A few situations have left me living pretty raw for my liking lately. Nothing regarding an election or some kind of hope for an organization. Either or, I won't bore myself with life's scars. Aside from that I've been locked in to studying more about contemporary artists.
I've been making this consistent meal of breakfast foods (cinnamon caramel pancakes, egg whites, turkey bacon and roasted potatoes) because it's an excuse to eat something sweet. This is personally a lot for me for someone who only like drinking smoothies while I work. I discipline myself to eat actual food, let me have this.
I know syrup isn't the healthiest to consume, but so is the refined, bleached sugar that's prepared in every food packaging imaginable in the U.S of A. I saw an interview of Ella Mai talking about how much sugar is in bread and it was until I ate Ezekiel bread that I saw how induced in sugar this country really is. Of course, sugar enhances the flavor, and most times helps to sustain the food it preserves, but too much of anything is bad.
Kara Walker curated the 'sphinx baby" to memorialize homage to the unpaid and overworked Artisans before the Industrial Complex took toll of the neighborhood Domino Park located in Brooklyn, NY.
Everything that makes black women visible to the wrong gaze on full display. 75 feet long, 35 feet high. You dedicate your life to building your craft and get reduced to shallow shit. That was my first thought at least.
It's enough to garnish the attention of major news publications and art critics galore, but not enough to question why this Aunt Jemima sugar giant in a former sugar factory could indicate what black women seem to subject to on a daily basis subconsciously or not. Sex (exploitation), sugar (addiction, diseases), and maybe a shoulder to cry on called "representation" that they scrape from the depths of Dante's Inferno.
If hard work is the passage to obtain more and better, then why isn't there more statues of these skillful professionals instead of those who exploited them? Necessary evils will only get you so far and being a devil's advocate gets you bald edges. Most people are focused on their oppressors to where they pick up their habits. I care about myself enough to balance on how old habits form and now we're in the reality of old traditions fading to the background. Nevertheless, there's no excuse to not make remembrance of those who sacrifices bridged opportunities for generations to come. Not just for sexual use or hard labor to no credit or no mentioning. We are not to be consumed as such.
“The Night” by CP The Artist
A Subtlety; or the Marvelous Sugar Baby by Kara E. Walker; photo cred from artsobserver.com
What I Knew Then Instrumental on SoundCloud