User Banned (Permanent): Anti-Black Racism
A few months ago I made a thread.
www.resetera.com
For whatever reason, it was closed. These feelings have not gone away.
Full disclosure it has nothing to do with social media. It's about art, specifically black art.
I used to think that the reason we don't see black artists that speak on things is because we just aren't afforded the opportunity. Increasingly, however, I'm starting to think it's because many black creators put themselves in boxes and only speak on blackness.
I live in NYC and am an artist. I am being mentored by a renown black artist. He is schooling me in the biz. I have began to build a professional and creative network and a lot of them are black and their work is almost always, universally, typified by their blackness. It's so banal and ubiquitous here that it feels like a giant fucking grift, where talent isn't rewarded so much as being black is. A lot of the work in my network is really sub standard. Like one collective in the local area that has been making rounds talks almost nothing of social issues. Their main thing is blackness. Here in Brooklyn, the Brooklyn Museum is opening an exhibit to show Obama's Presidential portrait. How is this group going to commemorate it? By making portraits of people surrounded by trees to mimic the overall aesthetic of Obama's portrait. That's it. Using one persons art as a basis to make money.
This is just one spurious example. I notice people of races don't do this shit and if they do they are smart to not make it the totality of their artistic identity. They realize that there's wisdom in having an oeuvre that works for people of different backgrounds.
So much black art boils down to "Hey, I'm black." It's so fucking boring. The worst part is how black artists are cajoled into this corral of creative stagnancy. I fear that if my career goals line up, I'll still be forced by my bosses to only make pictures pertaining to blackness. What about the recent Afghan situation? What about the War on Terror? What about the ripple effects that has on views on military? Or Islam/Muslims? I'm really interested in the sociology of what makes us human and the webs that we are connected to, and too often it feels like this is an attitude only afforded by non-black artists. Take a look at a lot of black art and it often feels copied and pasted. I'm again, convinced it's a grift for many. I go to exhibit after exhibit and it's almost always the same. Meanwhile the non-black people get to tell cool, diverse stories and they're not obsessed with their identities even if they're people of color. This doesn't mean they have no pride of where they come from, but they seem just as interested in telling stories about people who aren't like them as much as they are interested in telling stories about people that are.
It's getting hard to hold back my tongue and just flat out say,"your work sucks and your blackness is the only reason you're here. Please tell us something about you besides your blackness."
You can see this is dynamic in the pop culture. Like how they replace characters that are historically white with a black version of that character rather than making a unique black character. It's as if black art is constrained to a specific plane and if you go outside of it you're going to get tomatoed.
I'm not saying speaking truth to power and articulating your blackness has no value. But creatively, is that all there is? So your answer to white people making art that features only white people is to make art that only features black people? And you live in New York City?
How could you, reliably, critique white peoples pastiche that limits this world to a select race if you're doing the same?
I'm really, really scared I'll make my career goals of working for the New York Times or AP or something, and they only give me black stories where I'm just pigeon holed.
To counter this, I've started to distance myself almost entirely with the movement and black art. I'm in the process of making my own collective and unlike other collectives ran by black people I've decided to make it non-black. The first guy I recruited, my co-partner, is a straight white man. The goal of the collective is find diverse voices where we can tell stories visually in a high level manner. I'm really trying to build a group of people from diverse backgrounds: black, brown, Muslim, Jewish, Asian, Latino, Arab, LGBTQ, Native;etc. even white as long as they have something to say and don't reduce their messages to just identity politics.
I told someone I know about joining my collective. He's a black man. He told me no because he wants to focus only black issues. It's always like this. It's as if that's all they have to say.
The worst part of black arts limited dynamics is that it teaches white people that black people are just victims. More than that, it teaches black kids that blackness is a fashion statement. In the end, we all lose.
Here's a picture to close this out.
I'm black but I'm not sure if I'm pro-black anymore
This sounds like a bizarre statement but it's how I feel. Hopefully this is a safe space to express that feeling. When I say I'm not sure if I'm pro-black anymore I mean it in the sense I don't care about black issues. I care. I deeply care. But caring about those issues and being pro-black...
www.resetera.com
For whatever reason, it was closed. These feelings have not gone away.
Full disclosure it has nothing to do with social media. It's about art, specifically black art.
I used to think that the reason we don't see black artists that speak on things is because we just aren't afforded the opportunity. Increasingly, however, I'm starting to think it's because many black creators put themselves in boxes and only speak on blackness.
I live in NYC and am an artist. I am being mentored by a renown black artist. He is schooling me in the biz. I have began to build a professional and creative network and a lot of them are black and their work is almost always, universally, typified by their blackness. It's so banal and ubiquitous here that it feels like a giant fucking grift, where talent isn't rewarded so much as being black is. A lot of the work in my network is really sub standard. Like one collective in the local area that has been making rounds talks almost nothing of social issues. Their main thing is blackness. Here in Brooklyn, the Brooklyn Museum is opening an exhibit to show Obama's Presidential portrait. How is this group going to commemorate it? By making portraits of people surrounded by trees to mimic the overall aesthetic of Obama's portrait. That's it. Using one persons art as a basis to make money.
This is just one spurious example. I notice people of races don't do this shit and if they do they are smart to not make it the totality of their artistic identity. They realize that there's wisdom in having an oeuvre that works for people of different backgrounds.
So much black art boils down to "Hey, I'm black." It's so fucking boring. The worst part is how black artists are cajoled into this corral of creative stagnancy. I fear that if my career goals line up, I'll still be forced by my bosses to only make pictures pertaining to blackness. What about the recent Afghan situation? What about the War on Terror? What about the ripple effects that has on views on military? Or Islam/Muslims? I'm really interested in the sociology of what makes us human and the webs that we are connected to, and too often it feels like this is an attitude only afforded by non-black artists. Take a look at a lot of black art and it often feels copied and pasted. I'm again, convinced it's a grift for many. I go to exhibit after exhibit and it's almost always the same. Meanwhile the non-black people get to tell cool, diverse stories and they're not obsessed with their identities even if they're people of color. This doesn't mean they have no pride of where they come from, but they seem just as interested in telling stories about people who aren't like them as much as they are interested in telling stories about people that are.
It's getting hard to hold back my tongue and just flat out say,"your work sucks and your blackness is the only reason you're here. Please tell us something about you besides your blackness."
You can see this is dynamic in the pop culture. Like how they replace characters that are historically white with a black version of that character rather than making a unique black character. It's as if black art is constrained to a specific plane and if you go outside of it you're going to get tomatoed.
I'm not saying speaking truth to power and articulating your blackness has no value. But creatively, is that all there is? So your answer to white people making art that features only white people is to make art that only features black people? And you live in New York City?
How could you, reliably, critique white peoples pastiche that limits this world to a select race if you're doing the same?
I'm really, really scared I'll make my career goals of working for the New York Times or AP or something, and they only give me black stories where I'm just pigeon holed.
To counter this, I've started to distance myself almost entirely with the movement and black art. I'm in the process of making my own collective and unlike other collectives ran by black people I've decided to make it non-black. The first guy I recruited, my co-partner, is a straight white man. The goal of the collective is find diverse voices where we can tell stories visually in a high level manner. I'm really trying to build a group of people from diverse backgrounds: black, brown, Muslim, Jewish, Asian, Latino, Arab, LGBTQ, Native;etc. even white as long as they have something to say and don't reduce their messages to just identity politics.
I told someone I know about joining my collective. He's a black man. He told me no because he wants to focus only black issues. It's always like this. It's as if that's all they have to say.
The worst part of black arts limited dynamics is that it teaches white people that black people are just victims. More than that, it teaches black kids that blackness is a fashion statement. In the end, we all lose.
Here's a picture to close this out.
