Young and Old
Learn Answer to Racism
at Brooklyn
Children's Museum
By Alice Bernstein
On a recent fall afternoon, the Brooklyn
Children's Museum featured a tremendous special event, The Heart Knows
Better, which will be repeated on Sunday, Dec. 9th, in relation to
its exhibition Face to Face on prejudice and discrimination. The
museum invited distinguished filmmaker Ken Kimmelman, who is an Aesthetic
Realism Consultant, to show three of his short films against racism and
to speak about how the knowledge of Aesthetic Realism, founded by the great
poet and educator Eli Siegel, enables prejudice to change to kindness.
On the program were his Emmy award-winning public service film, The
Heart Knows Better, broadcast on television worldwide and shown at
every game at Yankee Stadium; and two films he made for the United Nations:
Brushstrokes and Asimbonanga.
Mr. Kimmelman
was joined by public school teachers and Aesthetic Realism Associates Lauren
Phillips and Barbara McClung, and they addressed two enthusiastic audiences
of parents and little ones up to 12 years old in the museum's amphitheater.
Still
from Emmy award-winning The Heart Knows Better by Ken Kimmelman
First they showed The Heart Knows Better,
which begins with an animated beating heart and the words: "Is this the
heart -- of a black person?" The question is repeated, and older children
read aloud, "Is this the heart of -- a white person, a Latino person, an
Asian person?" As the warm red heart, framed by a blue glow, gracefully
fills the screen we see these words:
| "It will be found that black and white man have the same goodnesses,
the same temptations and can be criticized in the same way. The skin may
be different, but the aorta is quite the same. -- Eli Siegel, Founder of
Aesthetic Realism." |
Young and old responded with exuberant applause,
and in the discussions which followed, new, important ideas of Aesthetic
Realism were presented:
| 1) Prejudice doesn't begin with skin color or ethnic background;
it begins with how a person sees the world different from oneself. There
is a fight in every person -- whether you are 3, 10, or 87 -- between seeing
the world with respect or contempt.
2) All prejudice arises from contempt -- the hope to be superior
by looking down on other people and things. When we see that true importance
doesn't come from building yourself up by making less of the world and
people, but from wanting to know and be fair to what's different from us,
prejudice ends.
3) Liking the world is the deepest desire of every person; and the
way to like the world is by seeing it is made well -- it has a structure
we can respect and like -- a oneness of opposites. |
I give some highlights from their exciting, rich
presentations.
What
Is the World? How Should We See It?
Lauren Phillips asked the children
if they knew what the world is. She told them that Mr. Siegel defined the
world as "all that which begins where your fingertips end," and requested
that everyone hold out their hands. As the audience did, people's faces
showed wonder when the speakers explained, "Everything that is outside
your fingertips is the world. You can touch what you're sitting on -- the
seat is the world; the person sitting next to you is the world." A boy
looking surprised, pointed to another boy--"Him?" "Yes, the boy
next to you -- isn't he the world?" The child looked doubtful. "He's not
you,
is he?" Then his look changed to discovery. And people were seeing that
to someone else, you are the world. "There's ourselves and there's
the whole world," the speakers said; "Our job is to be fair to what's not
us, and that includes people whose skin looks different from ours and people
in other countries."
To illustrate the fight in
people about how to see the world, they took out a big, colorful beach
ball. Mr. Kimmelman threw the ball to Ms.Phillips who smugly turned her
back on it, and let it bounce away. He threw the ball again, and this time
she eagerly caught it. "Did you respect Miss Phillips when she caught the
ball, or when she didn't want to?" they asked. "When she caught it," answered
a boy. "Who wants to catch the ball?" they asked. The response was rousing
and unanimous. Applause and cheers greeted each child's successfully doing
so.
Mr. Kimmelman asked, "When
do you think a person's more proud of himself, when he's having respect
for the world or contempt?" A youth in the back row happily called out
"Respect!"
Still from Anti-racism film
Brushstrokes
by Ken Kimmelman made for the
United Nations
The
Fight between Contempt and Respect
Everybody, Mr. Kimmelman said, is in a fight between
respecting the world, wanting to know and be fair to it, or having contempt.
The choice for contempt, he said, is the cause of all prejudice. "You feel
like a big-shot when you think less of someone, but later you always feel
ashamed." Prejudice they showed, begins in ordinary ways: you can be against
certain foods even though you've never tasted them. Families can prefer
their relatives and think other families are not as important. We can be
prejudiced against people who are taller or shorter than we are.We can
also look down on someone because they have a rip in their sweater.
"The everyday way we can stick
out our tongues and say pooh pooh," Mr. Kimmelman said, "is what leads
to horrors like racism and war." Each speaker spoke courageously about
prejudice in themselves, and how it changes when a person learns to criticize
contempt, and to see the feelings of other people as real and as deep as
one's own.
Still from Brushstrokes
by Ken Kimmelman
Next they showed Brushstrokes, an animated
film set to original jazz music of Major Holley and tap dance rhythms by
Jimmy Slyde, which shows vividly that prejudice is contempt for difference.
It is about a green brushstroke who thinks he's better than all other colors
and shapes. When he meets them he growls and is mean. He only likes to
be with green brushstrokes.
"Did you think the green brushstroke
was smart?" the children were asked. "No!" many replied. "Why not?" "Because
he didn't like the other colors," a child answered. "Was he prejudiced?"
"Yes." "Would the world be beautiful if it only had green brushstrokes?"
"No!" was the immediate reply. "It would be boring," said a girl. "Yes,"
said Mr. Kimmelman, "we need the difference of the world to be more
ourselves."
The film ends as the green brushstroke
finds his real importance is his relation to all colors and shapes, as
he takes his place in a mosaic which we discover is a huge picture of the
world.
The
Opposites in Ourselves and the World
Every time we see the opposites
as one, the speakers explained, we like the world and respect it. For example,
Mr. Kimmelman showed that everyone is both hard and soft. He gave an example
he saw Mr. Siegel give as he asked everyone to make a fist. "Do you feel
something hard? There's bone there, and anger when you make a fist." Then
he showed how the same hand can softly touch your cheek.
Ms. McClung took a broom
leaning against the wall. "It's got one handle and many fibers on the end
-- one and many. Think about it," she said, "if this broom was just one
stick, would it be very useful for sweeping things up?" "No," they replied.
"And if it was all fuzzy, wild fibers, would it be easy to hold onto?"
"No," children answered. "So we need both - one and many -- to have the
broom be useful to us." A little girl began applauding with delight as
she saw the opposites as one in that broom!
The children were learning
that you don't want to have contempt for a world you see as friendly, and
you won't want to be mean to a person if you see they have the opposites
in them -- hard and soft, same and different -- opposites which make up
the world and everything in it.
From Brooklyn Children's
Museum exhibition, Face to Face
I am so grateful that I began
to learn this as a child in Aesthetic Realism classes with Eli Siegel,
which I attended with my parents and others. As a girl, without knowing
it, I hoped to be important by feeling superior to others and this desire
made me unkind both to people I knew -- like my younger sister, whose looks
and manners were different from mine - and people I didn't know. I remember
with deep regret calling a little boy I didn't know an ugly name because
his skin looked different from mine. In lessons when I was young, I learned
that other people had feelings as deep as mine, and that I could have a
good time and be more myself by wanting to know and be fair to them.
The thrill of learning that is as fresh as ever, and I know this education
enables children to make choices they can be proud of all their lives.
.Montage
from Asimbonanga a film
by Ken Kimmelman made for the
United Nations
The
Art of the Film Opposes Contempt and Racism
The last film, Asimbonanga, based on a song
by Johnny Clegg and sung by Joan Baez, shows contempt running a whole nation,
and juxtaposes images of the deadly racism of apartheid in South Africa
with images of courage by many people, including Steve Biko, Gloria Mxenge
and Nelson Mandela.
When I asked Julie McCurdy,
a student-teacher who came with her nieces, what stood out for her, she
said: "I feel different somehow; I feel lifted because I have a better
understanding." Aziza Arnette, an elementary school teacher said: "I was
looking for a method of teaching this subject and here it is. This is great!
Are they going to do this presentation all over the world?"
.Ken
Kimmelman.
Mr. Kimmelman has
addressed schools and organizations on Aesthetic Realism as the solution
to racism, including at Harvard University sponsored by the Campus Outreach
Opportunity League.
I respect Ken Kimmelman, Lauren
Phillips and Barbara McClung for their presentation, and the Brooklyn
Children's Museum for hosting it. This exciting, deep event will be
repeated Sunday, December 9, at 1:30 and 3pm, at the Brooklyn Children's
Museum, 145 Brooklyn Avenue, (718) 735-4574.
To learn more about Aesthetic
Realism, including classes for young people, contact the not-for-profit
Aesthetic Realism Foundation, 141 Greene St., NYC 10012, (212) 777-4490;
www.AestheticRealism.org.
For information about Ken Kimmelman's films call Imagery
Film, Ltd.
(212) 243-5579.
Note: Alice Bernstein is an Aesthetic Realism
Associate and writer whose articles on Aesthetic Realism as the knowledge
that explains the cause and answer to racism, what is really happening
in the economy, and the deepest questions about love and the family, appear
in many newspapers, including her regular column "Alice Bernstein and Friends"
in La Vida News/The Black Voice of Ft. Worth and Arlington, Texas.
She is married to photographer David M. Bernstein, and together they study
in classes taught by Ellen Reiss, the Class Chairman of Aesthetic Realism..
This article appears in other newspapers, including:
New
York Beacon, Caribbean Life (NYC), Philadelphia Sunday Sun,
Tennessee
Tribune (Nashville, Memphis, Knoxville, Chattanooga, Jackson, TN &
Huntsville, AL), Chicago Independent Bulletin,
La Vida News/The
Black Voice (Ft. Worth & Arlington, TX), U.S. African Eye
(International)
Related websites:
Art
Gallery Worldwide: Art work in different styles and media
|
Home
