Interviewer: Siena Iwasaki Milbauer
In honor of Black History Month, we at AAOP have decided to create a collection of content on police abolition work, one of the most crucial manifestations of the movement for Black lives, and an important step on the road to true liberation for Black, Brown, Indigenous, Asian, and queer communities.
Previously, we looked at some basic facts about abolition, like what it could look like in practice and how folks can get involved. Today, we share a conversation with serena, a former member of our AAOP team and a filmmaker and activist involved in abolition organizing. We’re honored to be able to amplify their voice and their powerful work.
Please introduce yourself
My name is serena, I use they/them pronouns. I’m mixed race, South Asian and white. Those are my identities!
Why is abolition something that you believe in and how are you involved in the movement?
I think police abolition is a direct response to the history and legacy of slavery in our country. It is vital to the liberation of Black folks, and all our liberation is tied up in Black folks’ liberation.
I am involved in the movement as a storyteller, predominantly in the realm of documentary.
Documentation is a vital tool for our movements. We have to tell the history on our terms, because we know that so often mainstream media and history textbooks retell certain historical events from a colonial and white supremacist narrative.
So I think us being able to have [our own] tools of retelling and documenting is really powerful.
Can you share a bit about your work as an artist?
I’m a visual thinker, so I’ve always been drawn to filmmaking as, honestly, a mode to learn about things. Documentary and having a camera give me an opportunity to listen in a way that I don’t think I got in classrooms.
I really like filmmaking as a process and I think it provides a lot of opportunities. [As a documentarian] there’s lots of opportunities for activist-type community building. And within activism, there’s lots of opportunities for documentation and storytelling as a tool. I think that cohesion is what made me stick with filmmaking because I always knew that racial justice was a really important part of who I am and what I want to fight for.
How does your work as an organizer and your work as an artist intersect?
With documentary, there are all these things that happen behind the scenes before you see the final result. You have a director who has this vision, who collaborates with camera and sound and all these people who are bringing their own identities. Perspective comes in when the director tells a camera person where to put the camera. That’s an opportunity for activism because you’re deciding where to point it. Activism also comes in when the interviewer decides what questions to ask. We know as activists that community conversations are everything. So when you turn the camera on and you are recording [a conversation], that’s an opportunity for activism.
There are just so many details about the process of filmmaking that as activists, we identify as really important parts of racial justice, social justice, queer justice, and liberation.
Beyond the traditional documentary form, there’s ways to bring ideals and values into the way we make fiction films and the way we value labor. [The mainstream view about film] is there is this one visionary who makes it happen, the genius. What we know in reality is that a ton of people put their labor, their days, their bodies on the line during the filmmaking process. So to me, there’s an opportunity for labor organizing, labor justice in that.
How have you seen Asian American folks participating in the abolition movement?
I was brought to transformative justice through Asian American writers and thinkers and activists. And in the recent summer in Minneapolis, I’ve just noticed an increase in conversations that I’m having with other Asian American folks. I think people are being challenged in ways that they haven’t been before.
What role do you think artists and storytellers have to play in police abolition work, and more broadly in movements for justice everywhere?
I think in today’s reinvention and reclamation of what abolition is, it takes so much imagination. Abolition is about let’s get rid of police and let’s get rid of prisons, but we’re also building something entirely new.
And so, as artists and storytellers, I think it’s our duty to exercise our imagination and get people to think outside of what they think is possible.
We know abolition takes a culture change, a culture shift. And we know from this summer that is possible, because there was a shift. As artists and activists, we have to continue telling the stories that propel people further and further towards our vision of what true abolition is.
You can learn more about and support serena’s work at serenaviolethodges.com and on Instagram @serenathesoupbowl