When Dr Deborah Willis was an undergrad student at the Philadelphia College of Art, she asked the question that informed her work for years to follow: “Where are all the Black photographers?”
*sigh* If a photograph is good, what does it matter the colour, creed or sex of the person who clicked the shutter release?
She hopes Reflections in Black allows people to rethink their stereotypes of Blackness. “I want people to see that this work that the artists are making is about freedom, freedom to express that voice that James Baldwin always talked about,” she says. “Freedom to think of progress and to see the new narratives that are not based on others who only see Black people as othered and demeaning … and see it as an intervention.”
Ah, 'stereotypes' - maybe rather than demand more black photographers to erase 'black stereotypes', demand that black people stop acting out those sterotypes constantly. Stop public defecation, stop chimping out in public spaces, stop stealing, stop blaming everything and everyone else for your bad behaviour or failures.
Maybe stop murdering each other?
After winning the MacArthur award that year, her 27-year-old nephew was killed during an altercation at a nightclub in Philadelphia when he was on his way to help her install an art exhibit she curated in DC.
I notice the 'Guardian' doesn't tell us who killed him...
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