medievalpoc
Someone finally wrote about this painting without referring to the woman depicted as “a Slave”, and it’s about effing TIME. (Annibale Carracci; Baroque Portrait Of Elegantly Dressed African Woman Discovered) This is something that has vexed me considerabl
Someone finally wrote about this painting without referring to the woman depicted as “a Slave”, and it’s about effing TIME. (Annibale Carracci; Baroque Portrait Of Elegantly Dressed African Woman Discovered) This is something that has vexed me considerably for a very long time now, because here’s the problem: unless I give the most-used or common title of the painting here, those of you trying to do further research on these works will be unable to find them. Sometimes, these titles range from questionable to outright horrendous. I try to do the best I can to be responsible about it, but racism is a system where the same people always lose, guaranteed. Where is there to walk except to step on the same people, always? How can we move at all without harming? We have so much work to do on this. And in my opinion, it’s not busywork, and it’s not even a little bit trivial. In face, if you read the notes on this post about the Rijksmuseum’s title policy changes, you’ll see tons of emotionally invested white people violently defending racist titles as if they are some kind of sacredly racist blessing given by some Impartial History Goddess unto posterity. *eyeroll* These images and histories do NOT arrive to us untouched by the intervening centuries. By ignoring that context, we are actively supporting racism that was attached to these works much later than they were created. If we pretend that “objectivity” means absolving ourselves of the responsibility to investigate the marks left by those who did not share that particular compunction about changing things, that is still a choice and an action. It’s an action that says that racism and misinformation is good and should be preserved. History is not static, nor should it be. This isn’t about mincing words, it’s about how and why we assign value, importance, and humanity to people. Moreover, examining the “middle”, the “medieval”, as it were, without looking at what came before or after, is to imagine a disembodied torso of history that makes little sense and can serve any purpose. European Medievalism in a vacuum leads to the hijacking of history by white supremacy and white nationalism, a sort of Mr Potato Head that can be dressed up and made to serve the purpose of whoever feels like evoking the concept of medieval whiteness, originary and pure. But there is no “Racial Reset Button”, and periodization is too often the enemy of historical truths. When power is used to label entire swaths of humanity with retroactive dehumanization, when this is repeated by the supposedly credible ad nauseum, and when we make any engagement with this evidence contingent on reinforcing that dehumanization, how can we recover? How can we be just, without justifying ourselves? I believe there can be an answer, and I believe in being able to do better. I want to do better. And this is the kind of question I post to myself, and to all of you, at the dawning of this year.
Someone finally wrote about this painting without referring to the woman depicted as “a Slave”, and it’s about effing TIME. (Annibale Carracci; Baroque Portrait Of Elegantly Dressed African Woman Discovered) This is something that has vexed me considerabl
Someone finally wrote about this painting without referring to the woman depicted as “a Slave”, and it’s about effing TIME. (Annibale Carracci; Baroque Portrait Of Elegantly Dressed African Woman Discovered) This is something that has vexed me considerably for a very long time now, because here’s the problem: unless I give the most-used or common title of the painting here, those of you trying to do further research on these works will be unable to find them. Sometimes, these titles range from questionable to outright horrendous. I try to do the best I can to be responsible about it, but racism is a system where the same people always lose, guaranteed. Where is there to walk except to step on the same people, always? How can we move at all without harming? We have so much work to do on this. And in my opinion, it’s not busywork, and it’s not even a little bit trivial. In face, if you read the notes on this post about the Rijksmuseum’s title policy changes, you’ll see tons of emotionally invested white people violently defending racist titles as if they are some kind of sacredly racist blessing given by some Impartial History Goddess unto posterity. *eyeroll* These images and histories do NOT arrive to us untouched by the intervening centuries. By ignoring that context, we are actively supporting racism that was attached to these works much later than they were created. If we pretend that “objectivity” means absolving ourselves of the responsibility to investigate the marks left by those who did not share that particular compunction about changing things, that is still a choice and an action. It’s an action that says that racism and misinformation is good and should be preserved. History is not static, nor should it be. This isn’t about mincing words, it’s about how and why we assign value, importance, and humanity to people. Moreover, examining the “middle”, the “medieval”, as it were, without looking at what came before or after, is to imagine a disembodied torso of history that makes little sense and can serve any purpose. European Medievalism in a vacuum leads to the hijacking of history by white supremacy and white nationalism, a sort of Mr Potato Head that can be dressed up and made to serve the purpose of whoever feels like evoking the concept of medieval whiteness, originary and pure. But there is no “Racial Reset Button”, and periodization is too often the enemy of historical truths. When power is used to label entire swaths of humanity with retroactive dehumanization, when this is repeated by the supposedly credible ad nauseum, and when we make any engagement with this evidence contingent on reinforcing that dehumanization, how can we recover? How can we be just, without justifying ourselves? I believe there can be an answer, and I believe in being able to do better. I want to do better. And this is the kind of question I post to myself, and to all of you, at the dawning of this year.