NPR’s Juana Summers talks with filmmaker Ava DuVernay about her lifetime achievement award speech at the Smithsonian American History Museum.
JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
Last week, the Smithsonian National Museum of American History recognized the filmmaker Ava DuVernay with a lifetime achievement award. That’s where she gave a short speech.
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AVA DUVERNAY: At a time when truth itself is under revision and fear feels like an animating force – fear of mirrors, fear of memory, fear of the full American story told in its dazzling complexity and devastating contradictions.
SUMMERS: People in that room knew that much of her work documents or dramatizes the history of Black Americans, like the civil rights movement, the prison system, the 1989 Central Park jogger case or the activism of football player Colin Kaepernick. And people in that room also knew that President Trump had recently issued an executive order accusing the Smithsonian Institution of divisive race-centered ideology and directing officials to remove improper ideology from its properties. Ava DuVernay joins us now to talk about all of this. Hi there.
DUVERNAY: Hi there. How are you?
SUMMERS: I’m well. Ava, I just want to start – you wrote recently in your Substack newsletter that you were a bit hesitant, anxious to make the speech that you gave there at the Smithsonian American History Museum. Tell us why.
DUVERNAY: You know, it was really a desire not to stir up any challenges for the great people who lead that institution and the tension between, you know, not wanting to cause them any additional challenges and wanting to say what I felt needed to be said.
SUMMERS: You said that the Smithsonian has done what America must continue to do, and I’m quoting here, “confront the contradictions in our founding, illuminate the fault lines in our systems and still hold space for grace, for grit, for growth, for greatness.” Can you say a bit more about what sounds to me like a defense of the Smithsonian’s role in our society, its history exhibitions?
DUVERNAY: You know what? I don’t even know if it’s a defense. I feel like I want to get out of a posture of having to defend what is known, what is good, what is right. We, as people who believe in justice and dignity for all, need to put the other side on the defense. If you are, you know, saying that the idea of including everyone’s history, of having diverse points of view, of, you know, believing in and striving for equity and equality – if you believe that all of those things are not right, then you should tell us why that’s the case.
SUMMERS: I’d like to ask you, if I can, about some of the specific language that President Trump’s executive order uses. It reads, and I’m quoting here, “rather than fostering unity and a deeper understanding of our shared past, the widespread effort to rewrite history deepens societal divides and fosters a sense of national shame,” end quote. Whether or not the Smithsonian is rewriting anything, I guess I want to ask, should Americans feel shame for the unjust chapters of American history that we know to be true?
DUVERNAY: I feel that assigning what folks should experience is not the issue. The issue is what happened. And what the executive order asks of us is to not even know what happened. You can feel however you feel about it. I don’t feel shame about it. I feel something very different. Some may feel shame. Some may feel guilt. Some may feel vindication. Some may feel a curiosity piqued. Some may feel a sense of relief. The point is, it should be known and it should be considered.
SUMMERS: Zooming out a bit here, we are about five years out from a summer where, across this country, people of all colors, of all ages and genders, took to the streets. They protested systemic racism that were prompted by the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. And five years later, President Trump has returned to the White House. He is waging a fight to rid the government of DEI programs. He has targeted so-called woke ideology, as he and his allies call it. How do you think about that shift in what we have seen happen across this country in the last five years?
DUVERNAY: It’s been a whirlwind of ideas, of objections, of opinions. And I think all of that is healthy if it is allowed to all be heard, seen, valued and in the mix. But when the balance starts to tilt and when one point of view starts to purposely, deliberately, intentionally drown out the realities and experiences of other people, we get into a real danger zone. And I think that when you have an opportunity to be at a microphone, wherever you are and there’s someone who will listen, it’s important to raise your voice and to say there’s a different way. There’s another way.
SUMMERS: Ava DuVernay, Oscar nominee, Emmy winner and recent recipient of the Great Americans Medal from the Smithsonian Museum of American History, thank you so much.
DUVERNAY: Thank you for what you do. Appreciate you.
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