OPINION: Art sparks deep feelings, discussions of racism

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Oct 19, 2009 (The Kansas City Star - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- HRB | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating -- Art often articulates complicated subjects that people either avoid or struggle to describe.

The "Black Is, Black Ain't" art exhibit at the H&R Block Artspace at the Kansas City Art Institute illustrated that well.

The title came from a line in Ralph Ellison's book, "Invisible Man." Works by more than two dozen artists organized by Hamza Walker, curator with the University of Chicago's Renaissance Society, included beautifully positive photographs of black families, disturbing caricatures and troubling pictures, sculptures and videos.

They represent the range of what black is and isn't in America.

At a "Let's Talk about Race" discussion for the exhibit recently, 30 participants divided into three groups.

My group viewed pictures dedicated to Emmitt Till, 14, of Chicago. In the summer of 1995 while visiting relatives in Mississippi, he was killed for whistling at a white woman. Included was Demetrius Oliver's color photo titled "Till," showing a black man's head covered with a frosting-like substance that was the color of black flesh and blood.

It represented the disfigured state of Till's body at his funeral. His mother, Mamie Till Mobley, insisted on an open casket. She wanted the nation to see what racism wrought. Tens of thousands of people in September 1955 viewed the body, and millions more saw the horrific photos of Till in Jet magazine.

The images influenced Rosa Parks, who became the mother of the civil rights movement for her defiant act in December 1955. She was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery, Ala., bus. That began the Montgomery bus boycott, which the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. led. Its success eventually mushroomed into the civil rights movement.

Till's story was further illuminated by Jason Lazarus' color print, "Standing at the Grave of Emmitt Till, the Day of the Exhumation, June 1, 2005."

In the discussion people said it was as if Till were alive today, speaking hauntingly of the abuse African Americans still endure. Some said it reminded them of cautions black parents must share with their children about neighborhoods to avoid and how to look and dress to be seen as passable in America.

Others were reminded of the recent unjust arrest of Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. at his Cambridge, Mass., home, and how young blacks still must be warned about run-ins with police.

The raw images prompted conversations about how race today influences treatment of President Barack Obama. Racism is the oxygen that fed many of the fires of anger at summer town hall meetings on health care reform. Though masked like the Till image, race will continually trouble Obama.

The Till images caused one man to feel fear, terror and absolute exclusion. The graveyard scene represented the ultimate sense of being an outsider in America.

For people of color, having no money or prestige is a kind of death.

The gravesite struck one woman as an open sore, and justice was the puss still festering from unsolved crimes like Till's, which many blacks have faced in their push for equality.

Another said that from the images she could feel the incredible courage of Till's mother, who came out of her comfort zone because of what was done to her son.

One participant cried about the enormous grief African Americans have had to endure and continue to struggle with.

In the following large-group dialogue, discussion leader Janet Moss asked those present to think of a word that described their reactions. They included unusual, exposed, blessed, anxious, acknowledged, provoking, extraordinary, revealing, angry, enlivened, connection and joy.

The art gave us a chance to connect as people of different races, to talk in a safe, peaceful place without fear and to learn that as individuals and as a nation we have a lot of unfinished work and healing left to do.

Lewis W. Diuguid is a member of The Star's Editorial Board. To reach him, call 816-234-4723 or send e-mail to Ldiuguid@kcstar.com.

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