Race-ing nowhere

This summer I worked on an object catalog for a private collection of African American art and artifacts. I have decided to make my life’s work oriented around shedding light on the disenfranchisement of the Black identity through the arts. The arts have proven to be an important tool towards creating an accessible form of communication amongst the Black community be it through the reproduction of Soujourner Truth’s portrait sold by herself and fellow abolitionists to support her lectures, Jacob Lawrence’s paintings that catalog the great migration of Blacks from the South to the North post emancipation, or Dread Scott’s performances in honor of Black acts of liberation. Adversely, the arts have been used to belittle the cultural richness of the Black diaspora to support outdated anthropologists that only view Blacks as desperate for self-worth. There is a weight these artists, as well as myself bare to reconstruct the Black identity in the very spaces that have built the ego of the disillusioned Westerner.

 In reference to the racing metaphor I suggest in my subject lining; there is no trophy for me to claim at the end of this "race" that was created to simply exhaust me. Race conversations are treated as one dimensional analysis of a system with growing nuance to meet the needs of the time. Black artists/ activists have had to do the same in order to communicate the never ending struggle to overcome white supremacy. My summer was a reminder of this battle as I sought to uncover object histories that should have never been hidden. There isn’t a trophy to be claimed. I did work I am proud of, but I do not have the luxury of living in the illusion of this ephemeral success because I am forced to watch these efforts come up short through televised murder and bigotry.