Naivety and Need

The immature part of me dreads a majority of representation of blackness in American contemporary art we have today. I preface this by saying I yearn to be in the art spaces and this is almost naivety, the expectation that I will be represented any other way.  I further go on to not disregard the hostility I may feel as a black male nor the pressures that accompany life in New York as such. I believe the individuals who are at the center of these beliefs simply had different experiences or lived in a much different era than me, or different places. This is my naivety, and it progresses in my mind as such, “innocence or unsophistication” as it is defined. I am conscious of this. I much rather leave those stories to those who they serve, and instead collaborate with beliefs of classism, financial inequality, social instability which do not allow for such one dimensional rhetoric. My unsophistication toward this does not accompany disrespect, the opposite, I want to be close and further develop my sophistications, but it seems they are the last ones to come. I direct my energy towards the sociological perspective- to quote the Green Book “The freedom of a human being is lacking if his or her needs are controlled by others, for need may lead to the enslavement of one person by another. Furthermore, exploitation is caused by need. Need is an intrinsic problem and conflict is initiated by the control of one’s needs by another.” To expound lightly, I believe today one must control their needs, satiate them to the best of their abilities, and progress towards a semblance of independence of the means of his or her own production, and this is the largest form of active protest we can partake in- as young artists, as black artists, this is the highest goal, at the apex of our needs today.