New Film "Unapologetic" Takes You Inside The Black Lives Matter Movement In Chicago
By Denée Seaton
This is the part of Chicago that doesn’t get talked about. A virtual screening of Ashley O'Shay's documentary Unapologetic was held by JAYU, a Toronto-based charitable organization, Tuesday night. It was co-sponsored by the Toronto Black Film Festival and Inside Out.
Unapologetic, which started production in 2015, covers the recent history of social justice movements for Black lives. It details the police murder of Rekia Boyd to the election of Mayor Lori Lightfoot. The film is told through the lens of two Chicago-based, fierce millennial activists and leaders, Bella BAHHS and Janaé Bonsu.
The film screening was accompanied by a Facebook Live Q&A with the documentary subjects Bella BAHHS (Black Ancestors Here Healing Society) and Janaé Bonsu. The event was held as part of JAYU’s 'Last Tuesdays' program.
As a response to COVID-19, the organization offers free online human rights arts presentations on the last Tuesday of every month.
Bonsu, who balances her activism and academia throughout the film, grew up witnessing various loved one's cycle in and out of the criminal justice system. Similarly, by the time BAHHS was 3 months old, her grandparents became her legal guardian because her parents had been incarcerated.
"My brother just called me from prison; every day I got something to keep fighting for, I got a reason to work. This is my life, you know?" said BAHHS in the Q&A Facebook Live.
BAHHS often presents her activism through art, especially poetry and rap. She was pushed into the spotlight when a video of her heart-felt performance at a social justice march went viral. The rally was held for Laquan McDonald, a teenager shot 16 times by ex-Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke.
"I don't just go through Blackness when I have an anti-Black experience; I'm Black all the time. My nieces and nephews...everyone I love is walking through this earth with these extra barriers that separate us from living our truths and walking in power," said BAHHS.
"What keeps me going is that I want to keep living," she added.
Photo by Ashley O’Shay
BAHHS’s has been writing for as long as she can remember, until she was comfortable enough to speak and perform.
The film presents the various ways in which BAHHS uses forms of art to promote social justice. “For me, it might come as a rap, it might come as a poem, it might come as a revolutionary column …it might come in different forms,” said BAHHS.
Thinking about who the audience will be is another important aspect of how she chooses to relay her words.
When O'Shay first asked her to take part in the film BAHHS said she was extremely hesitant.
"I thought dang, she's probably the feds, she probably on some William O'Neal type stuff…the feds getting tricky out here… using our language and everything," said BAHHS, laughing.
The film, however, surpassed what anyone thought it would be. It has now been screened at over 20 festivals and recently won the Groundbreaker Award at the 2021 Cleveland International Film Festival.
"I had no idea it would be what it is today,” said Bonsu. “I didn't know we would be filming for so long…for five years.”
Throughout the documentary, Bonsu grapples with her Ph.D. dissertation. The emotional roller coaster of being a student, while organizing events with Black Youth Project 100 presents an up close and personal perspective of Bonsu's dedication.
However, Bonsu regards academia as more of a steppingstone.
"Academia is not a life-calling,” she said. “It's a setting….you can get training at academic institutions, but that doesn't mean you have to live there, in terms of the work you do for the rest of your life.”
Her dreams of becoming a research professor have since been altered. She recently began a new job at a research policy organization.
"I'm blessed to be working with and for Black women," said Bonsu, who is now directly applying her academic research training within intersectional and radical politics.
Photo by Bob Simpson
Black queer women are presented at the core of Unapologetic. It challenges the Hollywood version of Black activism that is often male-centric.
This month, the 'Last Tuesdays’ event was held at a hallmark time in the conversation surrounding anti-Black racism, considering it marked a year since the death of George Floyd.
Both Bonsu and BAHHS are committed to continue their radical fight against anti-Black racism; their activism covered in Unapologetic was only just the beginning.
"This isn't work; it's a new idea that this is work, this is my life," said BAHHS. "It didn't start with me, and it won't end with me…I may not see it in my lifetime, but somebody gone' see it and I want to be a part of that."
Bonsu shares a similar sentiment, for her, the fight is more profound than the present moment.
"Every day when I'm like, ‘I'm tired of this shit’…I think of my ancestors who were under Jim Crow, under slavery. I think about them, and I say, "I have to avenge their suffering. I would be ‘ain't shit’ if I didn't fight, especially after what they had to go through."
