of dislocation & graceful unravelling

Myra Greene, from the series My White Friends.

My White Friends extends my 10-year exploration into photography’s description of race. This body of images explores the challenges of describing whiteness and assumptions about social circles. For this body of photographs I ask those close to me who identify as white about the qualities of their racial identity. These color images depict confidants, mentors and peers who have shaped my understanding of identity even though we have different racial profiles. They are attempts to image a racial category that has an intangible description. Some images are documents of my time with friends, others are performances of whiteness by the sitter, and then there are images in which I impose my own stereotypes of whiteness.

— from Myra Greene’s Kickstarter page

This series is amazing & it is all of my favorite things about photography: technically proficient, aesthetically pleasing, simplistic, and hella thought-provoking.

Here’s an article about Myra Greene on the New York Times. I was pretty blown away by the comments section. There are a number of problematic, face-palmy remarks, but overall, discussion is happening amongst people of different races/ethnicities and it is happening in a very respectful and not-so-snarky manner.

& I feel, like, totally overjoyed about that. First, because these important discussions are happening outside the “radical” subculture among “normal” people, and secondly because the discussions are not disintegrating into yr typical chaotically offensive Internet debate…

Aside: I have wavering feelings about the necessity and permissibility of rage when dealing with problematic shit — I mean I get it, anger is a valid and appropriate reaction to oppression, and it’s not the oppressed person’s job to be available 24/7 to teach people how not to be jerks. But I also get that I’ve most effectively learned about things from others and explained about things to others by avoiding sarcasm, snark, anger, and general haughtiness. I don’t know, for me, it comes down to constantly learning how to pick my battles.

In any case, here is art project that just says everything that needs to be said with a title, a statement paragraph, and a handful of pictures. A+

privilege complexities IRL

Black Dude: I’m not prejudiced, but I’m gonna put you in my phone as White Stacey, ‘cause I don’t know any white girls.

White Girl (me): No problem, dude! I mean, all us white girls look the same anyway.

[laughter, high fives, drinks, etc.]

Have at it, Internetz…

omg, isn't that neighborhood, like, the GHETTO?

Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton: “Hound Dog” (1952)

Big Mama Thornton was a blues/R&B singer and professional BAMF.

This is what I learned about her from my music history professor:

She left home at the age of 14 to try to get gigs singing in clubs & vaudeville acts. She taught herself how to play some instruments, like drums and harmonica. Nobody dared mess with her due to her imposing stature (obviously at least six feet tall!) Songwriters Jerry Leiber & Mike Stoller (who wrote many of the early rock’n’roll songs, such as “Yakety-Yak” for the Coasters, “Stand By Me” for Ben E. King, and “Under the Boardwalk” for the Drifters) wrote “Hound Dog” for her after seeing her perform. It was #1 on the Billboard Rhythm & Blues charts before Elvis’ version made #1 on the Rock’n’Roll charts. According to my instructor, during the 50s Rhythm & Blues and Rock’n’Roll were pretty similar and shared influences before later branching off into R&B and Rock, and the nomenclature at the time was mainly to segregate the black artists from the white, at least on paper/radio stations/record labels, even though there was a lot of crossover happening between performers as well as audiences. (My professor says he’ll tell us later about his thoughts on how music contributed to desegregation in general.)

Although the recording of “Hound Dog” brought Big Mama fame, she didn’t see a lot of profit, and at least as my professor told us, she later died in poverty. Record companies would typically offer the singer two options: take a payment up front and give up the rights to the song, or keep the rights to the song and get paid a fraction of a cent for each record sale. A large payment up front was tempting to many musicians who were usually broke, and the record companies would frame the proposition in terms of: “at least you’ll get paid something because what if the record doesn’t sell?” But when the record would go and sell a hundred thousand copies, the singers rarely saw royalties.