Half the Sky, homeless outreach, Paul Robeson festival

He said, unbuy your long arms, girl. I'll unpack the summer, I'll wash out the sea. Put on your light skin, girl. I'll dust off the skies, blow the wind through the trees. Cause I'm longing to hold you tonight. So let's tell the brightest stars to turn out their lights. Oh, oh, oh. Oh, oh, oh. Oh, oh, oh. Oh, oh, oh. Oh, oh, oh. Oh, oh, oh. Oh, oh, oh. Train whistle blows. Slow down. Slow it down. On tracks your eyes were like moon pies. Sweet and a little bitter in brown. When I brought you here, I didn't know that train would steal your joy. Blood is on the pedale now. Pedale is over now. Oh. Oh, oh, oh. Oh, oh, oh. Love in a Molletown by Debra Pemberty. Welcome to the Qumran Report. May the peace and blessings of the life-giving, creative spirit be upon you and upon your family. My name is Melvin Ishmael Johnson, coming at you live from Skid Row Studios, and I'm in the studio with my co-host, Earlene Anthony. Anthony. Now you can listen to us live or download our show and any past show by googling in Coon Round Report. Our call in number is 800-893-9562. You can call in if you want to ask a question or just chat with me or some of the guests. Call 800-893-9562. Welcome to the Coon Round Report. Now this week on the Coon Round Report, we will talk about some community happenings, starting off with Debra Penberti talking about the Half the Sky Project and also some interviews about Feed the Homeless, Feed the Soul. I have Claudia and Tanya, I'll get that right, in the studio. With us and we also going to do some interviews with Robert Clemens, Dwayne Perry and Willis Boyd and Shante Duncan talking about the Paul Robeson Puppet Show and the Paul Robeson Festival coming up this weekend. Now Debra, can you tell our listening audience just a little about the Half the Sky Project? Yeah, well Half the Sky is an international movement that is sparked by the book by Nicholas Kristof and Debra Penberti. His writing partner that is about how all the things that are happening to women and girls all around the world, sex trafficking, sex elective abortions, like in China where it's state policy that girl children are aborted, that sort of thing. And the movement is to stop the things that are happening and to support all of the great things that are happening to change it, like people who are liberating brothels, people who are educating young girls and women about infant mortality and how to take care of mother and baby and that sort of thing. So it's an international movement and I'm really, it's a thing that I'm very passionate about. I've been involved as a peace activist all my life. And so I wrote a song that I mean to be a theme song for the movement. It's not officially attached to it, but I've written it. It's called Half the Sky and now I have the Half the Sky Song Project. So I go around mainly to houses of worship and I sing the song, which is to generate energy for the movement and to educate people about the movement. And then the pastor gives a call to the pastor and he says, Hey, can you help me with this? And then the pastor gives a call to action, ask people to sign petitions, to sign recent legislation and to find out about the movement and that sort of thing. So it's really to just, it's kind of like a, we are the world type of thing to just use music to make positive change. Okay. Okay. And we're going to play the song in just a minute, but you said something, can you say that again about, did I get that correctly? You say that the girls born in China aborted? Well, there are places where it is a little bit more common to have a girl child. So it's, it's basically very common to abort girl children because the population has to stay down. And like in China, there's a one child policy. And so a lot of people do not want to have a girl child. So I guess it's actually a, it's an overstatement to say the state policy to abort the girl children, but it is, um, most people want a boy. And so there's a huge imbalance in the population now because so many people have aborted their girl children, that there are many, many men that cannot marry someone because there just aren't enough women around. Um, and that's, that's only part of the issue, but the other issue is just the valuing of women. I mean, the fact that you would abort a child based on its sex because you didn't want it is really tragic. And so, um, this movement is to say no more, these things can't just be acceptable. Um, not in, in this country too, Los Angeles is one of the capitals for human trafficking. Well, one of the amazing thing about that is, um, in the pre Islamic society, you know, that, that was a common, um, uh, thing because, uh, no female female female female female female female female female female female female female female female female female female female female female female female female female female female female female female female female female female female female female female female female female female female female female female female female female female female female female female female female female female female female female female female female female before before we play the song i want to ask you another question why do you think there's so much oppression of women all over the world well that's a really good question i mean it's become institutionalized it's become accepted um there's a view of power around the world the power is to dominate rather than the power to take care of um you know if you look back to the goddess religions power was viewed as the power to take care of the the people in the village um but there's become this might makes right sort of idea around the world that if you have the might of the sword you have the might of that sort of power then you're right and so i i mean i guess you know one reason is just that people haven't really stood up and said hey this is not acceptable and that's really what this book is about is and there's people in the west who say oh we shouldn't impose our values on the east but at a certain point you know we imposed values all around the world or people did saying slavery is not right in the 19th century that was the big cause okay we didn't completely end it but you know we didn't completely end it but you know we didn't completely end it but you know we didn't completely end it but you know we didn't completely end it but you know okay when when when we get to our community roundtable i probably want to open it up and get some more feedback since we got some more women's uh in the studio yeah uh to get that take on that but look let's hear the song uh half the sky and we come back and talk about that for a while oh half the sky we hold up half the sky in wonder but half the sky is bleeding fading from sight well i see the sky i see the sky is changing we are gathering our sisters changing rage into might you can call me stuck in ways you can say i'm a dreamer tell me there's a way we can find what's always been true he saw a glimpse of modern day we are leading our daughters like as we plot out half the sky we hold up I see the hard rain. I see the rains are coming. They are coming to seed my hopes, laying my heart there. There are people that acclaim, most people live as they choose. They'll find a way to say only the loose women lose. But back in abolition days, people claimed to be a slave was a virtue. Lincoln said it's hard to find a free man in us to prove that true. So we must hold up half the sky. We'll hold up half the sky in wonder. Until the day of wonder gives way. To a peace when half the sky, half the sky rejoins us. Our mothers, brothers, sisters holding the sky. Our mothers, brothers, sisters holding the sky. Our mothers, brothers, sisters holding our whole sky. Come on. We're stuck in ways. Safe. I'm a dreamer. Hold up half the sky. We're stuck in ways. Safe. I'm a dreamer. Hold up half the sky. We're stuck in ways. Our mothers, brothers, sisters holding half the sky. Our mothers, brothers, sisters holding half the sky. Okay, Half the Sky, beautiful song, Deborah Penberthy. Can you tell us about the event that you've got coming up this coming Thursday, right? Yeah, yeah, I'd love to. This Thursday, I'm having a celebration fundraiser for my upcoming CD. I've been writing music since the 90s, but I've never made a CD and kind of invested in my music in that way. So I'm doing that now. It's a rather expensive project. And so I'm doing a variety show to raise money for it. And it's at Troop Unitarian Church in Pasadena. I know that you held this up to the camera before. I don't know if this is going to show that well. It's at Troop Unitarian in Pasadena at 300 South Los Robles Avenue. And it's from 8 to 11 on Thursday. And there's going to be several different bands. Nona Music, which is Sam Keeble's band. There's going to be Robert Amerson is a great guitarist in town. There's going to be a sketch comedy troupe called They Said This Would Be Easy. And there's going to be a storyteller named Ty Fance and a little girl singing a song about hope. She's eight years old. And it's just going to be a really great time. I'm going to be the last band. And it goes from about 8 till 1030. And it's a suggested donation of $10. And if people give $15 or more, they'll be guaranteed to get the CD as either a download or a physical copy once the CD comes out. So I hope people can make it out. If you want to know more about it, you can look for me, Debra Penberthy on SoundCloud. And that's D-E-B-R-A. So it's a short form of Debra. And then Penberthy. So it's pen, like a pen that you write with, P-E-N. And then B as in boy, E-R-T-H-Y. And you can just put that into SoundCloud and you'll find my SoundCloud page and a couple of early demos. Okay. Okay, Debra. Okay. Okay. Okay. So we're going to come back to you for the latter part of the show for our closing comments and also to do another beautiful live song. Thank you so much. In the studio. Okay. I'm delighted to have in the studio Claudia Perez and Tania Nicole. Did I get that right? Yeah. Yeah. They're from Excellent. Can you talk about the Feed the Homeless project? What is that about? Well, we're LA on Cloud 9. The Feed the Homeless project. This is what we do monthly, twice a month. Actually. Okay. Twice a month. We do it at MacArthur Park and Martin Luther King Park. Okay. It's a group of us. I get together, bring food, clothes, shoes, anything that could give to the community. MacArthur Park. Is that on the Sunday? Yes. Okay. The fourth Sunday is actually on the flyer. Martin Luther King is the third Sunday and MacArthur Park is the fourth Sunday. Okay. Because I think I see you guys. I see you guys up there because I stay one block from, I say the block up on Carinata. Yeah. Yeah. And you're right up there on Parkview, right? Yeah. We actually feed about 150 to 200 people. Now, do you come down to Skid Row too? Yes, we do. Okay. When do you come to Skid Row? You know, we randomly do it during the week. Depends how much, sometimes I do it on my own or I come with a group. We have teen project every single Friday that we bring a group of teens to Skid Row and hand out bags. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. For the animals as well. Now, tell us a little about the organization, LA on Clouds. Well, we started in October. You just started? Yes. Mm-hmm. We started in October. I started on my own, then with another friend and then more people started just growing and growing. Now, we became a non-profit organization. We are a 501c3 and we also feed the animals as well. Mm-hmm. Wow. Any particular reason that you started this project? No. I've had some struggles in the past, being homeless, knowing how it is to be homeless and receiving help and, you know, I have a short statement on that just because of what I've been through as well. What are your thoughts on what we were talking about earlier, the oppression of women? Yeah. Activists, huh? Yeah. I like your work. That's really awesome what you're doing. You know, I guess we could relate, but yours is a little bit more stronger than that and I would like to get more information on that. Cool. We could work together. Yeah. Of course. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. It's hard in here. You think that fits in with domestic violence and all that kind of stuff when we're talking about oppression? Yeah. There's a lot of that in the streets, domestic violence. Actually, I witness it a lot. Oh, wow. Yeah. Unfortunately. Just when people are walking along, just people that you reach out to? Yeah. Do you think the economics have a lot to do with the struggle, you know, a lot of families and stuff? The struggles lead you to drug use and a lot of the drug use, of course, you become more homeless because your money goes to other stuff. So, I mean, there's a lot behind that. I can't really speak for anybody else. I speak for myself, my own struggles and what I've been through in the past that led me to be homeless. And fortunately, I'm back on my feet now and, you know, I think it was my kids that was a reality for me. Okay. Now, Tania, how did you get involved? Can you tell us a little about you? What was your problem? I started feeding the homeless with a separate group. They feed Monday through Friday and just give peanut butter and jelly and whatever else. And then that's how I met Claudia. And one of the things that touched me was that she made sure the animals were fed. Because sometimes even if the people aren't hungry or the people, you know, are on drugs or whatever it is, the animals are usually tied up to them somehow and they can't go and fend for themselves. So I actually started getting more. I started getting more donations of dog food sometimes than like people because I'm like the poor animals too because there's always, you know, she always makes sure the people are fed. But then you feel more sorry sometimes for the animals because they can't, you know. She's more of an animal activist. I love it. Go get their own. How about when you, you know, one of the things I see in the downtown area all the time where I work at, I always see, especially now with the gentrification downtown, I see so many animals that live in homes, you know, all different kind of dogs and stuff. And I see so many people laying in the streets, you know. What do you think about that paradox? The fact that animals, you know, got human beings living in streets and these same human beings walking around with animals, they can take them into their house with no compassion for the person that's laying in the street. Well, I think from... From different conversations with people that are just strictly animal activists and not humanitarians is that humans can speak for themselves and do for themselves, not the animals are voiceless. And they feel that we are their voice. So they'll rather reach out to help the animals than the people. I'm in both. You know, I can't just ignore the humans and just, you know, focus on the animals. I've been actually on Skid Row a lot lately helping. The people there to get their animals fixed. Spay, neuter, vaccines, microchips, all that. Registration. I've been focusing a lot on that. So the population of, you know, so the breeding could stop and less homeless animals in Skid Row. Okay. Now we're going to come back and discuss a lot of that in our closing comments in our community roundtable. Now, another community happening this weekend. It's the first Paul Robeson Festival at the Los Angeles Theater Center. Friday, July the 18th, 2014 and Saturday, July the 19th, 2014. Before we talk about the festival in detail, my co-host Earlene Anthony will read something about Paul Robeson. Paul Leroy Robeson. April 9th, 1898 to January 23rd, 1921. 1976. Was an African-American singer and actor who became involved with the Civil Rights Movement at Rutger University. He was an outstanding football player. Then had an international career in singing as well as acting in theater and movies. He became politically involved in response to the Spanish Civil War, fascism and social injustices. His advocacy of anti-imperialism. Affiliation with communism and criticism of the United States government caused him to be blacklisted during the McCarthy era. Ill health forced him into retirement from his career. He remained until his death an advocate of the political stance he took. Robeson won an academic scholarship to Rutger University where he became a football All-American in the class of valedictorian. He received his LLB from Columbia Law School while playing in the National Football League, the NFL. At Columbia he sang and acted in off-campus productions and after graduating he became a participant in the Harlem Renaissance with performances in the Emperor's Jones and All God's Children's Got Wings. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Now Paul Robeson. Very, very important. He was a great actor. He was a great actor. He was a great person. I always say Paul Robeson was Dr. King before Dr. King in terms of the following that he had that crossed all of the racial lines like this. Now what I would like to do is I would like to play an interview with one of the directors at the Paul Robeson Festival, Robert Clemens. This is Ishmael Johnson broadcasting live from Skid Row Studios. Live. Live. Live. I'm at the beautiful Ford Theater at the Edison Plaza and I'm talking to Robert Clemens. He's one of the actors that will be doing the readings tonight. What part would you play, Robert? I'm playing Under Secretary of the Air Force Rodney Coleman. Mm-hmm. Can you tell us a little about what you know about Rodney Coleman? I know absolutely nothing about Rodney Coleman. I just know that he's a great actor. He's a great actor. I know that he's trying to take care of a mess or trying to straighten out some things that happened in the past. And he's the head of the commission that was duly advocated to put some rights to some wrongs from the past. And he's commissioned by the President of the United States back in 1995. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Can you talk a little about your home, where you're from, and how you got off into acting? I'm originally from Hartford, Connecticut, the insurance capital of the world. I don't know how that happened to come to be that, but we have all the main insurance company travelers, Aetna, Cigna, all those type of insurance companies are housed in Hartford, Connecticut. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And I wasn't an actor at first. I worked, after college, I worked for IBM Corporation for 10 years before I found out that that was not for me, that I needed to express myself. And after my father, who had worked like 40 years straight for a aircraft building company, manufacturing company, Pratt & Whitney. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, going to work for a company that long, I surely didn't want to end up like that. So I resigned from IBM Corp and went about going to the acting arena. You also work over there with the Roe v. Theodore Company, and I know you've been in a number of plays. You're also getting ready to direct during the Paul Robeson Festival. Yeah. Is this your first time directing? No, it's not. I've directed some pieces in college, and I directed some pieces here in L.A. since I've been in L.A., three pieces. I was with a company called the Road Theater Company, and I directed a couple of pieces for them, and I also directed a piece that was presented in Inglewood called West Memphis Mojo. And so this is such a great honor to be now on the boards for directing at the Roe v. Theodore Company. In fact, I just got back from casting all day long. We were casting people for the plays that are going to be done. And you casted the two plays that you... Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. I didn't totally cast them, but at least I filled in all the spots that I couldn't fill, but it gave me all possibilities of the people that I didn't have as first choice. I had feelings for those first choice people. What are the two plays about? The first play is called Eslanda Unplugged, and it's about Paul Robeson and his wife, Eslanda, They're called the Essie, and it's a play about both of them. Essie has known for years that Paul Robeson has been dilly-dallying around the female anatomy. And, you know, he was a big figure, and women loved him. So they were just more or less throwing themselves at him. And being a man of stature and an athlete, he had quite a libido, and he exercised it. So this was Essie's chance to get back and state her thoughts about him doing that kind of thing. So he has to relent because he got kind of snagged. Who is the playwright? The playwright is Nui. I don't know her last name. Lawson. I'm sorry. That's bad. I don't know her last name. She wrote this play. And part of it is cast. Josh Shams is going to play Paul Robeson. Oh, wow. Oh, wow. The Ethan Paul Robeson. Yes, yes. And the emperor's last performance. That's right. Yeah, so he, as soon as he heard about it, he said, yes, sir. Right on the money. Yes. So. Okay. Then thank you, Mr. Robert Clemens. We're going to get another interview with you. We're waiting on to see the great performance that you're going to put on tonight. Sure. Not a problem. Okay. Thank you, Robert Clemens. Okay. That's Robert Clemens, one of the directors over at the Paul Robeson Theater Festival coming up this weekend. Let's take a break for our community calendar. And then I'm coming back with Willis Boyd and Shante Duncan talking about the Paul Robeson puppet show. Willis, this is the community calendar for upcoming events. The Paul Robeson Theater, excuse me, the Robey Theater Company is celebrating 20 years of excellence in black theater from 1994 to 2014 by presenting the first annual Paul Robeson Theater Festival on Friday, July the 18th at 6 p.m. The reception and stage play reading. The play will be about Paul Robeson. Robeson when he was in Berlin. On Saturday, July the 19th from 12 noon to 6 p.m. will be a presentation of one-act plays. The event will be a presentation of 18 original short plays about Paul Robeson that has been developed through the Roby Playwrights Program. Performed and directed by alumni from Roby Theatre Productions and Workshop. Also included will be one puppet show. 32 actors and 8 directors will bring the plays to the stage. The location of this event is the Los Angeles Theatre Center, 514 South Spring Street, Los Angeles, California, 913. And for discount and early purchase of your tickets please contact or call 866-811-4111 or visit the Roby Theatre Company dot org or the LATC dot org. If you have a community event that you would like announced on our show, send the information to Drama Stage 1 at Yahoo.com Attention Earlene Anthony and the call in number for our show is 800-893-9562. Now back to our host. Okay, thank you Earlene Anthony. Now I have on the line Willis Boyd and Shante hmmm okay we'll be talking to Willis Boyd and Shante Duncan in just a minute yes and what I would like to do now let me play a clip from Paul Robinson he's talking about his relationship to America. Say the Africans and the American Negroes have turned out to be an extraordinarily gifted people the great tragedy is that by not making us full class citizens as yet an American they may be losing I don't know how much yet that's all and to come back I would say that unquestionably I am an American born there my father's slave there upon the backs of my people was developed the primary wealth of America the primary wealth you have to have accumulated wealth to start you know to build you did it another way here in Australia you know you had to build your accumulated wealth too you just came and took it you know what I mean and that's what they did in most of the countries that's what you West that's what the Europeans did you just took it we got to catch up with you a little bit so in America so there's a lot of America that belongs to me yet you understand but just like a Scottish American is proud of being from Scotland I'm proud for being African now in our school books they tried to tell me that all Africans were savages till I got to London and found most of the Africans I knew and were going to Oxford and Cambridge and doing very well and learned their culture and even once had somebody had the temerity after one had had conquered the Chinese people and imposed upon them the opium trade and everything else to suggest that they were backward people just the people who had been civilized so long over the rest of you folks didn't make any sense at all so somewhere it was wonderful to find about the colored peoples of the world that they were very advanced so I would say today that I'm an American who is infinitely prouder to be of African descent no question about it no question about it I'm an Afro-American and I don't use the word American ever loosely again Hey that's Paul Robeson talking about his relationship to America and I have Willis Boyd on the line he's joined the Paul Robeson puppet show coming up this weekend Willis Hey Willis Welcome to the Coon Round Report Can you hear me? Thank you darling Yeah can you hear me? Yeah we're good Okay Now Willis what was the biggest of who we have you and Shante? Oh yeah Okay Willis what was the biggest challenge in doing a puppet show about Paul Robeson? Well at first it's just the stature of the man and trying to be able to portray him and give him you know his props as far as representing him and I mean that's the biggest challenge that I think that we face Now how much did you know about Paul Robeson before you began this project? Not much at all I didn't really know anything about him before you introduced him to me Yeah neither one of us did How about you Shante? Yeah neither one of us really knew much about him I don't think people really talk about him Okay at all really you know so with as much as he's done you think people will talk about him a lot more than they they do but I mean we're both glad that we're being able to learn about him and get some information on who he is and how much he's done and how educated he is that's really cool Yes and the fact that he was a musician an artist a writer an actor you think about spoke five or six languages Right Now Yeah what I think what impressed me is he has a church background Yes his father was a minister his brother had one of the most important churches up in Harlem during that time and I always say that Right he was a Dr. King before Dr. King because his father's across all racial lines in terms of following Paul Robeson Now let me ask you this what do you think about Paul Robeson? What do you think about puppets? Is that a good teaching tool for young people and adults? I think puppets are you know I mean a lot of people just like puppets but it's a visual you know teaching tool and I have to agree that that is a I think it's a wonderful teaching tool Now how did you but first you know but first you know tell us a little about Positive Light Ministry what is that? Well Positive Light we started out ministering to the children just trying to perform and give them an out from their everyday stress on Skid Row and that's basically why Positive Light started was to help other organizations or assist other organizations in trying to help them out or assist other organizations in trying to help them out or assist other organizations in trying to help them out or assist other organizations in trying to provide better for the youth you know youth on Skid Row at the time but actually we're all over the place Now Shante let me ask you this what was the biggest surprise that you found in putting together the puppet show that you found in putting together the puppet show about Paul Robeson what's the biggest surprise for you? I think what you were saying about how educated he was I think what you were saying about how educated he was and you know a lot of the things he had to break past but I think Willis was pretty good at that. but I think Willis was pretty good at that. Did he come from a slave background? His dad was a slave. Yeah and hearing how much he learned and how eloquent he speaks and stuff like that you wouldn't think that but I think he really challenges us to be educated individuals and to learn how we speak and I don't know he's just like a really inspirational individual and it's amazing how far he's come and what he's able to accomplish. Okay and now can you talk a little about you guys putting together the Paul Robeson puppet show for the festival coming up this weekend can you talk a little bit about that? Yeah it's telling his life from youth until he got older and just his acting career his football career and the obstacles that he had to overcome so there's some songs that he sings as well because he was a singer and had a really good career. He had a really strong voice. Yeah so the puppet show is just basically about his life it's giving you a little bit of insight and hopefully people will find it inspirational and it will cause people to try and look him up and learn more about him. Yes and our plan is to take this puppet show around throughout the community and make people aware of Paul Robeson. Now also before I let you guys go can you give us your contact information for Positive Light Mineral Light and we'll be right back. Thank you. So what is the positive light ministry? Yeah our website is positivelight.org and you can find us on Facebook it's facebook.com slash we are positive light. Look let me ask you and Willis one more question because we have a couple guests in here that deals with Feed the Homeless program you know in MacArthur Park Skid Row and all like that and I always want to ask you guys what is a homeless situation like in the Inland Empire up there in Riverside and San Bernardino? Well you have you know you have poverty everywhere Melvin it's not as bad as Skid Row but you know you just have people down on their luck because of misfortune or just because they don't want to or they want to go against the system you know you're always going to have it but it's not half as bad as Skid Row down in LA. Okay hey thank you very much Willis Boyd and Shante Duncan for today. Thank you guys we'll see you soon. Yeah taking a little time out of your business schedule. Hey Thank you very much. Alright thank you. Willis Boyd and Shante Duncan I want to I want to say one more little short interview of one of the directors from the festival coming up this weekend Dwayne Perry and I talked to Dwayne Perry about the possibility of a national theater company in which the United States don't have we used to have one in the 30's called the Federal Theater Project that had a Yiddish theater Spanish theater etc. It lasted for about five years of course the United States disbanded it because they felt that they had too many communists in it. So this is an interview with Dwayne Perry when I asked him about the possibility of that happening again. Any thoughts on how that could be achieved? Wow that's that's a very lofty dream I would say what would need to happen first before we go nationally is to establish theater companies like the Roby Theater Company and get them on a higher level to get them to the place where they're the equivalent of a Mark Taper Farm or the equivalent to a Goodman Theater in Chicago where they have endowments of tens of millions of dollars so that we can have equity actors who can make a living wage while they tell these stories that need to be told so that playwrights can be paid the money they need to live and create I think it's a lofty and a great idea to have a national black theater however that would take government funding and so on and so forth I think if we start at home and start with our own and especially here in Los Angeles there are so many people with money who could make a contribution to the Roby Theater Company of 10, 20, 30 thousand dollars every year for the next 10 years if we had 100 people do that Roby could do some amazing things then we could do original pieces like Melvin Ishmael's Johnson's Emperor's last performance and actors can make a living wage it's very difficult to rehearse for free relatively and ask actors to work for free relatively actors are the only people who are asked to work for free and most people in the theater the lighting designer the set designer the costumer everybody gets paid the director well not in this particular case but in this particular case I think the whole black theater company would be great but I think like we were talking earlier you have to crawl before you can walk I think the crawling would be getting these community based theaters to get to a higher level so that once that is established then it's much easier to do the next one okay that was Dwayne Perry very excellent director he just got through directing one of the major productions over at the LA Theatre Center called Knock Me a Kiss that had a four week run over there and he's directing one of the productions in the festival look let's take some time I want to open it up to a community round table the last four minutes of the show we're in for a treat because Deborah is going to sing a beautiful song I Dream of Peace Dream of Peace Dream of Peace portion we're going to do that the last four minutes so we got a little time and I want to get back into our discussion about the impression of women's if you want to look at it now do you think that's a big problem in the United States too? oh yeah you know the thing that's coming out now with all of the rape on college campuses Obama taking that up as a really strong cause and certain schools being named and there's been some schools right in Los Angeles Occidental College, USC that have been in the news about how they've handled that sort of thing where it gets poo pooed and one in three women in the world will experience some sort of violence whether it's sexual or physical violence let me ask you a question now if we're talking about on campus now if we have a situation when they're talking about numbers maybe 10 or something like that just say that happened during a semester then is it crisis like that that they're talking about or is it really out of control? I didn't really get the distinction in what you're asking I mean is that I mean is that more serious than just say the women's that we have in Nigeria when they can fall in there and take a hundred I mean you know rape is never good so you know in America you know those women are able to go to college so their situation is better than Nigerian school children who are just fighting for the right to go to elementary school if they're not I believe they're in elementary school but it's all you know and the thing that I'll especially in relationship to Los Angeles I think we discussed this before and I want to really get an answer to this because I think female women in the United States have more of an opportunity to empower themselves than we look at a lot of these other countries that's being oppressed and the thing is let's take Los Angeles for an example you know when Wendy Gruhl was running for mayor and you look at a city like Los Angeles and the thing that all I thought she was going to win really now why is it that females, women will support continue to support all of these males that bring in all of these female dominated projects and stuff like that why females won't support each other or am I missing the point well there's a lot of internalized I mean I can't speak to the race and whether people were voting based on gender because sometimes the better candidate just happens to be a man even if you're a woman you know maybe there's a more progressive man and there's more a woman who's not going to represent your interest but it's like racism there's a lot of internalized racism there's a lot of people who have taken on the oppression you know African American people who have taken on the oppression they repeat it in their own communities they give out the values that hey to be smart to go to school you know that that isn't you know what I mean it's the same thing with women they can internalize this kind of thing and perpetuate they can be brothel owners well let me ask this question and then hey you guys you don't have to be just guests you can chime in too they're like she talks a lot let's just get her talking it's interesting what can we do what do it take to empower more females what do you think your thoughts just going out there and talking to them I mean in all your business educating them letting them know that they can make a difference I mean like what you're doing is really inspiring just that they can say I can take from my own experience and I can make the lives of other people better as a matter of fact I do speak with a lot of women that are afraid of of leaving a relationship because they don't know what to do who to talk to what resources and stuff like that I mean I can't really speak on some situations that I'm handling right now but that's that's what it is empowering them and talking to them and I know there is resources out there that they should speak up just because they're a woman and they feel like the man has already bashed them and they feel less I mean I don't know how about you what do you think it takes to empower more females and women more women in our society and in the world but what don't raise them to think that they have to be so submissive starting at a young age it's with the children yeah make them think differently they can speak up and they're just as strong as the man and they can make their own decisions and not such like the old school way of thinking years ago yeah I have this little neighbor she's four years old she might be listening her name is Ivy Jean and she heard that my guitar plays earlier was a man on my EP and she said I thought only girls play guitar because her mom plays guitar and I was like good for you that you think that but she's got some feminist values in her that just from the way she's being raised because her mom is a strong independent person you're right it does throw that home too your thoughts about it in terms of empowering females well I have a daughter she's turned 18 in June and since the age of five I kept it real to 100 with her and kept it raw and put her on things and for her to kind of sit back and analyze all situations that she's in and don't take anything at face value and let her know there's good and bad in men and women and just understand make sure her mind is made up that the situation that she's in that she wants to do what she wants to do and not to just jump out there and everything so I told her all this information and stuff so I told her when you get out there you be prepared cause a lot of stuff she didn't want to hear all that daddy daddy daddy you know just cause you step out there cause a lot of men I'm a man a lot of men look at women as a piece of meat like a lot of women got to understand their part they play too cause a lot of women say I can dress how I want to but if you got somebody like you know they're evil people here in general I can leave stuff like that happen so you got evil people who can pretend to be nice and while you portray yourself to be a certain way even though you might think you're not they're coming to get you how about you Earline your thoughts on what it takes to empower well I say you really have to come to a point that you have to believe in yourself and just find out who you really are because a lot of things we can do we don't know that we can do them until we try it and not be content with the man telling you that you're not you're not this is the way it is and you don't question it you know because going back to the Islamic countries God forbid but how they tell the women how they should dress and I think about how here in America a lot of men have told women how to dress by the fashion industry or the movies or all of these other things men telling women what they should do and how they should do it but women have to come to a point to say I'm my own person ok let's go around real quick can you give me your I want to get around to this live performance when we wind down to 4 and can you give you contact information for LA on Cloud 9 ok we have a website www.lac9.org there it will direct you to our Facebook if you just look us up on Facebook LA on Cloud 9 ok contact number is 323-812-9836 ok thank you Debra your contact information for the event so if you look me up on SoundCloud it's Debra Penberthy it's D-E-B-R-A and then P-E-N as in Nancy B as in boy E-R-T-H-Y on SoundCloud and my event is this Thursday night at 8 o'clock at Troop Unitarian Church a wonderful place and it's $10 suggested donation but if you don't have much money please just come out we'd rather have people there now I'd like to extend a special thanks to Debra Penberthy Claudia Perez Tanya Nicole Willis Boyd Shante Duncan Bobby Buck my co-host Earline Anthony thank you for tuning in to the Qumran Report from your host Melvin Ishmael Johnson and I'm going to go out with a live performance by Debra Penberthy singing I Dream of Peace I Dream of Peace I Dream of Peace I found this letter I found this letter it was written 20 years ago it was written 20 years ago written by a girl a girl whose face I know whose face I know still I wonder still I wonder maybe I'm not as good as I thought I'm not as good as I thought it said it said things of peace things of beauty things of beauty things of love they allude to me they allude to me they allude to me maybe maybe I'm not maybe I'm not maybe I'm not I'm not as good as I thought I'm not as good as I thought I'm not as good as I thought I'm not as good as I thought I'm not as good as I thought I'm not as good as I thought I'm not as good as I thought I'm not as good as I thought I'm not as good as I thought I thought I'd find when I said no I thought I'd find when I said no branches of snow, a window, a world, a world that I would know. Instead I found, well maybe, not as good as I thought. I thought I'd find me a better way, find me a place to stay, build a family to live all my days with me. Instead I found, well maybe, me. Me. Me. Now. I dream of peace, I dream of beauty, I dream of love, though they elude me. I dream of peace, and I dream of beauty, and I dream of love, though they elude me. And I find. I'm better when I dream. I'm better when I dream. I'm gonna find me a better way, I'm gonna find me a place to stay, and build a family to live all my days with me. I'll dream of peace, and I'll dream of beauty, and I'll dream of love, though they elude me. I'm better when I dream. I'll dream of love, though they elude me. To me Yeah I'm fine I'm better when I dream I'm better when I dream Better when I dream Better when I dream I'm better than I Dream