Social Justice Event

I attended my Social Justice Event on April 7th which was a lecture by a man named Dr. Edmund Barry Gaither. The lecture was titled "Comtemporary Cultural Constructs." Dr. Gaither is very well known and is the director of NCAAA, which stands for National Center of Afro-American Artists. The lecture was by far not what i had expected. It had to do with the expression of human diversity and the arts. The focus was African American art and the strides that black people have had to overcome to get their art in museums. Dr. Gaither ( who is African american) was a greatspeaker, but he spoke so fast it was hard to catch and then remember some of the important highlights of the speech. His speech was broken up into four sections that posed a question at the beginning of each part. All four parts had to do with the struggles that black artists faced just because of the fact that they were black. I felt such shame during the speech because it was difficult to think that a piece of artwork could not be showecase simply because of someone with black skin.
I found connecting this event to three authors that we have discussed in class was difficult. The first author i chose was McIntosh. This connection had to do with white privilege. White's were privileged enough to have their artwork hung in museums and had the privilege to show off their talent in a public place without any problem at all. On the other hand, when black artists wanted to showcase their work, it was such a struggle. The white artists had, what we called in class, the invisible knapsack. The knapsack would include words such as advantaged, confidence, and power especially. Another aunthor that i chose to make a connection with would be Carlson. Although the lecture did not have anything to do with the subjects of issues with LGBTQ, Carlson's message is to break the invisibility, silence, and absense of LGBTQ students. This can be applyed when looking at the discrimination against Black's and their artwork. Dr. Gaither did not want black artists artwork to be invisible or kept silent from the public eye. He felt that black art should be included in all museums and be equal to white art. Dr. Gaither accomplished this message that he was trying to spread to people by speaking about the issue to people all over. The last author to make a connection with was a little difficult. I chose Delpit for a couple of different reasons. When i looked back to my notes, as a class, we made a list about what we thought Delpits article was all about. The words power, control, struggles, race, and conflict all stick out at me when i look at this list. These words all have to do with both the lecture by Dr. Gaither and the Delpit reading. I have already discussed struggles of black people because of their race, and the conflicts they faced when it came to showcasing their artwork. White people had all control in not only the arts, but the society as a whole.
I thought the lecture taught me something new and reinforced some old ideas that i already had. overall, it was an interesting lecture that gave great examples of problems that were faced by African American artists.
This website is a site that showed some black art that i found very beautiful and interesting to look at.