Eve Ensler Interviewed by Michael Slate

October 28, 2015 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

At the Saturday, October 24 Rise Up October rally and march, and at the Thursday, October 22 Say Their Names public reading and remembrance in Times Square, Michael Slate was able to catch up with a number of people to get their reasons for coming out, and their views on the epidemic of police terror and murder. Following is the transcript of the interview with Eve Ensler:

 

MS: That was playwright and activist Eve Ensler and her friend Tony Montenieri reading the names and telling the stories of some of the people who have been killed by the police over the last few decades. When they were finished reading I had a chance to talk to Eve about why she felt compelled to be part of this movement.

Eve Ensler: What compels me to do this is that we are living in a country where state violence is essentially licensed, where we have no checks and balances, where people are not being held accountable. I mean, listen to all the stories I read today: how many cops were indicted, how many cops were held responsible, how many people that weren’t armed that were shot down, how many people that where mentally ill that weren’t treated as mentally ill people. So we’re living in a country now where hundreds of Black and Brown women and men are being murdered, are being killed without any justice. And for me, this is my country. I live here and I am responsible for that. And all of us are responsible for that. We are talking about a war right now that’s going on on the lives of Black and Brown bodies on the street. And I feel this is my struggle, those are my brothers and sisters.

MS: One thing that happened too is that, as you talk about this war that’s going on, I agree with you 100 percent. And it’s a war now that in a certain senses... well, I was thinking that I’ve been fighting around this for like 20 years, and you think about this and you’re talking tens of thousands of people that we know about. But then you think about it now and what does that add up to? Some people, and I know we’ve looked at this in a certain sense and are saying that there’s a genocidal aspect to this—it’s slow now but it’s also very dangerous.

Eve Ensler: Oh, I absolutely think this is a continuation of the same slave mentality, the same destruction towards Black bodies that’s been going on in this country forever. And I think it all just happens in a more insidious or more sophisticated or more... it just gets moved to another direction. But I also think we need to be looking at why aren’t we, as a country, standing up to say to the state, to the police forces: “You cannot do this. You cannot go after...” Look at people like Tanisha Anderson, look at people who are mentally ill who called to reach out for help and in the course of reaching out they got murdered. Look at people who are in prisons who are having toilet paper stuck down their throats and killed. I mean, reading those stories this morning... I just sit here and go: Where are we living? What kind of country is this that supports this kind of violence and supports this kind of brutality? And people need to wake up because this kind of state violence is being employed on a lot of people. It’s creating a state of violence, it’s a state of terror. Black people in this country and Brown people in this country live in terror—of driving in their cars, walking down their street. They don’t know what’s going to happen to them any moment, they live in a terror state. So we are all responsible for changing that.

MS: One of the things that this action is meant to do is to draw a line very clearly and challenge people around which side are you on.  How do you do that?

Eve Ensler: Well, I think one of the things we do is tell the stories like we did this morning. I think when you hear the stories and you hear what’s happened to people and you hear the lack of justice, it’s very hard not to say you have to get up and do something. So I believe in telling stories, and I was very happy this morning, although I was incredibly sad and heartbroken, to read the stories. I think it’s really important we say what has happened so people hear the details. Because details, for me, is what makes me respond to things.

MS: One last question: How do you see stopping this?

Eve Ensler: By what we’re doing. Look, I’ve been a grass-roots activist my whole life. I’ve been in the streets my whole life. I think the way we change everything is when grass-roots numbers swell, when we build unified movements that stand in solidarity, when white people understand that this is our struggle, that we have to get deeply involved in ally-ship, in solidarity with anybody who is being threatened or murdered by the police. And by marching, by doing civil disobedience, by speaking out, by telling the stories, by educating yourself, by learning about what’s happening and not being uninformed and pretending it’s not happening all around you. And also by feeling what it feels like. I mean, how many friends of mine, friends of color, talk to me about what it’s like to live in this country, and how their sons—when they go out, how they worry if they’ll ever come back. And they’ve done nothing, how they could be in some car, it could be at some moment at the wrong time—and before they know it they’re shot dead. That is real and that is all of our struggle.

MS: Eve Ensler, thank you very much.

 

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