onePULSE Foundation Town Hall Forum – Changing Hate…A Conversation

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The onePULSE Foundation Town Hall Forum – Changing Hate…A Conversation, was held at the Orlando Rep (1001 East Princeton Street Orlando FL). The set was for a production of Elf.

Hate crimes in our nation’s 10 largest cities increased by 12% in 2017 the highest level in more than a decade. This Town Hall Forum brought national key influencers to Orlando to discuss how they overcame a hateful belief system, are addressing hateful messages and reaching others to dispel the belief that hate is learned.

I sketched the Morgan Stanley banker who introduced the evening at the podium. Barbara Poma the Pulse night club owner and founder of the one Pulse Foundation also introduced the evening. The panel was moderated by

Sally Kohn, author of The Opposite Of Hate: A Field Guide to Repairing Our Humanity she is also a  CNN political commentator and columnist.

Panelist

Daryl Davis, author of Klan-destine Relationships: A Black Man’s Odyssey in the Ku Klux Klan spoke about his childhood growing up in Europe where white and black are not an issue. His family returned to America and he joined the boy scouts. His troupe was invited to walk in a parade. He gladly put on his uniform and joined his fellow scouts on the parade. However during the course of the parade several small boys and adults began to throw small rocks. He thought, “They must not like boy scouts.” It wasn’t until troupe leaders shielded him that he realized that the rocks were only meant for him. At home his parents had to patch his wounds and he asked why people had a problem with him. He had never heard of racism. He couldn’t understand how someone could hate him if they didn’t know him.

Thus began a life long mission to speak with members of the KKK who hated him. Many of these conversations resulted in friendships. Daryl collects KKK memorabilia from people he has talked to who gave up their life of hate. Over 200 Klansman have left the KKK after these conversations with Daryl.

Dylan Marron is a blogger and host of Conversations with People Who Hate Me. He experienced a rush of euphoria as his online persona took flight. However this success also resulted in hate directed towards him online. He become obsessed with finding out who these people were who hated him. He would look up their contact information on social media and call them. These recorded conversations are what he shares online now. He and Daryl bot agreed that giving someone the chance to express their opinions often resulted in them being willing to hear their opinion. Conversation is about acknowledging someones self worth. In the course of each conversation there is usually a moment when someone has a dog rush in the room, of they step on a Lego. The moment they laugh together gives him a glowing moment of hope. All the differences of opinion melt away.

Sally asked everyone in the audience to think of three issues that they hold dear, be it abortion, gun control etc. Then she asked us all how many of us had researched that issue with government reports, research, or read multiple books on the issue. No one raised a hand. This is how people who have an opposite opinion also came to their conclusions. They only read enough to justify how they feel.

At the end of the evening, Theresa Jacobs who is stepping down as Orange County’s Mayor took to the podium. With one day left in office she seemed to want to clear the slate. She spoke of her childhood fear of black people but in school she befriended a black girl who had given her a pencil. Because she sat at the lunch table with this girl, she was ostracized by white students. She mentioned a gay boy who she dated and then a black boy she performed a trapeze act with. She expressed her support for transvestites but I think she meant to say transgender. This was the wrong forum to make that slip.  It was a strange litany and I stopped believing her sincerity.

In office she is best known as the woman who did all she could to block gay marriage, saying. “marriage should be reserved for a man and a woman.” She confided that this is the issue that conflicted with her Catholic beliefs. At a wedding for her son, she realized how her family was so important to her and how the vows in any wedding mean so much for her families happiness. She broke down and cried and realized she had been wrong. Everyone should have the right to get married and share that happiness.

Though every panelist agreed that we are living in dark times and that hate speech is rampant, they choose to battle the ignorance and hate one conversation at a time. If you disagree with someone try and avoid expressing your disdain, instead stop and listen and share your thoughts. This Thanksgiving if you have a relative who supports today’s atmosphere of intolerance and hate, try talking to them and plant a seed of light in the darkness. Change doesn’t happen quickly. But some people can change.

The First onePULSE Foundation Town Hall Meeting.

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The onePULSE Foundation‘s first Town Hall meeting was held at the Rep Theater (1001 E Princeton St, Orlando, FL 32803). 400 people reserved tickets to attend. The meeting was a panel discussion exploring why and how we create memorials and museums, and what is involved in the process. Experts from around the country came to share their experiences. Barbara Poma, the Pulse Nightclub owner and onePULSE Foundation executive director, said, “Building a permanent memorial and museum at the site is the most powerful way to pay respect for the lives taken, and to all those affected on that awful night.” The moderator for the night, was journalist Indira Lakshmanan.

Kari Watkins, the Executive Director of the Oklahoma City National Memorial was the first panelist on the left. The event was being held just one week after the mass murder in Las Vegas. She explained that the community memorials had already begun. An empty lot was acquired from the city and 58 trees were planted, one tree for each victim. At the Oklahoma City Bombing site one tree had survived and saplings were being handed out. 168 people died. Initially, the Chamber of Commerce was not on board with the plans for a museum and memorial, they didn’t want their city to be known as the city that had been bombed. The site is now the most visited tourist attraction in the state.



Ed Linenthal is a PhD and author of several books such as Sacred Ground, Preserving Memory, and The Unfinished Bombing: Oklahoma City in American Memory. He explained that the process of deciding what to put on a site is incredibly difficult because you are dealing with an open wound. We need to get rid of psycho babble words like “closure”. People in Orlando will be living along side of the Pulse tragedy for a very long time and that is OK. There is a new “normal”. The process involves many, many people who are very personally involved. Everything is a razor’s edge issue. Should there be 49 hearts, trees, or points of light here?… on and on and on. How could it not be agonizing? Memorials are a protest of the anonymity of mass murder in our times.

Jan Ramirez, is the Executive Vice President of Collections and the Chief Curator of the National September 11th Memorial and Museum in NYC. She explained that the NYC site is an unplanned cemetery. 40% of the close to 3,000 people who died when the towers fell, have no remains. The families never had the comfort of a burial. Our work is never done. Only since the museum opened have many victim’s families decided to share their stories and artifacts.

Anthony Gardner is the Senior Vice President of Government and Community Affairs at the 9/11 Memorial and Museum. He became involved after his brother Harvey died in the tower collapse. The process of building a memorial is going to be painful. It needs to be. The reaction to people visiting the 9/11 memorial is universal, they pause and say to themselves, “I am there.” They know it is a tragic story, they know it is painful, but they leave inspired, because this is a story in which the best of humanity responded to the worst of humanity.

Anthony’s brother Harvey loved history. The night before he was killed, he was watching a documentary on WWII. He became a part of the history he cherished just several hours later. Harvey is one of the 40% who were never identified after the towers fell. The family didn’t have anything of his that was recovered. He found himself trapped in that office. The one call that got through to Harvey allowed the family to overhear him comforting his colleagues, who were starting to panic. He was directing people and he was calm and brave in those acts, so the family holds on to that. Anthony values the authenticity of place and setting. He feels some authentic fabric of Pulse should be left behind. Authenticity of place helps people connect that didn’t have that direct experience.

Pam Schwartz is the Chief Curator of the Orange County Regional History Center. “…Typically museums collect, “old stuff”. We  have historical perspective on that… When doing rapid response or contemporary collecting, you have to rely 50% on your training and education, and 50% on intuition, or what we think might be an important historical story…That can change very rapidly. It took 9 years for Orlando to get the title of the worst mass shooting after Virginia Tech. It took just 16 months to give that title to Las Vegas. The history of our event is already changing based on what is happening in Vegas. The question goes from, “How could this happen to us”, to “Is it ever going to stop?…”

Pam explained, a mass shooting is when four or more people, not including the
shooter, are “shot and/or killed” at “the same general time and
location.” This year there have been at least 276 mass shootings in America. That is close to one mass shooting a day. We can’t memorialize every single event, but each time there are people who lost their loved ones, there are emotional and mental scars. Everyone feels the most strongly about the event that affected them. You focus on the stories and try to make it a teachable moment. We are dealing with a lot of different demographics here in Orlando. Our event at Pulse is unique in that it speaks to a broader situation in our world today, in politics an in the fights we are still fighting.


She went on to say that the memorial items come from the community. They are outpourings from the heart. They are often items left because people don’t know what else to do. One thing they collected was a cooler from Pulse. If you went to the Pulse site, you would have seen the big white cooler left by the police. The church down the street kept filling it every day because it is HOT in Orlando. So this artifact was one of support. 

Pam and the History Center staff were out there collecting every single day and  drank some of that water. One day, they showed up and it was just covered in signatures. There were all these signed banners full of love and support, and then people were like,  “What else can we sign?” So they collected this cooler, it is sort of a living history of the memorials. 

The History Center staff also went into the club after the site was released back to Barbara Poma. Pam approached and asked if things could be collected from inside. That might seem a bit macabre, but think of it as Abraham Lincoln’s hat or the artifacts you might see at the 9/11 museum. These are very real artifacts that tell a story. Should they be displayed now or put them on exhibition, no, but in 200 years there will be people who were not here, did not experience it, and it is very real evidence that this event truly happened to people. The History Center also has items from Pulse before this event. Pulse has a very rich history before June 12, it was home to so many people.


In response to a question from the audience about ensuring the process is inclusive, Pam explained that this series of community conversations are the first link to inclusivity for everyone. Everyone should fill out the online Survey for the Memorial. The results of which will become the design brief that will go out to the potential designers for the memorial and museum. This is not a fast process. It takes time, so we have several years to figure this out together. This is at its heart a community event. It happened to us all in some way shape or form. It will be a community conversation and ultimately a community decision in how we move forward. That is why they are starting to have meetings with families of survivors and other community members. Talk to onePulse Foundation members. They want to know what everybody is thinking. They do not have all the right answers for what this can look like or what it should look like right now, but they are beginning the process and want everybody who feels attached to this to be involved.


In other Pulse related news, the City just approved a temporary memorial designed by Dix.Hite + Partners which will add landscaping to soften the area while replacing the fence with more aesthetically pleasing elements. A rainbow colored sidewalk crossing was also approved by the City and already painted into place.  I filled out the survey and it took no longer that 10 minutes. Be sure to fill out the survey as well. Your voice matters, your opinion matters. Help shape the future of the Pulse memorial site. Earl Crittenden offered a quote that pointed the way towards a solution, “The best way to predict the future is to create it.” – Abe Lincoln

One Orlando Alliance organized an Orlando Vigil for Las Vegas

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The lawn in front of the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts was packed with thousands of people 16 months ago after the Pulse Nightclub shooting. Tears were shed and strangers hugged one another in a truly moving vigil to honor the victims of the nightclub shooting. Days after the mass shooting in Las Vegas, the same stage was erected in the Dr. Phillips lawn to show solidarity and support for that city which is now the site of the largest mass shooting in American history with 58 victims to date. 515 others are injured, so that number may well rise as people fight for their lives.

Pam Schwartz and I arrived a bit early expecting to find the lawn crowded with Orlando citizens who who would show their support for such a tragic event. The lawn was strangely empty. One third of the lawn was a construction zone for the new Dr. Phillips theater being built.  The entire area was surrounded by temporary concert barricades. There was no crowd to contain. A single wreath stood on a tripod in front of the stage. The press huddled together on the walkway opposite me. Desperate for some sort of story, a young reporter asked to interview me, but I explained that I had a limited amount of time to finish my sketch so I couldn’t stop to talk.

The green lawn remained empty the entire time I sketched. I had looked at some of the video footage from Las Vegas earlier that day and recall seeing people running for their lives or lying on the grass hoping not to get hit by the bullets raining down from 32 stories above. The Dr. Phillips lawn, surrounded by humble Orlando high rises, wasn’t much different than the Las Vegas field where concert goers were massacred. One Orlando high rise had several windows blown out from hurricane Irma, just as the Las Vegas gunman had blown out his hotel room window to massacre the crowd below.

Dozens of people showed up to the vigil held in Orlando. Any photos of the vigil show a few people together in closely cropped shots.  Perhaps it was just to soon. The staff at the History Center said that they just weren’t ready to accept or digest that such a horrific incident had happened so soon after the incident at Pulse. Days after the Las Vegas shooting, rainbow flags appeared on all the Orlando downtown street lights. I thought this was in solidarity for the Las Vegas shooting but it might just have been in preparation for the Gay Pride Parade coming up next week.

Someone removed the metal steps that lead up to the stage. A source at The Center said that a permit had not been applied for and thus
no one was allowed to go up on the stage. How amazing that such red tape should
come from a city who had just experienced mass murder 16 months earlier. One Orlando Alliance organizers stated that a radio station set up the stage just for the amplification and they didn’t want any speakers.

Five or six of the 49 angels in action arrived and stood silent in
front of the stage, their fabric wings flapping in the breeze.

 one PULSE Foundation president, Barbara Poma, spoke to the small group gathered from behind the stage. Her online statement read, “Finding words to convey the depth of horror we are all witnessing in
Las Vegas is just impossible. It is unimaginable that another mass
shooting of even greater scope than that of Pulse Nightclub could occur
again in this country, but indeed, it has. We must work harder to stop
these crimes that destroy human life. We pray for those whose lives were
taken, as well as for the wounded and the hundreds who will forever be affected by this monumental tragedy.”

The Orange County Property Appraiser arrived to get his picture taken in a tuxedo in front of a banner which people signed in support of Las Vegas. Mayor Buddy Dyer made a cameo and disappeared quickly. I recognized some of the Pulse family and activists like the Eskamani sisters who truly made a difference in our city following the Pulse shooting. A GoFundMe set up by Ida Eskamani for Equality Florida raised more that 2.4 million dollars for Pulse victims families. With Hurricane Maria causing so much damage in Puerto Rico, many Hispanic activists are perhaps occupied with that cause.

The Vigil held at the Dr. Phillips for Las Vegas was a small gathering by a few of Orlando’s core activists but the impression it left with me was apparent indifference by the community as a whole. The Methodist Church bells rang for each victim of the
Las Vegas shooting. I left disheartened.  The faces of the beautiful people lost in Las Vegas are just now
appearing online. All of those lost have not yet been identified. Perhaps people stayed home because mass murder is now the norm. A mass murder is defined as 4 people dying in a single gun related incident. Close to one mass shooting happens every day in America.

Pam was going to the Savoy to be a Celebrity Bartender. That event would raise funds to help The Center which is a refuge and family for the LGBT community as well as playing an important role in testing and treating sexually transmitted diseases. Sketching that event felt more supportive to an organization that makes a positive change in the Orlando community. Life goes on as social services struggle to stay afloat. I needed a stiff drink. How we memorialize is becoming increasingly important as these shootings are becoming more common.

P.S. Justine Thompson Cowan, one of the events organizers reported that
City representatives were willing to do whatever it took, helped with
permitting, and opened up garages for free parking, spending staff
resources to pull it together. He stayed
until the end and joined with what he estimated to be about 250 people as
they heard the bells toll, the Orlando Gay Chorus sing and spread out
into the audience with their voices that touched their hearts. She felt
solace. She felt companionship. And maybe even a bit of hope.

Finger on the Pulse.

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At Pints for Pulse, The City Song Players performed Finger on the Pulse for the first time since it had been recorded a week before.  Shadow Pearson was on piano, and Eugine Snowden got on stage to help with vocals. The song has been picked up by a subsidiary of Sony and paperwork is still be in filled out.  The song is just two minutes and forty seven seconds as Shadow explained, it is we radio friendly. All sales of the song are now be in donated to onepulsefoundation.org.

A news camera was trained on the stage, and on c again, I felt like I us witness to history.  All the beer tents were far away, so no one was crowded up to the stage. There was no refuge from the sun. I sketched fast hoping not to burn to the complexion of a lobster. Before I knew it, the song was sung and the beer soaked crowd cheered its approval. Even as we numbed ourselves with beer, art can still punch through reminding us of what cause we are drinking for. Actually, I didn’t drink a sip. My cause was to witness and sketch this performance.