Director Muta’Ali Hopes “Yusuf Hawkins: Storm Over Brooklyn” Will Inspire Modern Activism
“I think it’s important to remember our history, as New Yorkers and as a nation. And part of our history includes things that are tragic.”
Filmmaker Muta’Ali knew he had found his next project upon learning about the political complexities and contemporary relevance of the 1980s murder of Yusuf Hawkins.
The HBO documentary Yusuf Hawkins: Storm Over Brooklyn tells the story of Yusuf Hawkins, a sixteen-year-old Black teenager who was murdered by a white mob on August 23, 1989 in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. The film details how this tragedy came to happen, how Hawkins’ family and friends dealt with their loss, and how Rev. Al Sharpton motivated a movement to demand justice for Hawkins.
Below, Muta’Ali discusses his use of maps as a storytelling method, his gratitude for studios like HBO for taking chances on diverse voices, and what he hopes viewers can take away from Hawkins’ story.
What drew you to tell the story of Yusuf and his family and the public reaction to his death?
What drew me was a mixture of things. I think it’s important to remember our history, as New Yorkers and as a nation. And part of our history includes things that are tragic. Yusuf was a 16-year-old boy, innocent in almost every way that we can imagine, and his life was taken. I think having an opportunity to evoke his name and remind people that he existed was something that drew me to the project, as well as the circumstances surrounding his murder.
To tell a story that unfolds the many factors that contributed to Yusuf’s murder — environmental factors, New York’s segregation at the time, the political climate, the way Mayor Koch led New York City during three terms prior to Yusuf’s murder — all of that is related to what happened on August 23rd, 1989.
In the documentary, you use maps to lay out the story and to prepare the audience for what was to come. What led to that filmmaking decision?
There is a theme of segregation peppered throughout the story. There’s a 2015 article by the New York Times called “Mapping Segregation.” It’s an interactive map where you can look down at the city and see where people live based on their race. When you look at the map, we are all sectioned off primarily by race in New York. And that’s not exclusive to 2015, that was also the case in 1989. This is sensitive data.
The top-down look and the maps played several roles and one was to reinforce our separateness, but also to let people know who are outside of New York City how things are spaced out. I think, practically, that was a good move, but segregation is really what I wanted to underscore.
How did you approach telling both sides of the story and gaining the trust of the subjects?
We threw out a wide net, but there was a lot of reluctance on the part of the Bensonhurst residents. They did not feel comfortable, for the most part, contributing to the story. There’s still some fear in the atmosphere out there, like there might be some sort of repercussion if you talk about what happened to Yusuf. That was a little bit of a hindrance.
For the people who did participate, including Joey Fama [currently in prison for the death of Yusuf Hawkins] and Russell Gibbons [the sole Black man involved with the mob that attacked Yusuf Hawkins], I appreciated their presence and their willingness to speak up. I feel like they wanted to let me know that not everyone out there had the same intentions or opinions about what happened. My intention was to paint a picture of the Bensonhurst residents as being just as diverse as people who are within their own ethnic enclaves and that everyone was an individual.
The film includes interviews with the lone Black man involved with the mob that killed Hawkins, Russell Gibson. How does his characterization of Bensonhurst complicate the film’s narrative?
I think it serves the film’s narrative in a way. What he offered wasn’t the perspective of a stereotypical African-American who would move into a white neighborhood when he was an adult. I think he adopted the same mentality as his white friends. He believes that racism was not an issue in Bensonhurst. As someone who really is opposed to racism- denial, it shows me that racism- denial is not limited to white people. Anyone can deny the existence of racism even though it’s right in their face.
It’s a complicated issue, though, because he’s a Black person and I think that might be complicated for him to process on his own. I think people lean on Russell’s presence that night as a reason why this wasn’t a racist incident and why the attackers couldn’t have been racist. But I think when you listen to Russell, you see that he has about 100 percent the same mentality as everyone else he grew up with.
One thing I think was great that he contributed was the reason his father decided to move to Bensonhurst in the first place, including job opportunities and better education. That lines up with the segregation of the time and the mayor’s treatment of different communities throughout the 1980s. The city invested more in communities where people were white or Italian and divested in communities like East New York.
The film includes a clip of Spike Lee encouraging voter turnout in order to remove Mayor Koch from office. What role do you see voting playing in the fight for racial justice today?
I think voting is important. I think that anybody who has a friend who’s convincing them that they shouldn’t vote needs to tell their friend that they’re sadly mistaken.
And then when it comes to actually affecting our day-to-day, the rhetoric that our leaders use is important. They set the tone of our nation. It makes a huge difference if the person in the White House actually agrees that racism is a problem. As a Black person, fighting racism and giving Black people a fair shot is a priority.
What lessons do you hope your viewers can take away from the film to make sure that these faults of the past don’t keep repeating themselves? How does this film relate to events you see going on today?
I think one thing people can do is believe victims of oppression and racism. We have to believe Black people. This film wouldn’t happen without networks like HBO seeing the value in the story and entrusting the filmmakers. I really thank them. I want to tip my hat to studios that take the risk by creating content with filmmakers from diverse backgrounds and HBO has done that for a long time.
With that, we’ll be able to look at what political leaders say with a dual mind. When our leaders make comments that deny that racism is a problem present in America, they are doing the same thing Ed Koch did in the 1980s that allowed racism to fester. So, we have the potential to be racist. We have the potential to be victims of racism. We, as individuals, need to make sure that we don’t accidentally participate in racist acts because we’ve been programmed to do so.
We still live very siloed lives. In New York, especially in our school systems, we are very siloed by race. One thing we need to learn is that we are really susceptible to suggestions about other cultures. Since we’re not mixed together like a beautiful melting pot, we have to second guess our presumptions about other people, especially before we take action physically against them.
I think the biggest lesson, though, that I hope people take away is that putting pressure on a community works, like Rev. Al Sharpton and Yusuf’s family did from August 1989 to January 1991 by marching through Bensonhurst 29 times. I think what they did will work today for Breonna Taylor. Continued protest in the neighborhood of the people who are in power is effective, so if people could take that away, I’d be delighted as a citizen.
