When viewing this picture , the first thing that most everyone assumes is that some white guy did it & that he is either racist , ignorant , or insensitive ... or all of the above. This may very well be the case ... but what if it's not?
What if the intent of this piece was to make everyone do what it ultimately did? ... to make us conclude that , based on the imagery , it must be a white person behind this piece. Why? ... because only a white person would be racist enough to merge an image of a monkey w/that of a black person. Forcing us to conclude what? ... that only white people are capable of racism?
Heck ... never mind the intent. That's what this piece did accomplish.
W/o even giving it a second though , most of us immediately prejudged & assumed that the artist is white ( C'mon! ... you know you did ). Should we have? Maybe ... maybe not. But I thought that making adverse opinions about people w/o having sufficient knowledge about them was something that we , as a society , tried to steer away from?
The only thing we "know" about this artist is that he is male ( at least , that's what it says in his profile ). Why do we automatically think that he is white? He may very well be white , but what does that say about us? ... that we came to a conclusion on this person's race because of the "racist" image he posted on his site? Why do we immediately think that if it's an offensive image or an offensive anything towards a minority group , that it is someone who is white that is behind it?
Stop ... be honest w/yourself & for a moment , consider the artist to be African American. Would you still feel that the picture is from someone who is a racist? It may still be offensive , but if it was a black artist who is behind this piece , does the "meaning" or intent of the pic change for you?
I don't know about you guys , but I kinda find that fascinating that it's "okay" to do that. As long as it's a white person , it's acceptable to asperse a negative connotation on him or her. Or maybe a better way to put it ... if it's racist or offensive to a minority group , then assume it's coming from a white person ... until proven otherwise.
So , having said all that ... do I think that the artist of this piece is white? Yeah ... probably.
Do I think that the artist is racist , despite his claims to the contrary? Yes.
In believing these to be true , am I , a white guy , falling into the same "trap" as everyone else in automatically assuming that the bad , racist picture was created by a Caucasian? Yep ... I guess so.
I think we'd all like to tell ourselves that it is "common sense" & our life experiences that helped lead us to these conclusions , but is that really the case? Aren't we all , justifiably so or not , prejudiced to a certain extent? How does that sit w/you?
Regardless of what the artist was trying to do or say in creating this piece , he did manage to accomplish something. He's forced us to confront some of those prejudices.
The kicker is ... I'm pretty sure it was done unwittingly.
