Instead, it holds significant lessons for organizations as they reflect on how to achieve inclusive Black futures. As we witness this aesthetic struggle play out in the streets today, it is essential to understand that this conflict is not an external fight - resigned to protestors attempting to remake public landscapes and advance political visions, eluding the rest of us. These examples of art from the Confederacy and Black Arts Movement, which helped to diminish and amplify Black life, illustrate how cultural production often serves an essential role in creating the type of society we would like to see. The movement, rooted in civil rights struggles, is considered the cultural sister of the Black Power Movement because it sought to transform the portrayal of African Americans in mainstream society, awaken Black consciousness, build Black community, and provide an impetus for their self-determination. To embody the aesthetic, Black artists drew on Black musical forms, especially jazz Black hyper-masculinity to challenge historical degradation of African American men Black vernacular speech and experimentation with grammar and sound conventions. This movement championed the “Black Aesthetic,” which weaved art and activism to detail the particularities of African American struggles, strength, and experience. Juxtaposed from these efforts is the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and early 1970s. This message helped solidify white Southern national identity and embolden racist power holders and vigilantes while terrorizing African Americans by projecting white supremacy. The fight to keep slavery was depicted as a noble cause from a benign institution to engender sympathy. For instance, the significant proliferation of Confederate statues and monuments by organizations like the United Daughters of Confederacy was part of a well-conceived plan to mythologize the Civil War. At issue is not just damage of artifacts, but embodies a larger struggle of ethics and what we stand for as a nation.ĭrawing from America’s past reveals that aesthetics has always played a role in shaping politics. Describing the danger, the 45 th President noted that, “our nation is witnessing a merciless campaign to wipe out our history, defame our heroes, erase our values….” Trump’s words represent the importance of symbols in crafting history and defining our future. This policy formed part of the justification for a surge in federal forces dispatched to American cities including my hometown of Chicago. President Donald Trump mobilized the military to protect monuments and enacted an Executive Order to increase prosecution of those who damaged these exhibits. Stakes around this issue rose as former U.S. From films like ‘Gone With the Wind’ being placed in historical context to the ongoing debate about removing Confederate names and iconography in NASCAR and military installations. Art has been a site of resistance against white supremacy and the history of extrajudicial killings by police. painting the space in front of the White House, ‘Black Lives Matter’ plaza to racist edifices being torn down that memorialized slave traders like a statue in Bristol, England. The deployment of art, symbols, and representation has not only been utilized by Capitol rioters but is an integral part of the Black Lives Matter resistance. A rioter was seen removing an American flag and replacing it with a Trump flag in the institution’s rotunda to signal that space was mapped in their ideological garb. Protestors utilized this symbolism to unify, powerfully connote their objectives, and mark their conquest of the Capitol. The mob came armed, not only with weapons but with far-right symbols, battle colors of the Confederacy, white supremacist emblems, ultra-nationalist and Blue Lives Matter signs, and other associated clothing and flags interspersed between pro-Trump campaign paraphernalia. Aesthetics and art’s role in advancing political visions was most recently on display during the Capitol riot earlier this year.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |