♪♪ Times of challenge are times of possibility.

We've got to learn how to love.

We've got to practice love.

Peace is a solution in so many ways.

We can start the change right now.

My soul is telling me be peaceful and love everyone.

Davis: If we don't move forward together, then we don't move forward.

Man: Peace matters more than anything.

[ Echoing ] Aloha, everyone.

I'm Maya Soetoro, and I'm here with Dondré Whitfield.

Welcome to our second annual "Peace Studio Summit Finale."

I'm delighted that you are joining us.

And, Dondré, thank you so much for being here with me.

Maya, thank you so much for having me.

It's a pleasure.

We're going to be taking you on a journey through powerful conversations that examine what we can all do to help us get closer to finding peace within ourselves, peace within communities, and peace within the world.

I cannot think of anyone more inspirational to kick us off than Viola Davis.

She embodies resilience and creative peace building, rising out of what she describes as abject poverty to become one of the most successful actors of all time.

She's the first Black actor to win the Triple Crown -- a Tony, an Emmy, and an Academy Award.

My conversation with her will be followed by a special performance by four-time Grammy Award winner and sensational singer and dancer Angelique Kidjo.

We hope you enjoy.

Hi, Viola.

Hi.

Thank you so much for being here.

Thank you for having me.

You really represent the creative possibility that we want to inspire in our audience today.

So thank you so much for being here.

Thank you.

Thank you.

[ Chuckles ] The first question I have for you is that last year, I think you had a interview in Vanity Fair that spoke about the moment after George Floyd's murder as being a powerful one for you, as one in which you found your movement and moment.

Can you share with us more about that moment and what that movement meant for you?

Um... You know, I think -- I think that moment for me was the same as that moment for everyone, which is it let the cat out of the bag.

Mm-hmm.

You know, I think that a lot of times we could be on automatic in life, that there are certain truths that are transpiring that have always transpired, right?

But then it takes something really momentous -- and usually it's failure... ...death [Laughs] sickness -- It's always something very sort of catastrophic to wake us up.

And that was that moment.

That was that moment where I felt I -- I sort of in the last year have been going through an existential crisis, more so -- more than a political crisis, pers-- It's been existential, the meaning of our existence.

And I felt like that was the moment that we... were in a fight of ideology and ethos.

That we were coming face-to-face to who and what we are as Americans instead of just sort of going on automatic, you know?

And I think that we go to other countries like Rome -- I've been to Rome -- you learn about the gladiators.

You go to the Vatican.

You go to Greece.

Everybody, you know, learns about these civilizations that have been responsible for so many catastrophic things happening.

But we never look at ourselves.

And that was... my moment for me that I could let it out, that I felt like I even had a space to go into any space personally and professionally and go, "You know what?

That right there that happened, this has been my personal narrative for years, that I have been fighting for a sense of worth in my own land, my own country."

And this sort of is the metaphor for why that has not happened.

So it sort of was like get out -- getting out of jail.

Does that make sense?

Absolutely.

And I guess the question I have for you then is, do you think we have reflected properly together?

Have we had a productive reckoning, and have we started to grow and to heal in your estimation?

You know what?

I think a better term is that we're -- that a lot of us are trying to.

I do not think that we're there yet.

And, listen, we have lived in... systemic racism, oppression for longer than we have not.

That's true.

And I think that the sort of personal conversations that we need to have are stopped because we don't want to feel indicted and we don't want to feel uncomfortable.

You know what it's like?

It's like that cartoon -- I think I posted it on my Instagram page -- where you had the guy standing at the podium and he's like, "How many people in this audience want a change?"

and they all raise their hands.

And then the next one is, "How many of you want to change?"

And nobody raises their hand.

We don't change without chaos and anxiety.

That's just how it is.

Mm-hmm.

And, listen, we're already coming from a history that we don't want to reconcile.

I mean, a history that is just as brutal as the most brutal civilizations.

So I get it.

[ Laughs ] I -- Listen.

I don't know how brave I am even, but we're not there yet.

Can I say that, Maya?

You can say that, and -- and I appreciate your truth telling.

I think you're pretty brave.

I think about you as an undeniable success, but it can't have been easy.

Yeah.

I think about the violence, the uncertainty, and the trauma of your childhood, and you've managed to lean into your discomfort and traverse a great distance in order to arrive at a place of what I consider to be post-traumatic growth.

You know?

And so looking at your individual lessons and journey, I'd love for you to perhaps share because I think we all can benefit from thinking about, you know, the process of growth that comes after trauma, suffering, sorrow.

Mm-hmm.

Share with us a little bit of your story of coming to be where you are today.

People ask me that all the time.

I'm like, "Do you have five hours?

[ Laughs ] Do you have some vodka?"

Yes.

Well, maybe our listeners -- our viewers, rather, have both.

Yeah.

Well, you know, it's... You know, my story is one of abject poverty, being born in my grandmother's house, Singleton Plantation in St. Matthews, South Carolina.

You know, coming to live in Rhode Island, which Rhode Island...

I'm the -- I'm the Black girl who grew up in Rhode Island and never thought of getting out of that poverty and the side effects of poverty and the side effects of lack of education.

My father probably had a second grade education.

My mom has an eighth grade education.

And so it led to so much violence in the home, so much food poverty.

And the thing that really -- I mean, not to sound so ego-driven, but we all sort of are, right?

But also that feeling of being this dark-skinned girl growing up in Rhode Island who everybody thought was ugly.

Now, I'm not that girl -- Mm.

You're gorgeous.

Oh, thank you.

But I'm not that girl who sees beauty as a value.

I don't.

But I also feel that the side effects of what happens when you're a woman and people feel like you're ugly, then what they do is they erase you.

And so the trauma of alcoholism with my father and the dysfunction or whatever, it just bled -- it just bled into my life as an adult.

But here's the thing.

The first part of my journey was in acknowledging the trauma.

It's not sexy to say that things hurt you.

Everybody's out there trying to be the boss, trying to say, "I'm on top of my life.

I read this book.

I have a vision board."

And so when none of that happens, when you suffer from anxiety -- which I do -- then you don't want to acknowledge it, and when you don't acknowledge something, guess what, it feeds its power.

So my first step was when I turned 29 and 30, I went into therapy, and I remember the first thing my therapist said was, "I want you to be aware."

And I said, "Aware of what?"

She said, "As you move through your life, start making connections."

Okay?

And so I did.

Like the fact that I never slept at night.

Never.

The fact that I'm terrified of the dark.

You know, the fact that I'm very shy.

No one knows that.

And a lot of that shyness has to do with just social anxiety.

The fears that I had.

So, all of a sudden, I'm acknowledging them and just like... can I just say the greatest prophets, you know, like Christ or, you know, the first thing they did when they cured anyone of demons is they called them out.

And so I had to acknowledge them to call them out.

And then the second part, which for me has been...

I ain't there yet.

I feel that with trauma... and with everything that the world puts on you, that it becomes mortar that weighs down authentically who you are, that somewhere under that mortar... is you -- beautiful you.

Now what am I saying ultimately?

This is what I'm saying -- and I literally realized this when I did "How to Get Away with Murder" -- is I subscribe to nothing.

You cannot tell me what a successful life looks like.

You cannot tell me that I have to have legacy and generational worth money to make my life meaningful.

You can't tell me what pretty is.

You can't tell me what feminine is.

Who told you that?

Who said that?

Who said it was true?

The minute I did that, bam, my mind exploded.

That what if someone came up to you and said, "You define you.

You define your life.

You define your joy.

You define all of that."

Then all of a sudden it's like, "Wait a minute.

I can?

I have permission to do that?"

Yeah, Viola, you have permission to do that.

Well, one of the things that I hear you saying is that rather than listen to the cacophony, that it's important to listen deeply to that still center, you know, to have a practice of reflection, to listen to the truth underneath the words and behind them.

So I think for many of our viewers and our creative peace builders, one of the things that I care about so much is that they learn to be brave about listening to themselves and... Yeah.

...and connecting through storytelling to their truth.

Yeah.

But also their activism.

So I'd like to ask you, you know, how did you find the courage to pick up that identity?

You know, to be a storyteller activist, is how I see it.

Well, I don't know that I necessarily set out to do that, Maya.

I just set out to live a life of peace and joy and authenticity.

And this has just been a byproduct of it.

It moves people.

You know, Arthur Miller, the great playwright, said that the reason why he wrote is to make people feel less alone.

And I think that's the reason why I act, too.

You know, and I think that once again, it's been gradual, that with each step that I've taken in life, it's brought me to a different sort of -- as Anne Lamott would say -- she's sort of a spiritual writer.

It's been a leap pad that has carried me to more of a deeper level of truth and bravery.

And I think the biggest leap pad was watching my dad die... of pancreatic cancer.

Because... he was gone.

You just... You know, listen, I'm a believer in heaven.

But that whole death process that I witnessed... it sort of is like jumping out of a plane.

You know, when you get to that, what, 12,000, 13,000 feet... you know, people always say, "Okay, so what happens after that?

You just jump?"

It's like, you know, it's what the -- the guy who jumped tandem with me, he said, "Viola, you put your hands up, you put your head back, and just fall."

Mm.

Mm-hmm.

Bam.

Once again, you know, looking at his dying, getting married, adopting my child... and all the social workers who came into my life.

The paperwork, the constant hours, hours and days and weeks of questioning in order to feel qualified to be a mother.

All of a sudden it forces you to sort of look within...

Right?

Yeah.

...and get at a deeper level of truth.

Because the only reason why we don't get at that level is because the noise of the world.

We want to fit in.

Listen, I want to fit in.

I don't want to be the odd person out.

That's why I have social anxiety.

You don't want to be the person that doesn't fit in, that doesn't feel worthy.

But all of those sort of rituals -- the marriage, the child, the death of my father -- all of that... made me realize that life is... much simpler and bigger than what I thought it was.

♪ Hey, daddy ♪ ♪ Please come home to me ♪ ♪ Hey, oh, yeah ♪ ♪ I'm on my way ♪ ♪ Crazy as I can be ♪ ♪♪ Having just watched "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom," that was a complex woman right there.

And I -- I think about how unapologetic she was and what a trailblazer, and I wonder if you could speak a little bit to what a role like that can accomplish in terms of helping us to change, to address intolerance, or just see ourselves and one another in more complicated and productive ways?

Can you speak about that role for you?

That role was really good for me because I'm not Ma Rainey.

[ Laughs ] You know, I probably do apologize too much.

My favorite line from Ma is, "Ma listens to her heart, Ma listens to the voice inside of her.

That's what Ma does."

I love that line.

And I think that women like Ma who are unapologetically out there with all of their mess gives you permission to forgive yourself.

Mm.

To understand that all of us are unfinished.

We don't know how to do this.

All of us, I believe -- I mean, there are some exceptions, you know?

But all of us are trying to do the best we can.

Number-one regret in life is going to your grave not being your ideal self.

All of us are trying to chisel away at this sort of -- the person that we want to transform into.

And that's what's so important about what we do as artists.

We watch these characters unfold.

We watch them slit themselves open and go, "Bam!

This is me.

This is the mess.

This is the vomit.

This is the pee and the poop of who I am."

And then that person who's witnessing it, these stories, then all of a sudden can go... "Oh, me too."

Mm-hmm.

And to give that one thing, I believe, that God gives us is humanity -- the mess of humanity.

You know, hopefully we get it before we go to the grave, but more than likely we're not.

[ Laughs ] I mean, let's be honest.

But...that's what I believe Ma Rainey does, especially someone who's that bold.

And for a middle-aged woman like me, there needs to be, I think, some of that feeling of redemptive possibility... -Oh, absolutely.

-...that is present and given in art.

-Always.

And I also think so much these days about what we are giving to our children and to the next generation.

And many of the people who are watching us today are young artists and journalists.

And I think particularly about what you provide for young women of color.

And what would you say to those young artists and creatives who might look to you and say, "I'm never going to accomplish that.

I can never do that."

You know, what -- what is your message to them?

Yeah.

People ask me that a lot, too.

I'm sure.

And, you know, I'm one of those mentors that I don't want to be a dream killer.

And I always want to build up, but I always want to do it honestly.

Yeah, you want to be real.

Here's what I do say.

You have to define success for yourself.

You have to do it.

It's -- You know what?

It's the Thomas Merton quote, which is, "If you want to know me, don't ask me where I live or how I do my hair.

Ask me what I live for.

Or better yet, ask me what's standing in the way of what I live for."

I don't think that most people know how to answer that at all.

So here's my thing.

What do you want?

Where do you want to land?

Where is the center of your joy?

Do you want to be, for me, an actor?

Or do you want to be a famous actor?

So... that's where I start.

I think that part of what you're saying is also not simply what do you want right now, but what do you want... imagining you at life's end... Oh, yeah.

...to have been, the defining texture, quality, and purpose of your life?

For our closing question, I'd like to ask you kind of what is your message, your hope for those who are wanting to undertake small steps towards personal peace, interpersonal peace, and peace in community?

My hope is that you have the bravery to slay the dragons that are getting in the way of your peace.

That you have the bravery and the vision... the energy to slay those demons.

My other wish is for forgiveness.

We have a hard time with forgiveness.

We're in the cancel culture.

Everything is, "You've made a mistake.

Get out."

Because, you know, forgiveness is giving up all hope of a different past.

That we learn to forgive ourselves.

And that we understand that life is not about individualism and going it alone.

But, you know, when I was in Africa, when I was 25 years old, the women who could not give birth, which for the women in the Mandinka tribe, was the biggest blessing in the world.

The woman who could not give birth would dress in oversized clothes and put clown makeup on, and they would have their djembe drum and their calabashes of food and they would go into different compounds and there would be dozens of people sharing the food and screaming at the top of their lungs, wailing and screaming and singing and making funny faces.

And the reason why they were doing that... is because the women -- they were called "Kenyala" -- felt that God did not see them and hear their deepest desire.

So the ritual was all about making as much noise as you could to part the heavens so that God could hear them and pour down the blessing.

The beauty of that is the community.

That feeling that everybody was in there with them.

"You want that?

That's your deepest desire?

I'm in it with you.

I'm going to scream at the top of my lungs.

I'm going to make as much noise with you."

If we don't move forward together, then we don't move forward.

That's what life is about.

And... with all of that... comes peace.

That's what peace is.

That peace is settling in... the stillness.. of knowing that you're present in the moment.

It has served me well when I choose that one, two people to open up to and share my life with.

My mom.

My friendships.

My forgiving my father... and understanding that he did the best he could.

My reconciling my past.

All of that has helped me sleep better.

Well, thank you.

Thank you for encouraging us to jump out of that plane and trusting that... [ Laughs ] I don't know.

[ Laughs ] Whether literally or metaphorically, trusting that expansive vista where we connect with others, where we see the truth of many spaces.

Thank you for all that you are and do.

Really appreciate it.

Thank you for what you do.

This has been great.

It's been great conversation.

[ Chuckles ] Hello, everyone.

My name is Angelique Kidjo.

Peace within cannot exist without peace at large.

So the next song that I have for you is called "Fifa," which means "peace."

I wrote this song and dedicate this song to my child because I wanted my child to live in a world of peace -- that where there's trouble somewhere, someone can come along and save my child.

And if there's peace, she will be safe.

♪♪ [ Singing in foreign language ] ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪ Mm ♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪ Mm ♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪ Mm ♪ ♪♪ ♪ Mm ♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪ Mm ♪ Wow, what an amazing conversation with Viola Davis, and that deeply soulful performance by Angelique Kidjo was just beautiful.

You know, what sister Viola said about deciding what you want really resonated for me because understanding your life purpose is so deeply connected to achieving inner peace.

Yes, and peace radiates outward.

So when we can journey within to listen carefully and reflect deeply, we find the courage to get there and to help others to get there as well.

Mm-hmm.

And that's why we need to take this conversation beyond just personal peace.

We need to take this -- this talk to finding peace with each other.

You know, with so much uncertainty over the past year, violence has plagued far too many of our underserved communities, and nowhere is that issue more present than in Chicago, my wife's hometown.

We're honored to be joined here by Reverend Otis Moss III of Trinity United Church there in Chicago, of course, and his lifetime friend and ally, Grammy award- and Academy Award-winning rapper, my brother Common.

This conversation will be hosted by Stephanie Sy of the "PBS NewsHour."

It's really special to have the two of you together in a conversation about peace and community because, Reverend Moss, you come from a long line of justice seekers and have continued that with your ministry.

And, Common -- Mr. Common, I almost want to say, your music is infused with so much struggle, but also so much hope and optimism.

So I think you're sort of the perfect combination to talk about peace and community.

How did you guys meet?

That's a good question.

We met at church.

Yeah, we met at church.

Well, see, I attended Trinity United Church of Christ since I was eight years old.

And so prior to -- obviously, Reverend Moss was not Reverend Moss at that young age, but, you know, that's where I met him, and I was, like, loving his sermons and then I got to get to know him and I was like, "This is my brother.

This is someone who I love and, like, really cherish being able to talk to and share friendship with."

And there seemed to be an immediate connection between -- like as if we knew each other.

You know, we'd known each other for a while.

You guys also have a lot of projects in the South Side of Chicago that overlap in terms of your mission, right?

Because you're not just a preacher.

Trinity is far more involved in the community than just in faith-based services, right?

It's part of the DNA of the church to be deeply committed to the community.

We have a project called Imani Village, where we're investing in terms of medical center, housing, what we call a healing garden to ensure that returning citizens, what people frame as "convict-- ex-cons," which we don't like that language.

People that have been incarcerated and through that system.

Yeah.

We don't like that language.

You're returning home.

You're a returning citizen.

You know, you're coming back to where you live.

And we're utilizing those individuals to be the developers for the project, along with people who are from the zip code, who are the contractors.

And then we're working with violence interrupters.

One of the best ways to stop violence is not call 911 after it happens, but to have investment on the front end and then have individuals who can come in as interrupters prior to something jumps off in a community.

You know, I think it's important that, like, churches are active in the community.

You know, it's inspiring that my church is and our church is, like, doing the work.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I want to continue to keep going back to the spirituality element of what you guys put out there in the world.

But let's first talk about the struggle in Chicago and what is happening there.

There again has been another summer of gun violence and homicides in Chicago, and that's after years of media attention, negative attention on Chicago.

Bring me there.

What is happening?

Any time you talk about violence or economics, it always starts spiritually because economics and actions of violence are spiritually connected.

And Chicago, especially where we live, has not had the investment, I mean, in these communities.

I mean, you're looking at spaces in the city that when African-Americans migrated from Mississippi and Arkansas, all of a sudden you have these incredibly gifted people and the powers that be saw them as a threat and pulled back the investment for social control.

There was literally discriminatory policies put in cities like Chicago to keep people of color down.

And you see the legacy of that today.

Absolutely.

Matter of fact, even the police department was utilized by the City of Chicago specifically for social control.

People were policed one way in one community and policed in other ways.

So, one community got public health and public safety and another community got repression.

And that was our community.

And so we want us -- We believe in imagination.

Your new song, talking about "Imagine."

"Imagine."

"Imagine."

Your new song "Imagine."

We believe in imagining something radically new and you have to have artists like what Common's doing.

He's doing the most radical spiritual piece because he's putting in young people's imagination, he's raising the ceiling.

Talk about that song and how it relates to what Reverend Moss is saying.

Well, it's important because one of the things that Reverend Moss has hit on is it's significant to me looking at my life and saying, "Okay, what..." I grew up on the South Side of Chicago.

Not -- We weren't -- I was not poor.

I was not rich.

My mother's an educator.

My stepfather was a plumber.

We were -- But we were a middle class home.

But in my neighborhood, there were...

There was gang culture.

There was some beautiful things about it and there was some things that really could have -- I could have been on the wrong path.

But what was it that allowed me to see myself as valuable and work towards that and, like, dream and think about things?

Well, one is for surely God and spirituality.

Another is my mother making sure that that was reinforced in her love and showing me that, hey, these are opportunities that you can seek out and have.

And I bring that up because... it was at a young age that I was imagining doing something and becoming something, and I think, you know...

I don't have the one solution to the violence.

And many times, we get asked, "Like, what is it?"

And I do believe it is -- on a deeper level, it is the lack of the spiritual connection where you do -- Because any time, even in the most difficult situations, if I see the God in another human being, I'm not going to look to destroy them.

And I think that's, you know, one of the keys to us, like, healing our city.

♪ Imagine not being politically correct ♪ ♪ But spiritually direct, still giving me respect ♪ ♪ Imagine if you could change the world through song ♪ ♪ No longer do we have to pay back school loans ♪ ♪ Imagine in the hood doing our own renovations ♪ ♪ Another way to keep the dollar circulating ♪ ♪ Mountaintops of patience just to heal a nation ♪ ♪ Since I was little, I had a big imagination ♪ Your music has always put into context the violence that's current in Chicago, and I just want to...

I won't be able to rap this.

Maybe you can.

I wanna hear you rhyme it.

[ Laughs ] But from -- I hope I don't put these lyrics, these beautiful lyrics, to shame and these searing lyrics from "Black America."

Again, the song you do with Stevie Wonder.

Yes.

"Now we slave to the blocks, on 'em we spray shots, leaving our own to lay in a box, Black mothers' stomachs stay in a knot, we kill each other, it's part of the plot."

Yes.

"Part of the plot" -- What does that mean?

I have my interpretation.

What did you mean?

Well, what I meant from that is that... ...America, when it comes to Black life, has never allowed Black life to have, like... its presence where it's like, "Oh, a human being that can have, like, a great education, health, even pursuit for themselves."

Like, if you think of the -- the foundation of America, I mean, slaves were -- we were enslaved.

Our people were enslaved and dehumanized.

And that has been the mentality that has been passed on generation to generation, whether it was like, "Okay, we going to take the guise of slavery away, but we still got Jim Crow laws and we still got mass incarceration.

And now, you know, this is a different way for us to keep you actually in the same mentality that we had as second-class citizens, as people who don't, like, get opportunities for healthcare, housing, proper education, job opportunities.

We just found another way."

When I say "we," I'm talking about America.

The plot.

The plot has been to say, "Man, we are in fear of the equality and rise of Black people, so we're going to figure out ways to... to make sure that they don't come up.

We're going to push you down and we'll do it indirectly.

We'll do it subconsciously.

We'll do it directly by shooting you in the streets.

It's been a plot, and... until people who are leading the country, like, say, "Man, that plotting is no longer acceptable," that mentality won't -- won't be -- it won't be healed.

As we said, the right word is "healed" because it's wounds on Black people and in the country.

I'm trying to put myself in the shoes of a Black kid living in a pocket of violence in Chicago that seems inexorable.

And I'm feeling that I would feel anger.

And I wonder, how do you speak to that?

I think the first thing is that you have to tell them the truth, that we fail in America so often to speak the truth about what people experience.

So as a young African-American male or young African-American female, you have people who sugarcoat or lie to you about what you experience and see every single day.

We need truth tellers.

You know, the art -- the art of what Common is doing, he is a truth teller.

And Scripture says the truth will set you free.

The other piece is that we no longer can frame Black life solely as tragic.

There are tragic moments, tragic experience, but we have such depth of spirit to always rise above the tragic.

That's why we write the blues, but the blues is not about necessarily hanging my head.

It means that I'm experiencing something existential.

But at the same time, I see something powerful in the future.

That's what happens with the Black experience.

And the artist does that.

The poet does that.

The activist does that.

The preacher does that.

The engineer who has been infused with that spirituality does that.

And so we have to stop framing Black children as solely tragic problems.

The brilliance -- There would be no hip-hop if it had not been for the brilliance of young Black children.

Or jazz.

Or jazz.

Or the blues.

Or the blues.

Or spirituals.

To take two turntables and a microphone and being able to create something new.

That's brilliant creativity in the midst of something that someone else has determined is tragic.

I love what you're saying because there's an opportunity as well in the racial reckoning that came out of the deaths of so many unarmed Black people.

And that was after the death of George Floyd.

What I observed was massive coalitions of people from all walks of life and all different races understanding what Black people in this country, the type of brutality, the degree of it, and solidifying behind that, right?

You know, it's been a buildup of anger, pain.

And as you just said, this was the first year that other people, other nationalities, said, "Oh, this is what they're talking about.

You know, we thought Black people were just complaining or like, they just ain't happy with this and they never satisfied."

And our pain's being broadcast, and that is traumatic... Yeah.

...to watch...

Watching the video was traumatic for, I think, a lot.

It's been in our imagination, but for other people like, "Oh, were you" -- like you said, they were like, "Oh, my gosh, this is real."

Yeah.

Yeah.

That does it.

But like Common said, people started to understand in a really profound way what you all have been dealing with forever.

But on the flip side of that, you know, talk about -- the last decade, there has never been more hate crime against people of all groups and races and names, specifically Asian-Americans and Jewish-Americans.

And that phenomenon brought up this conversation about interracial tension and the fact that in this country, we often think of race as a Black and white issue.

But it is much deeper, and I wonder if you guys have reached out to your communities to have those difficult conversations about interracial tensions.

We did something at Trinity a little while ago where I was invited by a group for Trinity to participate in kind of this ecumenical interracial coalition specifically with Asian-American communities that have been attacked in Chicago.

And it was a powerful gathering because as we started talking about the lived experiences -- for example, when you start talking about the Chinese Exclusion Act and how that becomes the precursor to how you lay out what we now consider to be Jim Crowism, that you then you practice with one group and you try to perfect with another group.

And if you look at the policies between the two groups that literally those in power were saying, "We don't want these communities to build coalition because if these coalitions happen, we are not in power."

And so this is where the power comes in.

When we recognize that when we come together, that -- literally, this is a new nation.

This is a new world because there's so -- there's so many commonalities between our experiences.

♪ No one can win the war individually ♪ ♪ It takes the wisdom of the elders ♪ ♪ And young people's energy ♪ ♪ Welcome to the story we call victory ♪ ♪ The comin' of the Lord, my eyes have seen the glory ♪ ♪ One day ♪ ♪ When the glory comes ♪ ♪ It will be ours ♪ "The biggest weapon is to stay peaceful."

Yeah.

"Our music is the cuts that we bleed through."

Yeah.

that's from the song "Glory," those lyrics.

"Our biggest weapon is to stay peaceful."

Yeah, the music is the cuts that we bleed through.

I'm really just saying, following the -- the mentality and the philosophy of those of the civil rights movement, which was nonviolence and -- and really understanding that, man, going back and forth with hatred is going to bring out the worst in everybody.

So my thing is one of the biggest ways to combat hatred and ignorance and negativity is peace.

It's, like, peace.

And that peace, when I say it, it ain't all just like, "Okay, well, I'm just going to tuck my head down and you just hit me."

Right.

Some of that, for me, is going to find your power and being, like -- empowering your, like, environment.

Like, let's go create for our people.

Let's go do good out for each other.

And I'm glad you mentioned that because there's a view that peace means being passive, and peace is not about being passive.

It means that you're working to transform and to gain your superpower in many ways so that you're working to create a new world.

Now, those who are in power always want to define peace as being passive.

Let's be peaceful, but they're creating situations where I don't have peace and I'm filled with a whole lot of other things in my spirit.

So, we get to define what peace is, and that is something that we are aspiring to, a world that's not yet.

Du Bois says it this way.

"We live in the yet-to-be United States of America that we're working toward."

And Langston Hughes put it this way.

He said, "Let America be America again."

But he says, "America has never been America to me."

And so therefore I have to work to create what has never been using my imagination working toward peace, but I'm never passive in what I'm doing.

You all have spiritual lives.

You have spiritual texts.

I mean, I've read that you've read the Bible, the Koran.

You make reference to the Dalai Lama in your music.

So you are seekers.

I want to get down again to the level of the folks who don't have access to that in places that have experienced so much trauma -- not just the killing of George Floyd, but of so many others.

How do you help them to process anger and not act out in violence?

Because when we're angry, we get aggressive.

We want to be violent.

Like, okay, we have a school in Chicago called AIM -- Art In Motion, right?

And one of the most rewarding things I've felt going into that school is watching our kids in the meditation room.

In this meditation room -- first of all, the school is less than two miles from where I grew up.

It's on, like, 74th and Ridge and on the South Side.

All the students there are from the neighborhoods in Chicago.

Right?

So these -- these are kids from the hood.

How do we get to them with their anger, right?

When they're dealing with something in school and they might not be acting right in class, they get sent to the meditation room, not just to punishment, like, "Okay, you're sent to detention."

To watch the kids meditating, just, man, took me to another level.

It touched me.

It touched my heart, because I was like... Yeah, kids at a young age can appreciate that if they're introduced to it and exposed to it.

But these kids are very wise and they have a lot of gifts and a lot to offer, and when offered solutions and exposure to things that actually are beneficial to them, they embrace it overall.

You know, like, do you know how powerful that is, like, to see a little Black kid meditating?

And we deserve that.

And for the pragmatic folks who are just like, "Well, you know, this is a lot that you're talking about," it's cheaper to do this.

[ Laughter ] You know, instead of spending all this money to incarcerate somebody, let's focus on the whole person.

And if we are willing to service the whole person, it's so much cheaper.

I mean, Dr. King talked about the fact when -- he was talking about Mississippi years ago, in 1967.

He said, "Look how much we spend to educate one child in Mississippi and look how much we spend for one bomb.

Obviously, America's priorities are to kill instead of grow."

If we flip the priorities, we'll change everything.

So there has to be an urban Marshall Plan, meaning that we have to reinvest and the investment is cheap.

You can spend $150,000 to incarcerate, or we can spend $30,000 to educate and to feed, teach people how to meditate, have mental health programs and art.

It's so much cheaper.

And with that $150,000 to incarcerate, you also have to add the several million dollars per person in reference to the not only incarceration system, but all of the services that go with that.

Homelessness, healthcare.

Exactly.

And I hear two things from what you're saying all in all.

If I could sum up, it's you're focused on the practical and the spiritual.

Yes.

The higher consciousness and then the in-the-trenches work.

Yeah.

It's both/and, you know?

Job stops bullets, education will prevent prison, and love creates community.

I love that you use the word "love" in that solution because Common talks a lot about love as an action.

Yeah.

And I think that's a wonderful thought to sort of get your final thoughts on.

Well, I mean, I think, you know, in peace, love is all alive in the word "peace."

And I think, you know, I talk about love from the standpoint of it being an action word because... me saying love and rapping about love... but not doing any activity to express it is not what I want to do.

I feel like I'm better than that.

I feel like we're better than that.

And, you know, faith without works is dead.

Well, love is no good without works either, to be honest.

I mean, I could say a lot of things.

I can rap and sing about love and be a great singer or whatever, but, man, I want to -- I want to see it come to fruition.

I want to impact and show the practicality of love by watching it in action and living it.

It's like... You've got faith, hope, but the greatest of these...

Both: ...is love.

[ Laughter ] Reverend Moss, do you have final thoughts?

There's something I learned from my father.

He said that there are really four things that you've got to learn, and in that process, you can see some things that will be transformative.

Said if you learn how to love God and you better learn how to love yourself, love your family, and then you can love and serve your community.

And he said, "Love is the most important thing when hope is not available or is stillborn.

When faith, you can't find it, love is always the piece that will always rest and transform."

So love becomes central if we are to work toward peace.

And love is, in the American context, something that we're deeply afraid of but every spiritual teacher says that we must wrestle with and engage.

And if you do, it makes you a new person.

Love is patient.

Love is kind.

Love is not self-serving, as Paul says.

We must learn a more excellent way.

1 Corinthians 13.

There you go.

[ Chuckles ] Reverend Otis Moss and Common, thank you so much for your insights and your wisdom and your love, bringing it here.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Let the powerful words and messages that you've heard stick with you and inspire you and encourage you to act in your own communities.

Yes, and, finally, we just want to thank you for joining us and being a part of the Peace Studio family.

Thank you so much, everyone.

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