[-empyre-] Racism & Me

["roya.jakoby" <roya@girlfish.net>]

When I feel so lousy just talking about racism, how must it feel to suffer
from it every darn day?


Hi there, 

I follow with much interest the current introductions of (black?) artists
and projects and thoughts. Some of the projects I already knew and I like
them a great deal. 

Questions where raised. Quite good ones. Quite disturbing ones too.

Is the net 'colorless'? Surely not.

Katherine Moriwaki wrote:

>hmm... is the net really a white/asian dominated venue? i never thought that.
it seems that net art and digital art is more white-dominant, and that
asians are tolerated/included because they fall inbetween the black-white
paradigm. also, many whites these days don't see asians as "raced" which is
we are accepted, but our acceptance is sometimes not much more than mere
invisibility, the "model minority" myth replaying itself online.

>i think literalism is always expected from oppresed groups. or, we are expected
to focus on "non-raced" issues in order to participate in the mainstream.

I do understand the issue but it is very painful to read this. Can we really
only identify each other in terms of paradigms of race? Is this it?
Determined by what others determine us to be? My whatsitness, your
whatsitness, my whatsit ass, your whatsit ass..

But we are artists.

I never forget when my friend in London told me that I got 'really nice
Caucasian hair'. I thought she meant 'Caucasian' as in 'Trans-Caucasus',
which is where my dad comes from (East Europe/Asia), back then I had no idea
that Caucasian is the all describing word for 'white people' in the
Anglo-Saxon world. Bah..

Racism is a fuckin' brain cancer and it's all around. It's like smoke, in
the eyes of all of us. Racism is classism, same school, same cancer, same
smoke. It's all about marginalisation, isolation, distraction,
de-humanisation. A dialectic cancer.. Good for some, nothing but misery and
pain for all others.

What do I make out of all that in terms of art? I like to talk but words
continue to fail me. Though not only when it comes to issues of race and
class. I never thought of my art as an expression of  my (ever so dubious)
racial identity, but it sure is that too. I'm always looking for what's
beyond the obvious, goes beyond our culturally determined visual
languages/identities. I want to make things visible, on a different level.
That's my quest. I never thought of my art as a privilege. I always thought
of it as struggle and as a freedom. A freedom of expression. As a freedom of
being myself and expressing my visions. That little/big corner of myself is
free. When I try to be free, maybe others feel inspired by it, too. Racism
is not my obvious issue, though it sure is an issue for me, too. What about
transcending racism? Could that work? How? Boy, do I hate these brain
chains. When I feel so lousy just talking about racism, how must it feel to
suffer from it every darn day? I used to suffer from it, but not that much
anymore since I'm in the Anglo-Saxon world, cause here I'm mostly regarded
as 'Caucasian'. Talking about an absurd world..


sparks, /roya.

http://www.girlfish.net/