Back to Kehinde Wiley

Well I initially was not going to talk about this painting shown above by Kehinde Wiley, mainly because I am not black.  I did not feel that I could properly address it without my own biases getting in the way.  Honestly this painting does make me uncomfortable as a white woman.  Some of the negative feedback I saw online related to President Obama's portrait had to do with Wiley also having painted the above painting, so I thought maybe I should talk about it here (not that I have that many readers).  I also thought I should talk about because some of the best advice I have gotten on art is you need to really be looking at the stuff that makes you angry or upset, and think about why it does that.  This painting upsets me for two main reasons.


The first being the most obvious of the violence towards the white woman and the anger level of it towards the white woman.  There is something here though that is important to remember this is a painting not a photograph, no white women were killed to produce this image.

The same cannot be said for the above image.  It is a photograph of very real violence towards a black person.  Many white people tend to fall into the mindset that slavery and only slavery was the big issue with black people.  I don't think many people realize that even following the Civil War lynching was a big thing, and there were white photographers making money off of it.  Not only would lynching participants buy the photos from them, the photographers were also selling them as postcards and sending them all over the country.  I was shocked to learn that it did not become illegal to send these postcards through the US mail until the 1950s.  It is insane to me that it took that long.  It is also insane to me how many people don't know this.  Another grisly detail about this is that lynching participants would often keep hair or teeth from the victim framed with the photo.  So is me being angry over pretend violence really justified.


The other thing that makes me angry is that presumably the painting is meant to be sort of a role reversal.  I may be weird, but I dislike the thought that maybe I am being viewed as a spoiled fairy princess.  I have worked hard in my life at less then glamorous jobs, I drink beer, and honestly I am also quite gassy.  None of these are things I attribute to fairy princesses.  I think on some level this trips up many white Americans, as most white Americans do not have Donald Trump's wealth.  Yes I have worked crap jobs in my life, but I probably do still have an advantage because I am white.  Years ago I had a temp job at this gun accessories factory.  I had hit it off with this Hmong girl, we were chatting away, and being airheaded 20 something year olds we left the building we were in a few minutes  before quitting time.  The Hmong girl was fired for it, but I was not even though I was guilty of the exact same thing.  When I first started at the hospital I used to see it a bit with the doctors.  When I first started I had to on more than one occasion inform the doctor that their patient had died (or less morbidly when the nurses transfer their patient somewhere else), when they would come to the room looking for the patient, and all they would find is me cleaning the room.  It seemed to me that it happened more with minority doctors, so not claiming to be a saint here (maybe makes up for times I have sucked) I reported it on our Employee feedback thing.  A lady from HR did talk to me about it, and I have not had to tell any doctor of a patient's death since.  I have asked newer  more regular hospital workers and they have not had to either.  I am not sure if this is due to improved HUC performance, or if Epic has anything to do with it (I don't think we were using Epic then).  To get back on topic it is very easy for poor white folks to fall into the I work hard and try to do right, and then forget or not even realize the times being white has been beneficial to them.