"Folks refuse to identify with the concerns black people express which takes us beyond race into previously undocumented emotional realms. (pg 76)"
Sadly, it isn't shocking to hear that people don't want to recognize black people's concerns. This is a shame as at the end of the day, we're all human and there are universal issues that are shared between people. It basically cuts off the ability to make an emotional connection when it is shown that they don't care.
"Historically, it's been absolutely impossible for the vast majority of critics, of white audiences, and even of black audiences to come to the work and not first and foremost fixate only on the blackness of the images. (pg 78)"
I believe this stems from the fact that art has been primarily dominated by white people, especially white men. When you think of a famous artist, it's usually someone like Leonardo da Vinci or Vincent van Gogh. So when people are presented with non-white subjects in art, they can't help but focus on that as it is different from what they consider to be the norm. This reminds me of This Is What I Know About Art by Kimberly Drew. Her journey is about discovering black artists and promoting them so other people can discover them. There is a specific moment where she writes about being in a modern and contemporary class but she is one of the only black people taking the class and the artists being shown are all white. It basically depicts that art is dominated by white people, both in regard to the students and the artists that are shown. This lack of acknowledgment towards colored artists may correlate to why people fixate on black subjects rather on different aspects of the artwork.
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