Author | Daniel AnTon Johnson
Featured Image: “Be of our Space World” by Robert Pruitt
For a lot of black artists, choosing how to define oneself, whether to accept or reject the prefix, is an existential rite of passage. Since the disbandment of the Yes Black People Have an Official Decision Making Club Club in the late 60s, black Americans in the art world have been playing it fast and loose. The loss of the one true galactic black—Sun Ra, may he rest in space—in 1968 stirred a wildness that had been percolating for years (few know that Sun Ra actually left for space and not Pennsylvania in 1968 as cited by Wikipedia). Without the presence of any strong capable leaders or a clear mandate about what black art should be, the art made by black Americans has been unfocused and contradictory, repetitive even.
Now let’s face it, I’m probably the only person smart enough to fix everything. So I became the founding member of Black People Once Again Have a Committee for Official Decisions on Matters of Race and nominated myself as the official spokesperson. For my first public address, I’d like to offer an edict pertaining to the limits of black art. I wrote this edict as a poem because white people, like myself, recognize the importance of literary rigor, precise language, and grammatical correctness.
Black art must be cool mother fucker.
But not too cool motherfucker.
Black art must be
Ooooooooooooh
Aaaaaaaaaaaaah.
Black art should also know its limits, which is why I ended the poem so quickly because why beat a dead horse? It’s simple really. Black art should cater to the tastes of whites. Because The Stylistics and MJ were actually wrong, and people don’t make the world go round. It’s actually money, and white people are basically money. $o let’s face it; we’ve all got lives outside of this, and we all know that there is a terrible tragedy in life outside of whiteness. We’ve seen the commercials. So there’s no need to remind anyone. The work should be easily digested. It shouldn’t make people feel too much.
Which reminds me, once, while being outrageously witty, I said, “Be black like an Oreo.” Do not let the appearance of difference limit you. We’re all the same on the inside. Let the terribly humdrum crunch of that black cookie crumble under the colossal crushing authority of those beautiful ivory teeth so fair and hungry to liberate that soft sweet whiteness that we all know is inside of you. And why not wash it down with that pure tall glass of white white milk.
Because why does black art have to be so black anyway?
