It's no one's fault but it keeps happening. I was looking for some way to wrap my head around a white teenager driving across town to kill 11 mostly elderly blk women and men (grandparents in the 90s and 80s) who were shopping. And to do this under the banner of an untrue racist battlecry promoted by Fox while seeking to erase black history as 'critical race theory' and a harmful toxin to white kids. The same white kids who have walked into church basements and killed black people praying, walked into mosques and temples and shot Muslims and Jewish worshippers, the same white teens who livestream shooting senior citizens in the back of the head b/c they think they're the real victims of American history, and they're oh so sensitive so can you please not talk about slavery or the civil rights movement or black inequalities or racism. Please don't talk about it and let them gun your 90 year-old grandmother down, who marched and fought, and struggled to die in a hail of bullets from a white teen livestreaming the carnage like it's a video game.
It's no one's fault but it keeps happening so we'll keep saying these racist things and deleting your history and they'll keep killing old people in churches and stores and nothing can be done about. We can't stop them from owning assault rifles or hating or saying absolute bullshit or feeling like they're being picked on by facts and history. Kyle Rittenhouse is a hero. He killed 3 and got a book deal and is now on his way to being a future Congressman. It's no one's fault. He just couldn't help himself when he drove across state lines with weapons of war.
I go to art during these times. I'm looking for something timely and/or timeless in its catharsis. Something immediate but immortal. And what I have found is art that is both disposable, rootless, and not worthy of either the present or the future. How many times can I see ghetto black families held up for white cackles while 11 elderly blks lie dying in a pool of blood by white nationalists? How many riffs on making slavery trendy and contemporary and sitcom-ish can I see while actual slave history is being deleted from history books as harmful to white kids?
How can so much of what I see be cotton candy art that melts at the touch and leaves nothing but the residue of something sweet and buzzy, and during these times? During these times of war and mass shootings, and slaughter is there not one play which actually talk about the thing that is happening now or the things have been happening for hundreds of years? How about the ghetto white family that is a threat to civilization and delicate tastes of their white son who likes jazz or rap music? How about the white nationalists? Or the teen with the assault rifle? Too heavy? Nothing to sink your teeth into for laughs? I guess the art scene is no one's fault but it keeps happening.
It's no one's fault because we keep saying it's no one's fault and that's not a start of a conversation but it's the end of a very short dialogue that goes gunshots, thoughts and prayers, move on because nothing can be done about it because we have decided that nothing will be done, and that's the historical loop we feel comfortable with because it's more stressful to change than to continue erasing your existence on the page and on the streets.
No comments:
Post a Comment