Ritual Protest

Dr. Sami Schalk, an esteemed Black feminist disability scholar tweeted out late last night a query for her Black twitter community, “How many white people do you personally know whom you would consider anti-racist & 100% vouch for them to other Black people?” She responds to the tweet “I think I’ve got like 4 & a possible.” I’m linking here to the thread for your perusal. The results are thought-provoking to say the least.

I once said to Vaimo, that people of color are always thinking about race. It’s our default lens. A lens through which we run every scenario and interaction we have with others. Especially when that interaction is not a positive one.

That was an insight for her.

On the thread, Black folks with white parents, including Dr. Schalk herself, say they could not vouch for a white parent.

Sit with that for a minute.

I have a white parent. Observing his paralysis when provided the opportunity to directly confront overt racism has impacted me on a cellular level. That combined with his and my Mexican American mama’s refusal to attend my wedding provide direct examples of how systemic oppression manifests on an interpersonal level.

And, I would consider both my parents good people.

And, I could not vouch for either of them to my Black friends.

This is painful to contend with, and requires us to truly grapple with how our intentions align with our impact. Non-racist is not the same as anti-racist. And shifting to an anti-racist perspective requires, work, time, reflection, action and consistency. It requires us to think about how is race operating in every scenario. It requires us to examine how systems are structured to elevate some and keep others down. It also requires us to do something to repair past harms and dismantle systems that continue to perpetuate inequities. Anti-racism work requires of us that we show up to do this every, single, day. It requires continual learning, sharing, reflecting, and practice.

These are not new conversations. Black feminists have been writing, theorizing, mobilizing on the very simple premise that until Black women are free, none of us are free. If you’re not seeing that as the main goal of 21st century Black organizing, you’re not connected to the right folks yet. If you are moving from occupying a non-racist space to one purposefully anti-racist, welcome to the task at hand. It is now your job to contend with how anti-Blackness is the key motivating factor to how white supremacy is upheld in the US, our worlds. All non-Black folks have a part in that. Yes, even me.

Protests have erupted across the globe, a cry of righteous rage against white-supremacy, and more of us are awakening to this cornerstone of anti-Blackness infecting all of our communities. I’m grateful for more folks walking this path. But, as my dear sister-friend Victoria reminded me the other day. Good white folks are awakening right now, and she, a Black woman is sleep-deprived. I too am weary.

Because I live in a rural area, a three hour drive away from the epicenter of this current protest, I have been trying to figure out what is my role in this struggle from the unceded land of the Oceti Sakowin on which Vaimo and I currently live. For now, I suppose it has been attempting to model different futures for us all. I’ve been working to make the case as to why this urban rebellion matters to rural Minnesota. This subject is worthy of a book, for now I will try to make some more sense of it.

I’ve met a lot of good white folk doing this work since sharing my thoughts publicly. But as we have already covered, good is not enough in these times. The protests that have resulted in actually burning structures down is just as much of an indictment of how overt white supremacist structures have stolen from our Black neighbors’ futures as it is a call-in for the good white folks. Good white folks cannot continue to live without understanding their role in all of this. While urban centers are burning I want to reiterate that these uprisings are connected to rural communities.

I want us to challenge this idea of the rural/urban divide as an important part of this conversation. The rural/urban divide first manifests geographically. Rural areas are outside of city centers because rural areas provide the material reality for urban centers to thrive. Food, building materials, minerals, land, water. Rural areas are resource-rich for the development opportunities of city centers. The rural/urban divide has most recently gained attention due to the ways it has manifested politically. 2016 was the “wake-up” call especially for the good white folks living in liberal city centers. The rural/urban divide has also manifested racially. In the imaginary, or the narratives that proliferate about rural geographies from urban centers, rural is white, and urban is diverse. We know this is much more complicated than these “divides.” We who dream of communities rooted in equity understand connection takes us further than divides. The dreammakers in rural recognize deeply that connection, collaboration, and communalism shape inclusive communities. The dreammakers in rural also understand that it is also acceptable for our communities to serve different roles. Rural and urban folks can exist in better relationship. What becomes a problem is when rural is always pegged as backward, behind, or lagging. Or, when urban or rural is articulated as better than the other.

If for nothing else, my urban dwellers, you see now, there is anti-Black racism in your “progressive” bastions of hope right? It’s everywhere. And for my rural community members, I hope you are listening to the cries of rage from your Black, Indigenous and people of color neighbors who have also brought to light that your towns, your townships, your counties also need work. Systemic racism, anti-Blackness is embedded across that urban/rural divide. Because the power centers to make policy resides in the city we have to deeply understand how urban areas shape collective responses to anti-Blackness. When large cities remain apathetic to these much needed changes that must take place, when the good white folks continue to wring their hands and say they can’t do anything about it, that response fans outward into Greater Minnesota and rural areas. It is not only the conservative racist politicians from rural areas shaping this reaction. The future of our state depends on every geography doing their part to shift toward anti-oppressive practices.

I know a lot of white folks in rural, suburban and urban landscapes. I hope by the end of my lifetime the number of folks committed to and showing up to anti-racist work vastly outnumber the good white folks I know and love.

What I’m Reading

A Tried and True Tactic

 Passages in Modern Sculpture by Rosalind E. Krauss: I love reading books that were published the same year I was born. It’s a wonderful way to think about that time that shaped me, but also to assess how well we’ve aged. I picked up this text because I’ve been working through a syllabus constructed by Dr. Prianka Basu at the University of Minnesota Morris exploring three specific modern art movements. I wasn’t able to access all of the readings from the library so, I make up for it by reading the entire book instead of only the articles she assigned as I take on this independent study. Art History as a field is one that deeply intrigues me. My senior year of college (the first time around) I signed up for a feminist art history course to fulfill one of my Women’s Studies electives. Sitting in the dark lecture hall and listening to the professor click through her slide wheel gives me a sense of longing that borders on one part erotic, one part nostalgic. If I hadn’t been a senior and if I hadn’t been finishing up two majors and a minor in four years flat I would have probably started over and become an art history major. And maybe, instead of becoming an artist in my mid-30s I would have found my path much sooner. Sculpture was once my least favorite visual medium, until I took a 3-D design class and then the ways of thinking about the elements of design in three dimensions took on new challenges for my brain to wrestle. This text traces the rise of modern sculpture beginning with Rodin. How pleasurable it was for me to learn of Rodin first through the perspective of Gwen John, an English painter living in Paris who modeled for the sculptor and had a romantic relationship with him. I read a biography about her life, and her interior paintings earlier this year. To be reading deeply about modernism in 2020 provides a rich opportunity to think about how historians will make sense of our current moment a century from now. I won’t be here to see it, but knowing how difficult it is for people to make sense of the present moment, I am not particularly hopeful that the largely white field of art history is up for the challenge. Regardless of these existential considerations, this volume brings us through the 1970s when sculpture really loses its narrative thread. What then will we make of all the sculptures made since I wonder? How might thinking about monuments to white colonizers and slavers be an important part of this conversation too?
 

An Innovative Approach

Mindful of Race: Understanding and Transforming Habits of Harm by Ruth King -  King writes from her vast experience as a Buddhist meditation teacher, as the creator of the Mindful of Race training Program for organizational development, and through her lived experience as a Black woman in the US. I’m currently listening to the audio book, and it is a beautiful blend of personal narrative, research reflection, and practical mindfulness exercises to address what King identifies of racism as a heart disease. I mistook the book as only for white folks, but King's writing quickly shifted toward helping me better understand the ways that racism holds us all in dis-ease no matter our positions in the world. If you are a white reader who practices meditation this may be an important book for you to visit. If you are BIPOC and into meditation or mindfullness practices the way she gently accounts for the harms of racism on our psyches is brilliant. I am convinced this is one part of the puzzle for us to get free. I am struck by the wisdom of her words and the ways that the book encourages me to grow not only in my meditation practice but in the way I respond to racial harms. It’s a beautiful offering.

 

What I’m Watching

The second season of Ramy started streaming on Hulu recently and I was eager to pick up where the first season left off if only to learn about where the titular character took him. The show provides an interesting glimpse into an Egyptian-American Muslim family living in New Jersey. Ramy struggles with his spiritual path and his American desires whether that be sex or drugs, or perhaps even the lull of American culture. Everything seems to be about Ramy and his desires which really comes to a head at the end of the first season when Ramy goes to Egypt to reconnect with his family. As a feminist I have wondered about what Muslim feminists have been saying about the show's purposeful centering of masculinity save for a couple of narrative arcs that focus on women characters only in relation to Ramy (in other words never really on their own terms). This article is a nice start. I’m only a couple of episodes in to Season Two so far, but Mahershala Ali is a real gem this season. I am looking forward to reading this article about the limits of the sole pursuit of spiritual redemption following the completion of the season. 

Vaimo and I also watched Little this last week. We made a movie date and ate popcorn together. It was a great follow-up to the classic body swap film for me which would be 1988 Tom Hanks classic- Big. Vaimo watched it for the first time during stay at home orders and it was a joy to see it through her eyes! I know it’s wild to think she hadn’t seen it, but she grew up in a very conservative religion. Let’s put it this way. When she watched Footloose under my direction in 2014 she exclaimed, “Woah! It’s like my life and I didn’t even know it!” But back to Little, critics have pointed out the film suffers from a lot of plot holes. Though I enjoyed it for the ways that it showcases Black joy, success, and the power of women's friendships. It's a super femme movie in that femininity is never seen as a hindrance, though also provides a lens to understand how femininity can be used in bullying and oppressive ways as well. Who needs to know how the body swapping magic works, you already are seeing a woman transform back to her 13-year-old self and you've already suspended belief here.

Artist Offerings

• As we look to Black writers and thinkers to help us make sense of our current 2020 moment check out artistic director of Penumbra Theatre Company Sarah Bellamy’s beautiful piece in the Paris Review Performing Whiteness
• If you’re not yet convinced that Minnesota is an important part of this puzzle, we are the epicenter of this latest round of rebellions - The UofM press is providing free digital downloads of 22 books from their collection. 
• A friend shared this incredible image of solidarity that basically sums up how I feel about my role in our struggles. The piece Solidarity Mural for the Horizontes Project is painted by Kamela Eaton, a Wichita, Kansas visual artist.
• Which leads me to want to highlight other Black women visual artists right now like the historian Nell Painter’s whose memoir Old in Art School changed my life when I read it last year. Check out this awesome video about her journey from being a Distinguished Chair of an Ivy League History Department and then pursuing art school. Her series that I want to direct your attention to her 2017 print series You Say This Can’t Really Be America click through each of the 8 prints - it's mentioned in the vid! 
• Eaton’s mural also operates in connection to this important exhibit at the Whitney that I was scheming to visit (pre-Covid) about the ways the Mexican muralists of the Depression-era shaped US artistic development of abstract expressionism. 

Creative Ritual

I’ve got a couple of murals in me waiting to come out! But first. I am working on tiding that studio space of mine! White paint is now on all of the painting area of the studio. I am on task to get that completed this week, well ahead of that June 30th deadline I gave myself. I submitted my first solo exhibition application for a Minnesota gallery. I’ll know in August if my series Interior Intimacies will be seen by more than just my basement. I already linked to the Medium article I published in response to overt racism in my local community. The writing has spurred a lot of conversation and connection. I started a new cross-stitch project and found my first one amongst a box of memorabilia that my mama brought to my home. I started a painting study of tequila bottles I’ve been collecting. My goal is to make tiny paintings of each of them as a means to explore color, style, and technique. They are a fun way to work through artist block. To which I am happy to say I don’t have in these times, just more the feeling like I never have enough time to do what I want to do with my day. I am sure I’m not alone in that feeling. And I promise, once these walls are painted I won’t have an excuse that I can’t paint because my studio space is not quite right.

Questions to Ponder

What does protest look like to you?
In what ways is compassion meeting action for you?
How are you protesting against harms and protecting space for joy?
How are you working to be someone Black folks can vouch for?

Thanks for journeying with me. I hope, as always, that you take what you need and leave the rest for someone else, or for another time. 

-KCF

---

*A retraction from Issue #2: In my previous newsletter I mistakenly stated that the Minnesota State Hiking Club Trails are all easy, two mile loops within the park. We learned that the hard way on mile 4 of the 6 on the Hiking Club Trail of Maplewood State Park two weekends ago. After following rough terrain which included switchbacks, it’s safe to say that it would be best practice to look up the length of the trail before setting out and plan accordingly if you too are walking in the Minnesota woods.