3 posts tagged “damali ayo”

[formating is WACK on Vox. I am not getting this ?!?!?!!]

Picture of the artist - Kara Walker:

from www.britannica.com

These links just came to my attention:

Information at PBS on Kara Walker (bio, etc).
http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/walker/index.html

Wow..
She has a books!

Recently she was in the New Yorker Magazine:
Shades of Meaning (another plug for her exhibit at the Whitney Museum)
http://www.newyorker.com/online/2007/10/08/slideshow_071008_walker

Also in New York Magazine:
http://nymag.com/guides/fallpreview/2007/art/36599/
Darkness and Light: In the art of Kara Walker, prim Victorian forms bring racial history into
high contrast by Karen Rosenberg

Kara's messages reminds me of Damali Ayo in how she is in your face.
Some people need this to truly understand the horror of slavery and
other unsettling times in history.

Thank you, Kara Walker!

Here is the blog for the exhibit:
http://whitneymuseum.wordpress.com/2007/10/03/share-with-us-your-reactions/

I really needed a Kara Walker/Damali Ayo type when I lived in the midwest because some people
did not have the exposure at all to other cultural groups. I was surprised especially in a University
setting people asking me questions about my color and hair.  That was wild. I had that
in grade school, junior high and high school but .........why in a University setting??!?!?!? I seriously got
tired of it but I smiled and grinned, but some days I wanted to wear a bag over my head.

[I went to all prep schools growing up and I was usually the one of few dots in my class.
You never get used to the stares and idiotic questions, but sometimes just a little irritated.
People will turn to you and think you are the voice of the entire black race.
I would always say I am talking only for me!]

And, I have to say that those artists who used the N word a lot (in jokes) and still do made it hard for me
in professional school where I was asked by one of white classmates if she could call me the
N word. I still am baffled over my class mate wanting to call me the N word. She thought it
was a funny term.

Whenever I hear the N word, I immediately think of the lynchings that were made in the US back in
the early 20th and late 19th century. Remember the song, Strange Fruit by Billie Holiday:

Some people try to get to familiar with you and you need to just be respectful of others.
I found that very inappropriate and out of line for people to want to call me the N word for no reason but
just because it was funny. WHY? I am not an N. I am human being.  I am always respectful of others
even those who I do not care for but that is just how I was raised.

Thank you for Paul Mooney for saying that you would stop using it. Although he used it in a way to provoke thought in terms of our history. He was just not saying the N word just to say it but to make a point to the knuckleheads who do not listen.

Although you see these negative and hear negative images of every culture in the world, I have PRIDE in who I am because I try to educate myself on the beauty that is within every culture. There is just a lot of pain in the African American culture and we tend to show that more only because we are so disconnected from our history that is not taught. It is frustrating to always have to question what part of Africa we may have come from or what other cultures are we mixed with. And, that DNA African American ancestry testing thing is not accurate. I already was tested and my results do not make any sense at all. I received only numbers and letters and not where in Africa my people came from. I want my money back!

Check out: www.myspace.com/dnahoax and this on 60 minutes about questioning the process:

60 Minutes - Finding One's Roots- Lesley Stahl reports..
http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/i_video/main500251.shtml?id=3340379n

I am looking forward to seeing Kara Walker's exhibit. I am mentality prepared to deal with whatever comes my way!

Rent a Negro

(from damaliayo.com website)

The website was created by Damali Ayo who is an African American artist based out of Oregon,
but her hometown is Washington, DC. When I first heard about her, some of her work disturbed
me but now, I am appreciating her especially when I am having a "moment" then I can just
go to her website. I still have not explored it all, but I am just truly checking her out.

When I think of her, I immediately think of Paul Lawerence Dunbar's poem,
"We Wear the Mask."

Also every black woman should have Lorene Cary's book, Black Ice, in their library. I could
relate only because I attended predominately white schools growing up so she truly was
able to get to me with her personal story. Thank you, Ms. Lorene Cary!

And..since I am on a roll, Angela Nissel's book, Mixed, is a great book to have in your library too.
Although she discusses being of Mixed race (which I am not) I could relate to a lot of her
pain and hurt. She brings comedy into it though which breaks the ice extremely well. I was
laughing so hard on an airplane while reading it that some people told me that they had to
get the book because they had never heard such jubliant laughter. Thank you, Ms. Angela Nissel!