Saturday, September 20, 2008

My reflections from research

I've been working on the Colorism spread that I brought to the last residency. I've thought a lot about Adam McEwen's comments as well as John Kramer's about making it look more like a magazine spread. So here you have it. It was really great to pull this piece together. I used the same stories that I received from the previous version that I designed. As you might notice, I also worked on some images that I manipulated to display alterations in skin tone. I enjoyed doing this piece a lot, however I know that the next step will be to beyond the stories that I've received. I believe in this series I'll begin to look at various different ways I can comment on issues of "blackness" and colorism in other types of spreads that I've seen in other magazines as well.  Aside from this piece I've been working on some other work that is commenting on some of my reading about colorism and the black upper class. This has been a topic of great interest to me, because colorism in general has to do with class. So it's interesting to look at why people think this or that way about skin color because they think they will jeopardize their position in society. So far I've read three books that were very good. "Our Kind of people" by  Lawrence Graham which gives a detailed account about the inside world of America's Black Upper Class. It was very interesting as I found there were many parallels in the lives that he described to my own. I've never considered myself to be apart or resemble anything related to being "black elite," but it was interesting to see him outline some of my own activities and accomplishments, such as being a Delta debutant, invited to participate in Jack and Jill, and going to certain churches. All of these things were eye opening for me and helped me to see certain things that I hadn't noticed before. Yet, it was amazing that even then I had no true interest in participating in some of these things better yet not having any idea of what they represented in culture. Many were things I felt were just apart of my growing up process or tradition. I wonder if I had known them if I would have thought differently. As I look at the stories that I complied for this piece I'm reminded that some of them may consider themselves to be outside of the black elite. I wonder how the responses to colorism would be to people who are privileged?My previous studio mentor, Jane Marshing, had suggested that I ask white people about colorism and see what type of response I'd get. I could imagine that it would be a lot like the white people who attended the screening of Black Women On: The Light Dark Thang  at the Hood Museum of Art in Hanover, NH, and there was much disbelief and confusion as to why such a system would exist. For some reason there is a denial of what years of negative images illustrating black life could have a emotional psychological effect on a race of people. I feel the reason why colorism is so prominent is because black people haven't been justifiably been able to voice their pain ENOUGH about slavery AND all of the other demeaning acts against our culture. Colorism in essence is the residue of this unfinished injustice and the identity crisis it left upon so many people. Imagine if one message, Black is ugly, disgraceful, and represents savagery, was hammered in your head for over 400 years! This would do a whole lot of damage to people. I think what many people didn't expect is how this damage has passed down constantly over generations of people. One thing I discovered through the stories that I compiled is that these mindsets are often passed down by ourselves. Grandparents, parents, family, friends, are reproducing and reintroducing these ideas in very subtle yet hurtful ways. I know that it's not self-consciously but it's the pain that is being carried. I see it like this: I someone is wounded it doesn't matter how much they want to be healed they are going to squirm when that wound is touched. And what seems to be prominent is the squirming going on in the black community, it is evident that even though slavery is long gone people are still suffering, still bitter, and still self-hating. What will it take to put this all to rest? I'm not sure. But, for me working on these pieces puts me steps closer to understand my own struggle and why I was treated the way I was by my own people. I looked at the book The Blacker the Berry, which was a book I truly enjoyed reading. I feel like I hadn't read this style of book in quite  a long time, so it was refreshing. But it appeared to be such a true account of some of the personal inner thoughts that go on in many peoples heads in terms of skin tone. The sad part was to hear the hurtful things that was said about the main character, Emma Lou, who escaped the ridicule of her family to only constantly find more pain everywhere else. The most intriguing read was Margaret Hunter's Race, Gender, and the Politics of Skin Tone which was an extensive study that proved that lighter skin did in fact grant priviledge in the African American community. The most alarming point that she outlined was that the suffering of darker-skinned African American women was in fact greater than those suffered by lighter-skinned African American women. She came to this conclusion from data taken from National Survey of Black Americans, and individual interviews from black women of various different skin tones. She found that not only do darker-skinned African American women suffer from ridicule within their race, they lose out on a significant increase in income, and marriage opportunities. This caused me to look at my own accomplishments and I wonder how things would have been if I were shades darker. Although  I've seen many women of darker skin tone who have accomplish many outstanding achievements, I'm not sure if the ratio or percentage is equal. So as you can see there has been much research going on as was suggested at the last residency, and I do feel it's been very helpful. My main hope is that all of this knowledge will produce results.