Brainstorming

At last today we all met: a brilliant young actor named Charles Grant (in the gold headwrap) is active in Portland theatre and has connections and ideas; my precious friend Donna Hayes; Solamon Ibe, who played Donna’s murdered grandson in Silent Voices; and me, connecting them.

Donna’s grandson was killed by Portland police in 2017, and Donna began writing as a way to deal with her grief. Solamon wants to take Donna’s idea further and develop it both locally and in South Africa, where his younger son is growing up. One of Solamon’s sons was killed in gun violence a week after Palesa died in 2021; he wants to do all he can to make the killing stop. We three are bound by love, grief, and a desire to spare others this sorrow.

Donna has had a stroke and major brain surgery since we made the video four years ago, and she would love for someone else to take her ideas and run with them. She wants us to hear the voices and personalities of people who have been killed by police. She wants to make them live again to tell their side of the story. She wants people to realize that the official narrative is not always the truth; that the story they hear in the news is only a piece of the story. Donna says, “The dead don’t get to tell their side. We have to tell it for them.”

Donna sees the murders of Palestinian people—and the narrative told by the Israeli Defense Force to the commercial media—as another side of the same phenomenon. The idea of speaking for those who have been silenced is larger than any of us.

We thought if we could persuade Charles to believe in our vision, maybe he could guide us to others who can help to move the work forward. Donna doesn’t care whether her name is associated with the project or not; she just wants to see these ideas take hold before her time here is up. Charles imagines Donna’s ideas as an ongoing interactive and educational project that could work internationally. He said, “Police brutality is an international problem. Look at Kenya. Look at Argentina. Look what the German police did to the student protesters for Palestine.” 

Solamon added, “The police in New York City.” Then we had a chorus of additions. There are so many. 

There may be further developments. We all came away from the meeting with tasks to perform.