BLACK MALE REVISITED

Published 2015

As a Black male presenting person working inside the creative spheres of experimental dance, moving image, performance art, and curation, I know we are not endangered. There are plenty of Black men making internationally competitive works. The problem is the lack of distribution of these works due to unconscious cultural bias or what the scholar Joe R. Feagin calls “the white racial frame.” He defines it as “an overarching worldview, one that encompasses important racial ideas, terms, images, emotion and interpretation. For centuries now, it has been a basic and foundational frame from which a substantial majority of white Americans – as well as others seeking to conform to white norms – view our highly racialized society.” The truth remains that, as a nation, we still are rehabilitating from the aftershocks of segregation, and while many enlightened white contemporary curators and artistic directors know the importance of incorporating Black and other minority voices into their exhibitions and performance seasons, the fact remains that much of the art world is still managed under a passé white supremacist’s doctrine that ordains European aesthetics and creativity as holding the highest level of intellectual and/or conceptual rigor...