What can we do?

Many people fear that we’re about to become a fascist police state. I think it’s truer to say that America has always been a fascist police state, we’re just worried that it’s about to happen to us—the white people, and particularly white women. I’m definitely not the first person to observe that “dystopia” usually just means “what already happens to people of color in real life, but applied to white people.”

Of COURSE I’m worried that RBG’s death will lead to the overturn of Roe v. Wade. I wrote a play about that in 2016. But that happened in the SAME WEEK that we learned that we, America, were forcibly sterilizing women in our immigrant concentration camps.

Of COURSE I’m worried that the visible, gradual merging of right-wing militias and police forces will result in increased violence from the state. And that’s happening in the SAME WEEK that the only charges to be filed in Breonna Taylor’s murder were against an officer whose bullets missed her and damaged an apartment of hypothetical white people next door.

Pretty much everything that white people fear will come true is already here, has already been here, and in fact has been in this country from the beginning. We’re just becoming the targets of what we’ve historically done.

There are drones flying overhead? People are getting disappeared, taken who knows where? Armed men with no accountability patrol the streets and do pretty much whatever they want? Think about what America has done to the people of the Middle East.

We’re worried about a coup? About “losing democracy?” We literally overthrew the government of Guatemala because an American fruit company was worried about the price of bananas.

One of the most impactful experiences I’ve had this summer was watching panel of mostly BIPOC folks talking about how to make things more just. The majority-white audience had one overarching question: “What can we do?” And the response from one of the panelists absolutely floored me: “What CAN you do?”

The truth is that we’re conditioned to think that certain actions are for other people. “Someone will fix that.” “Someone will do something.” “Something ought to be done.” It’s not gonna happen, friends. We’re not going to wake up tomorrow with everyone suddenly agreeing that actually, we shouldn’t let police hunt Black people for fun. We need to take action. It’s not enough to be down-with-the-struggle. We need to do everything we can with what we have.

A dear friend of mine caught COVID, and told me that she was having trouble breathing. She needed a humidifier and medicine. I thought about ordering her one online. And then I thought, “CAN I move my afternoon meetings and hand-deliver this potentially life-saving medication TODAY, rather than have it arrive by the end of the week?” And the answer was yes, I CAN do that. So I did. And in the process, I ended up getting exposed to COVID. It wasn’t anyone’s fault, we took precautions, but in the end, it needed to happen to make sure my friend was safe and could breathe. I don’t regret it.

So here’s my question to you, with gratitude to you for reading this far and really considering your answer:
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What CAN you do?

It turns out I write a lot of love scenes. Happy Valentine's Day! This photo set spans from The Trans Theater Double Feature (Plus a Quickie!) in 2013 to Doctor Voynich and Her Children (in two places!) in 2018.

Today I can announce that I’m going to be a Playwright in Residence for THREE MONTHS!!!! Starting in February I’ll be living at the Crosstown Arts facility in Memphis, literally with a room of one’s own. I’ve got a half-dozen projects in development: a trans Shakespeare adaptation, a short comedy about digital assistants, historical gay fiction, and more. I’ll have more to share about all these projects next year. Get in touch if you wanna get more deets!

I’m feeling super grateful for my artistic collaborators who have helped me develop my work and artistic practice. I’m psyched that I’ll get to work on my craft full time instead of cramming it around other commitments. I can’t wait to share this process with you!

Every few months I receive emails from students who want to study my plays in their college courses. Usually they’re looking for contemporary plays with queer or trans themes. I’m happy to share them; instead of charging the students dollars, I ask them to send me a copy of any papers or presentations they do. It’s a lot more fun (and helpful!) to listen to someone’s perspective and analysis than it is to get burrito money.

This is a whole new level.
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Playwrights being taught as part of “American Women Playwrights of the 20th and 21st Centuries” at Carnegie Mellon:
Lorraine Hansberry
Paula Vogel
Kate Bornstein
Young Jean Lee
Suzan-Lori Parks
Lynn Nottage
…
Leanna Keyes
#thisisnotadrill

Thrive out of spite.

That is all.

August 2016 has been a big one.

At the beginning of the month, I reached my one year anniversary at 42nd Street Moon, and also was laid off as they restructured. I learned a ton from my time there, and I'm glad I took the job in the first place. It was my first time with a salaried position rather than a contractor's stipend, and helped me move from stage management to production management. I'm proud of the four shows I took from "wouldn't it be cool if..." to "That looks great!," including one world premiere, and our departing founding artistic director's last two shows.

Shortly after, I was contacted by Stanford TAPS to come in on a temporary basis as the assistant technical director, and I accepted. I'm helping to open the new Roble Studio Theater and get the season planned and organized. It's from now till the middle of November, and I'm really enjoying the change of pace--8 hour days, a regular schedule, (soon) being able to work directly with students and help them make the best art they can.

When I'm not ATDing, I'm the production manager at the Cutting Ball Theater, which will be putting up a festival of avant-garde plays this October. Cutting Ball does intimately staged, technically challenging modern theater, and I feel really at home with their staff.

I'm also the executive producer for The Real World: Stanford, doing my absolute best to update and expand the script, which will be performed in front of ~1800 frosh during New Student Orientation. Real World deals extensively with mental health, relationships, and sexual assault at Stanford. It's really tough work, and close to home, but it's rewarding to be doing my part in addressing sexual violence at my alma mater. Also, I made it gayer.

I got my second tattoo: a joint tattoo with a dear friend of mine as she left for grad school. I'll show you in person if you ask, it's hard to photograph.

What else? I started chewing gum. I called my mom sometimes. I flossed for like four whole days. I saw some great shows. I went to lesbian clubs. I rode rollers coasters. I started introducing myself as "Lea," just to try it out.
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I planned for the future. More on that... in the future. Keyes out.

I think many white people, myself included, heard about ‪#‎AltonSterling‬ and ‪#‎PhilandoCastile‬ and thought, ‘Well, yes, ‪#‎BlackLivesMatter‬, but what can I do about it? I’m not a killer. I don’t know any killer cops.’

Law enforcement officers who shoot black men do not appear in a vacuum. They don’t pop out of a police academy one day. They grow up in our households. They go to our Thanksgiving dinners. They are friends with our sons, our daughters, our spouses. We are part of the culture that creates these officers. Whenever we keep silent, we enable that culture. Whenever we excuse an ‘off-color’ comment, we enable that culture. Whenever we let stereotypes and fearmongering go unchallenged, we enable that culture.

And, yes, these officers answer our 911 calls. The officer who shot Alton Sterling has probably helped a whole lot of white people ‘feel safer.’ The officer who shot Philando Castile has probably ‘stopped by to make sure you’re doing okay.’ That doesn't change what they've done. What this tells us is that someone who you trust today is perfectly capable of murdering a Black person tomorrow.

When you glorify police officers who are ‘doing the right thing,’ when you share (staged) videos of cops giving hugs, you are building a culture that trusts a cop’s 'instincts' over video evidence. A culture that gives them paid administrative leave and then doesn’t press charges. A culture of grand juries who hand out ‘not guilty’ like candy and a culture of state prosecutors who spend more time talking about the Black people who were murdered than about the police officer they’re supposed to be proving guilty.

Agreeing that #BlackLivesMatter means more than passively following hashtags and ‘trying not to be racist.’

It means not calling the police. Yes, even when you feel unsafe. There are ways to feel safe that don’t involve risking a Black person’s life.

It means not moving into historically Black neighborhoods and displacing people who have lived their all their lives just to save a few bucks on rent.

It means not nodding along when someone calls an area ‘sketchy,' or 'urban.'

It means not mocking and then appropriating and then claiming African-American Vernacular English. Yes, even if you're gay. Yes, even if you learned it from a Black friend.

It means recognizing that ‘thugs’ don’t deserve to die any more than ‘law-abiding members of the community.’

It means recognizing that ‘law-abiding members of the community,’ who do everything right, are just as easily killed by police officers, who will get off just as free.

It means changing laws so that 1/3 of Black men don’t spend time in prison, and not letting other white people blame ‘absentee fathers.’

It means recognizing when you have been wrong and learning to be better instead of just giving up.

It means speaking up against people you love who are wrong.

It means helping other white people to change instead of writing them off or ‘keeping the peace.’ Yes, even if it ‘might hurt your career,’ or ‘make things awkward,’ or ‘split the family.’ White police officers have been splitting families apart for as long as the police have existed—it’s just that now we have video. White people who call the police when they see a Black person have been splitting families apart.

White people: I understand that it can feel weird to talk about this, whether it’s on Facebook or over the dining room table. Some time ago, I stopped posting about Black people who were killed by police, or trans women who were murdered, or mass shooting, or bombings, because I didn’t want my Facebook feed to be a litany of the dead. It felt like pandering. It felt like I was trying to score points. It felt like other people were better qualified, or more eloquent—what could I, as a white woman, possibly say that would help prevent one more Black death?

Part of being white in the age of #BlackLivesMatter is recognizing that Black lives matter more than white feelings. By remaining silent, we are building a white culture that passively accepts police murders of Black people, even if we feel bad about it. If we don’t think that we have anything to say, then we need to amplify the voices of Black people who DO have something to say. Share articles. Retweet. Learn. And for God’s sake, stop posting like nothing happened. Because it did happen, and continues to happen, every single day, whether you see a hashtag about it or not. One hashtag may not change the world. It won’t bring anyone back. But what it does is change the white culture of silence and our silent endorsement of the status quo.

#BlackLivesMatter