with people who love you, they’re engaging with you on some level of humanity. So when it doesn’t happen you’re like “whoa.” 

And of course at the hospital you’re thinking about your very existence and life so my anxiety just goes to ten. And it’s not paranoia because it’s based in fact. Doctors don’t believe us, the things that we say about our own bodies and they’re way more likely to underestimate how much pain we’re actually in and undertreat; it’s happened to family members of mine. My sense of the political moment in the United States is that, like in the process of birth there’s this possibility of hope, there’s also for me such an awareness that healing has never been at the center of this country, especially for people who look like me. So it could be really bad. 

Irina: What are you reading right now? 

Aymar: I’m reading Black Marxism, it’s an intellectual history of how capitalism arose and how that aroused counter-intellectual thought but because it wasn’t able to deal with race, it wasn’t able to deal with capitalism. It criques Black intellectualism. The book seems to address the questions that Black Marxism was rooted in the Black bourgeoisie. I don’t know if Cedric Robinson would say it this way, but there were Black mass movements that weren’t so much governed by Black Marxism as they were operating out of their understanding of their own conditions. Now people use the term AfroSocialist, which I think is a clunky term. There are a lot of Socialists today who still don’t know how to talk about race. They address that racism exists, but they don’t know how to apply it. They just talk about redistributing from the rich, but we’ve tried that and it still hasn’t helped Black people. 

Irina: What time do you think it is on the clock of the world? 

Aymar: Is there any way to see it other than revolutionary times? I feel like for decades, folks who have gone through previous revolutions were saying that there’s going to be a global revolution at some point it’s just inevitable. Oftentimes a spark is necessary. With so much of the world in their homes in - not similar - but in circumstances that we’re all having at the same time, and the way power is exerting control, people are already protesting sometimes at the risk of their own lives and their own communities. Very scary. 

There’s also that sense of what is possible and change and it just feels like it’s going to be complicated. Times are going to be hard in some ways, but other things we thought were never going to be possible will be. Like various forms of collective action, that is necessary for survival and getting everyone what they need. This is me being optimistic, of course. That is what I’m reading from people who are being self reflective about what’s going on. I definitely think that some people are in trauma responses, some people are having a lot of loss in their lives; loss of income, jobs, sense of self. It’s ok if people are in a place where they can’t hit the street or call their congressmen; it’s ok to just take care of yourself. Revolutions are never everyone all at once. It’s always parts of the population that feel that need. 

I really hope that people start thinking more collectively. For what I do, I’m looking forward to there being less money in Hollywood and less production. Unfortunately that means that some people from my communities will lose work. Maybe then they’ll start working with each other and build something else; stop seeing each other as competitors and start seeing each other as accomplices. I’ve been thinking for years that something will happen that brings us together; but I never envisioned the scenario. The situation where no one can work is maybe how it’s going to happen. Solidarity is hard and there’s nothing that incentivizes it in capitalism. 

Irina: I think that’s so right, because so many of the art movements we look to and even individual artists, the most creative times in history have been times of struggle. People are not the most innovative and generous when they’re only driven by competition or profit. 

Aymar: A lot of artists have only seen consumerism rewarded. As much television as there is, a lot of it uses the same narrative structures. Most shows assume that capitalism is good and rich people are deserving because they’re smarter, and that’s just not true. Some artists are having anxiety and are at a loss creatively because they know that something is wrong and they can’t quite pinpoint it. They’re ultimately realizing that they have to sell their story but that also means that there's politics they have to contend with and there’s an easy way out and there’s a hard way out. The easy way out is just to do what generally speaking has been done; and people are thinking outside of that, but it’s a slow process of reimagining. We had a reading for a show the other day, and it was an idea that a writer had already had, and someone liked the idea and they pulled together a pilot that was so brilliant. And I was like “you did this in two weeks?!?” I’m really excited about what’s being created right now, what’s gestating that can’t be seen. Anything you produce now is only going to get done collectively. The collective mindset.