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Thursday, October 24, 2019
'There Are Black People In The Future' Resident Artists Present Their Projects
90.5 WESA: The words “There Are Black People in the Future” was blazoned on a rooftop billboard in East Liberty last year, confusing and even offending some. Indeed, critics got the billboard art project taken down in April 2018, a move that sparked its own outcry.
I hadn’t been previously aware of the billboard and the controversy surrounding it which certainly really cues me of my privilege in the fact that I am ignorant to a lot of important events and discussions happening in our community that I should really be more aware of, which is in part the point of the residency of the collaboration of artists as a response to the billboard being removed. In my opinion the billboard itself sparked a discomfort and that is what led to its removal but that discomfort needs to be the launching point of the conversations we’re having to improve our communities. In the D,E, and I workshop on Monday as well as on the D&I committee there have been a lot of talk surrounding ways to facilitate uncomfortable topics and conversations in ways that we can push through the discomfort in order to improve the environment for everyone. These topics of conversation aren’t easy for both sides of the discussion but those in a privileged situation need to realize that their comfort isn’t of higher importance than the comfort of marginalized groups and the struggles they face on a daily basis. The process of improving our communities comes with a lot of failure both individual and on a larger scale but we need to move beyond the discomfort and failure in order to find effective management strategies to gain equity for those in our community.
I’ve been hearing about this on WESA while driving around town and it’s made me very excited, especially as I remember seeing the billboard and then seeing it disappear. I didn’t know its origin or why it went away, but I remember going “hey, that’s a cool billboard.” What I love about this most is the description of the audience that Thomas Agnew details. I fully support the sentiment of “It doesn’t make sense to have that same discussion with each other…” that he expresses in this article, because he’s right. You can create things to show your oppression till you’re blue in the face, but until you shove the nose of your oppressor into it, they have every opportunity to turn a blind eye and claim ignorance. It happens with POC, women, LGBTQ folx, disabled folx, and fat folx. Creating this kind of art and then insisting that the people who are part of the problem show up so they can try to be part of the solution is so important. I think it’s time for white people and other people in power to stop making space at their tables for oppressed folx, and start getting up from their tables and sitting at the oppressed tables to listen on how they can do better to make it better.
2 comments:
I hadn’t been previously aware of the billboard and the controversy surrounding it which certainly really cues me of my privilege in the fact that I am ignorant to a lot of important events and discussions happening in our community that I should really be more aware of, which is in part the point of the residency of the collaboration of artists as a response to the billboard being removed. In my opinion the billboard itself sparked a discomfort and that is what led to its removal but that discomfort needs to be the launching point of the conversations we’re having to improve our communities. In the D,E, and I workshop on Monday as well as on the D&I committee there have been a lot of talk surrounding ways to facilitate uncomfortable topics and conversations in ways that we can push through the discomfort in order to improve the environment for everyone. These topics of conversation aren’t easy for both sides of the discussion but those in a privileged situation need to realize that their comfort isn’t of higher importance than the comfort of marginalized groups and the struggles they face on a daily basis. The process of improving our communities comes with a lot of failure both individual and on a larger scale but we need to move beyond the discomfort and failure in order to find effective management strategies to gain equity for those in our community.
I’ve been hearing about this on WESA while driving around town and it’s made me very excited, especially as I remember seeing the billboard and then seeing it disappear. I didn’t know its origin or why it went away, but I remember going “hey, that’s a cool billboard.” What I love about this most is the description of the audience that Thomas Agnew details. I fully support the sentiment of “It doesn’t make sense to have that same discussion with each other…” that he expresses in this article, because he’s right. You can create things to show your oppression till you’re blue in the face, but until you shove the nose of your oppressor into it, they have every opportunity to turn a blind eye and claim ignorance. It happens with POC, women, LGBTQ folx, disabled folx, and fat folx. Creating this kind of art and then insisting that the people who are part of the problem show up so they can try to be part of the solution is so important. I think it’s time for white people and other people in power to stop making space at their tables for oppressed folx, and start getting up from their tables and sitting at the oppressed tables to listen on how they can do better to make it better.
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