The Trouble with Calling it Black Art
This is a great article, starting with its insightful title: The Trouble with calling it, Black Art,
Well, for me it is. I come to believe that we are doing our self a disservice by labeling our self-black arts or black- anything. It becomes a category separated from the main branch, not only that but a subcategory: Negro league, black Miss America — you get the picture. And no matter how great Leroy Robert “Satchel” Paige American baseball player was he would always be in the subcategory, Even if he were the greatest. However, as Toni Morison makes clear, his legacy is serving time in a prison created by a black-myth, which has to explain over and over to the conqueror. And that is it, black art requires, explanation.
I got even more excited with the introduction of writers Zadie Smith and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. I’m reading “Americanah” and “white teeth” is on my to-read list. They embody what the great American writer Toni Morison said
” …The black artist must do what all the other artists do. Talk to each other. I love Russian literature. It never occurred to me that Doysteyvsky needs to explain something to me. He’s talking to other Russians about very specific things, but it said something critical to me and was an enormous education for me. When black writers write, they should write for me. Richard Wright isn’t talking to me. He’s talking to some white people. Same with Leroi Jones and the Dutchman. He’s explaining something to them. It may have been very necessary, and it’s done well. But it wasn’t about me and wasn’t talking to me. And I know when they are talking just past my ear. When they are explaining something. Justifying something. Defining something.”
— I do think Ms. Jenifer Jefferson set a significant precedent by identifying these artists as Nigerian and British ” black” people are not a monolith.
The problem that I did have, was about building that prison. MoMa is doing just that, making a category for its black arts and defining what that is. And the rest of us are willing to help and argue for the need for that group. Always explaining what black art is to white folks, and reinventing it when they get it. It’s a double edged sword; I think Thelma Golden is right with her “post-black” exhibit. As director and curator at the Studio Museum, Golden defined a movement in the black art community…” She launched the term “post-black” The new genre was given to artists who were adamant about not being labeled as ‘black’ artists, though their work dealt with the idea of blackness. The intention is for black arts integration into Western art history instead of treated as a particular interest if the work is race-related.”
In all this confusion, one must remember the quest for power. Museums cater to their donors, and the exhibits reflect their position, it’s the American way. You get the Government and the museum you pay for. And I believe museums like their status, power, just as they are Exclusively Bourgeois, Perhaps if the Bourgeois keep you worrying about your particular category and how to fit in. You won’t be much of a competition. In the words of the great Jay-z…
“I’m a hustler homey, you a customer crony”.
Under these rules, black will always be a customer. And as long as the client spends all their time figuring how to define their needs or who or what he is to the Hustler he will always be the customer — Or the “black artist.”
Professor Barbara Fields said it well in her book “Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American Life.”
… Americans regard people of known African descent or visible African appearance as a race, but not people of known European origin or visible European appearance. That is why, in the United States, there are scholars and black scholars women and black women. Saul Bellow and John Updike are writers; Ralph Ellison and Toni Morrison are black writers.
Toni Morison is right – as usual-
“It’s important to know who the real enemy is and to know the very serious function of racism, which is a distraction. It keeps you from doing YOUR WORK. It keeps you explaining over and over your reason for being.”
Jenifer Jefferson wrote an excellent article. I immediately looked her up to follow. I share her brilliant insight in her concluding paragraph.
” Next, I wonder where I fit in. A writer by trade, there is a section for me at the local Barnes & Nobles called African-American. I guess you will eventually find my book of essays between the Rev. T.D. Jakes’ Woman, Thou Art Loosed and the James Weldon Johnson’s The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man deeming they are of the same cultural significance to those interested in the black experience. As a whole, I am excited that more artists will be invited to the table; I just hope the “black artists” won’t all have to sit together.”
The sad part is that’s exactly what we like doing. Sitting together building, reinforcing the black race myth. Being Complicit with the power-seeking Hustlers and Bourgeois, who get their power from you categorizing yourself. However, don’t let this get you down. All artists know and come to realize, the more you do art and see art, we’re all the same — human.
