Unnerving Confidence: a Reflection on Convocation

  

Picture: an image of one of Alexandra's mural works; two front pages of "The NY Times" on a very large scale, put on a red brick wall, side to side.

     I am so jealous. To walk up on stage and spend the first 5 minutes of the talk causally conversing about last night's adventures with so much comfort, vulnerability, and personality... I want to do that too! Before all other things, I was so impressed by Bell's speaking ability; her introduction made me extremely excited about seeing her art much more than any more formal biography hints would. It felt that she belonged on stage, and wasn't demanding my attention at all; it was a conversation, though I only could respond with nods or laughter. 

       Alexandra's work centered on the issue of a "desire to hide white crime" by racializing (although it is already inherently racialized like most Western societal constructs) black crime. I found it exciting and scary that Alexandra had the courage to not only "mutilate" a newspaper (coming from a family that owns 50-100 year old books...), but to publish her work; work that went against these gigantic informative newspapers. It's freeing to see her talk about these difficult topics so lightly that it feels like a casual conversation (was it not?). All of the quotes of hers I wrote sound heavy on paper, but I remember vividly the lightness with which she delivered them. 

    Though her work made me continously think of Simulations, the "pursuit for a symbol of fairness by power structures" is what really cranked the bell up. Modern power structures, built on the concept of differences (racial ones, in this context), effectively mask the fact that differences don't exist by trying to conceal the construct of difference in newspapers. In a way, I feel that Alexandra's work doesn't get to the root of the issue- it does not call out the fact that differences that the newspapers juxtapose are fabricated... But, I feel that there is a good reason to not get to that fundamental level of reality debunking that Baudrillard touches on: in order to effectively destroy racism, the fabricated difference, we need to first highlight and address the inequalities it creates within the fabricated reality we currently live in. After all, to completely destroy racism would mean to completely re-create most modern societal structures. I'm so drunktired an will probably feel extremely guilty about this tomorrow, but just one more shotparagraph!

    Overall, I feel that the power in Alexandra's works came not from themselves, but from the way she framed and spoke about the injustices she highlighted. Not only her artworks' topics felt intrusive, disruptive, meaningful, but with hearing her voice, they also felt so necessary yet unheavy to acknowledge and address. Often, when reading about anti-ractism or environmental justice, I feel that extreme weigth of being responsible for making the world a better place... If I know how to make the world better, what are my excuses for not doing anything? But with Alexandra's delivery of her works' messages, I felt that it is extremely easy to follow her path and do something extremely brave and grand and crazy and turn the world around.