Art and Protest

First let me apologize for the lateness of this post, I had something else written here and it just felt hollow. So, I did a major rewrite and came up with something a little more in keeping with my feelings about this issue. So without further ado....

Puff and the Train to Clarksville

“I don’t care who started it, I’m finishing it.” ~Adam

So, this week we talked about art and protest and how they go hand in hand. Since the dawn of protest there have been artists subtly and not so subtly poking the powers that be in the chest like an deranged stick wielding camper who has found a sleeping bear. I like questioning authority, (just ask every boss I’ve ever had) I think it needs to be done frequently, just so they know you haven’t been fooled by anything their trying to do. However, I also think it should be done respectfully, because I want them to treat me with courtesy so it seems fair to treat them the same way.

Of course this doesn’t mean that those being protested against have had a long tradition of reasonable reactions to having their decisions questioned. Certainly there have been arrests, imprisonments, banishments, beatings, and the occasional head decoratively presented on a pike in the town square. That doesn’t mean we sink to that level. Here’s an example of how I think it was done right…

Amiri Baraka was poet Laurite of New Jersey during the attacks on September 11th, he saw both planes hit the World trade Center, not on a television, not on youtube, not on the news that evening but through a window. As a writer he dealt with the tragedy the only way he knew how. He wrote a poem. It was angry, scared, confused, and cathartic. It was titled Somebody Blew Up America and he debuted it 2 weeks later at a poetry festival. Reactions varied from shock, to awe, to tears, to joy, and sadly to anger. Some people hated the poem, were outraged that the official poet of New Jersey could write something like this. How dear he. They demanded his job, his censor, his head decoratively displayed on pike outside city hall. Amiri, refused to step down, refused to rewrite the poem and asked simply that the people who were angry sit down and have a dialogue with him. Sit down with him, discuss the poem and why it worked and why it didn’t. Could he explain to them what they hated about it and why it was there.

They refused to sit with him, to talk, to hear. Instead they got the position of Poet Laurite in New Jersey dissolved. He never got angry, he didn’t scream and cry and rail against them. He simply nodded his head and went on to perform the poem, again and again. There is a documentary about it directed by Mario Van Peebles, that we watched in class. I feel sad for him, because the situation sucks. But I’ve heard the poem and I encourage you to as well. Make up your own mind if it’s hateful and mean or peaceful and cathartic…

Whether I agree with Amiri or not, I agree with the way he handled it. He was respectful, polite, but he never yielded his ground. I like that. I don’t want to rant about this, so I’m not going to go into any of the specific art that I feel has handled it poorly. I realize this may, hurt my argument, but I don’t want to argue with people over this. I will say that, a lot of art that strikes out at a cause they don’t like usually is done in a mean and vicious way in order to deliberately provoke a reaction of anger and hatred.

There are people who do this, and when people react exactly the way they expected their defense is to point and exclaim, look at all the things they’ve done. Look at how they’ve mistreated whatever I’m mad about. Or what every parent since Adam and Eve has come to know as the he started it defense. Honestly, I don’t find it productive. When attacked people tend to raise their defenses and close down their empathy, not allowing for the honest discussion of ideas.

However in the interest of full disclosure, about a month after the whole Chick-Fil-A thing where some groups were boycotting and some were bussing in entire churches full of people over the companies stance on gay rights, I posted this in a public forum just to see what would happen….

So I just heard, a GLBT family bookstore in San Francisco let one of their employees go because he was a heterosexual and the owners felt he wouldn't be able to relate to their customers. Apparently, it's perfectly legal to fire him over this even though he'd been working their for over a year without any complaints because there is no law against it. Honestly I think we should have one so crap like this doesn't happen anymore.

For the record 2 likes and no other response.

So tell me what you think, leave any comments below or head on over to my facebook page and leave a comment there.