Art for Sale Page 2

African communities thought the heavens, the Gods, blessed them with this special child that looked different.

Disabled Children on the African coast in the counties likeSenegal, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guiana did not far so well and chances of survival were not good if you were born disabled on the African Coast.

The disabled child was taken to the ocean and thrown into the sea to drown. Some remote places in Asia, Latin America, andAfrica still practice this prehistoric archaic act. We maybe in 2011 but some still fear the disabled, the unknown.

Black and white slave traders would capture parents of disabled children, leaving the children to die. These helpless children could not help themselves. In Africa just like America, the disabled child helped the family around the house, farm, and rising siblings. He/she was still part of the family.

Some disabled children could not perform heavy house chores because of their lack of or limited mobility. The Disabled child would then instill knowable and strength to his/her siblings

There is a poignant moment in the movie “Ray” — the story of blind singer and entertainer, Ray Charles. Every disabled child experiences a moment like this. They either rise above the challenge or fall in despair.

In this scene little Ray is on the floor. Lying there screaming help to his mother. Ray’s mother hears him and does not respond. She looks at him with tears streaming down her face.

She knows that if Ray is going to survive in this harsh world he will have to pick himself up off of the floor and begin his fight for independence.

He continues to whine for a few seconds, but then suddenly it clicks. His mind moves into overdrive, the drive for human survival. He starts to pay attention to his surroundings hearing things he had never heard before.

He notices everything around him, the whistle of the tea kettle, the fly buzzing by his ears; the cows mooing, the cars passing his house and even the scent of his mother.

Ray gets up off the floor and states, “Mom I know your there so why not help me??” This defining moment happens to most disabled children and a new world begins. It is the point of liberation, the point of independence.

Olympic Champion Wilma Rudolph contracted polio as a child and had a very difficult childhood. One leg was shorter then the other and twisted so Wilma wore a heavy leg brace.

Many thought she would not survive her teenage years because she was always ill. Doctors told her that she would never walk normal again, but Rudolph defied the odds. Rudolph was a fighter.

Her mother told her you have to keep up with your brothers and sisters and you have to beat your classmates because you are different. Wilma did not know what to do because it took her longer to get to and from school each day.

Right then was her disabled moment. She decided that she would run to school everyday and beat her siblings and classmates to school. This personal decision made her the best female runner in the world, beating world class runners in the 1956 and 1960 Summer Olympic Games.

Willie O’Ree the first black hockey player in the National Hockey League had a similar moment in his career. Playing in a sport that did not have another Black player he had to be a strong individual. This continued when he was told he would never see out of the eye that was struck by a flying puck. His decision to play or not to play was the turning point in his life, his disabled moment. Mr. O’Ree went back to the Boston Bruins never telling a soul about his disability. There is a league rule that if a player lost vision in one eye he could no longer play. O’Ree is now the current coordinator of the NHL Diversity Program. The National Hockey League currently dresses 27 Black players, this would have never happened without the courage and strength of Willie O’Ree.

THE SLAVE TRADE

The mothers of disabled children had to protect and hide their child from the master. If the master saw a disabled child it was taken immediately and killed.

This child was considered a liability an economic burden and not an asset to the master because that child was eating food and not producing anything for the master’s economic profit.

This continued at the turn of the 20th century or the modern era. Black disabled children lived in the basement or attic unseen by family or friends. The stigma of having a disabled child was too great. The first group to break out of this endless cycle was the courageous disabled men and women of the late 1950’s and early 1960’s. The first group of visual disabled individuals to, socially, and politically and economically raise their voices, in unison, demanding their equal rights.

Harriett Tubman, one of the greatest heroines of our time was a strong disabled Black woman. She wanted to free other disabled slaves but the mothers would never tell her where they were. This broke her heart.

The first experiments with the gas chambers were on disabled German citizens. These monsters tested “how to” exterminate humans efficiently. These individuals died a very painful lingering death.

Disabled German citizens had to wear bright yellow arm bands all the time, making it much easier for the police to round them up.

The term “deaf and dumb” came from the Nazi regime. It has stood the test of time and American society still uses this horrible phrase. Deaf people are not dumb.

A new form of slave labor transformed disabled Eastern European females. They were given ten needles to sew new German military uniforms. If the workers broke all ten needles they were sent to the gas chambers.

This showed the world the quality of life or lack of quality for the disabled in the German Empire.

Today it has vastly improved.

Basketball star Mike “Stinger” Glenn, Southern Illinois University, and Saluki great and all American guard grew up with two parents who are deaf. He learned sign languages at a young age; he understood the difficulties his parents experienced.

Glenn promised his parents that he would help deaf children whenever he could. The former (NBA) National Basketball Association player opened a camp for deaf children. He taught many at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale the art of communication in (ASL) American Sign Languages.

During his playing career, Glenn requested the NBA to broadcast their games with Closed Captioning. Today, most sports broadcast are closed captioned for the hearing impaired thanks to Glenn’s effort.

Now deaf basketball fans can enjoy the game like everyone else.

Baseball player John Curtis Pride was drafted by my beloved New York Mets; and also played for the Montreal Expos, Detroit Tigers, Boston Red Sox, and finally the Atlanta Braves during his career.

These are the positive events that have occurred because of this disability.

However, the American film and movie industry still does not understand. The appalling movie called “Tropic Thunder”, with Ben Stiller and Robert Downey Jr.

The movie was a comedy, but most disabled Americans and the disabled community at large did not think it was funny. During the movie’s first weekend it was the highest rated movie at that time.

Mentally challenged Americans also have to fight the American movie industry with the use of the word retarded. The movie included scenes about mentally disabled citizens calling them the R- word many times. For those who don’t know the R-word it’s retarded. This name has been politically and socially unacceptable for years. The Movie comedy released used this word over 50 times. The producers, directors, and writers of this movie were not sensitive to the Mentally Disabled Americans

The Special Olympic Games lost two of their heroes with the passing of founder, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, and her husband Sergeant Shriver.

In 1960, the Kennedy’s and Shriver’s wanted American mentally challenged children to compete and meet new people. When it started 50 years ago only half of the stadium in Boston was full and they were just friends and relatives of the children competing.

Today over 180 countries participate in these games and the stadiums are full of sports fans. The Kennedy-Shriver families are the second positive force for the disabled community in the field of sports.

WHY DID FDR HIDE HIS DISABILITY?

President Franklin D Roosevelt could have done so much for the American disabled community because he was the first disabled President, yet he chose to hide his disability.

The country was at war and he wanted the world to see a strong American leader. Also the stigma of disability was strong and the portrayal of weakness was prominent. Disabled folk were still not accepted in society and President Roosevelt knew this.

Presently in the state of New York there is a Disabled African American Governor, Mr. David Peterson. Governor Peterson is legally blind and it is very difficult to hide his disability. Peterson took over a state that was in financial difficulty.

Mr. Peterson memorizes his speeches which is very impressive because I can’t remember two lines of my Saturday afternoon THE GRAY LEOPARD COVE radio show!

Jim Abbott, the one-armed pitcher for the New York Yankees and California Angels and golfer Casey Martin wanted to play the game they loved. Both had physical disabilities that did not stop them. One visible, the other invisible.

Martin had to file a case with the United States Supreme Court to allow him to play on the Professional Golf Association Tour (PGA) in a golf cart because he could not stand or walk long distances.

Kicker Tom Dempsey of the New Orleans Saints broke the record for the longest field goal in NFL history – 63 yards – beating the Detroit Lions 19-17 in 1970. The record has been equaled in 1998 by Denver Bronco Jason Elam.

Dempsey was born without toes on his right foot. He created a modified shoe so he could play. After the record braking field goal other teams complained that Dempsey had an unfair advantage and the NFL created “The Dempsey Rule”, in 1977.

The rule states that any shoe worn by a player with an artificial limb on his kicking leg must have a kicking surface that conforms to that of a normal kicking shoe.

Again the disabled must conform to the able bodied world of rules when the rules are already stacked against the disabled player. The same can be said about African American players they have to be twice as good as their white counter parts to even play the game they love.

DISABLED KIDS DO GROW UP, AND THERE ARE PEOPLE OF COLOR…

The Jerry Lewis Muscular Dystrophy Association Telethon syndrome is still with us. Disabled kids are cute, get our attention, and need assistance.

Well ladies and gentlemen disabled children do grow up. Have you ever see an older child or adult; or a child of color on this Labor Day broadcast?

Just like the Native American Indian-First Nations professional team mascots, the disabled are in a time capsule and remain in that time frame, forever. The Cleveland Indians and the Washington Football Club want to stay in the 1920-1940’s with their logo and name.

Baseball All-Star Luis Tiant stated many times that as a Latino man he disliked putting on the Cleveland Indian Uniform because of the disgraceful logo on the sleeve and hat.

Tiant loved playing baseball and loved playing for the Indians, but he recognized the disrespect the organization had for Native American Indian-First Nations fans with their logo.

If more Baseball players like Tiant spoke out against Cleveland’s Chief Wahoo, the silly grinning mascot, on the sleeve of the jersey and the cap. The logo would surly be part of American history.

GEORGE C. WALLACE

The power of a disabled elected official is clearly marked by the case of Alabama Governor George C. Wallace. The state had a few curb cuts and a few accessible buildings before the 1972 assassination attempt on his life in a Maryland shopping center that left him paralyzed. The state of Alabama at that time ranked 46 in disabled access in the United States.

Governor Wallace stated he wanted his state to become wheelchair accessible and it happened in the last two years of his term. “MAKE IT SO”, as Jean-Luc Picard captain of the Starship USS Enterprise would say.

Governor Wallace proved that it can be done when an individual in power makes such decisions. Most Disabled African Americans do not have that kind of political, social, or economic power.

SCHOOL MAINSTREAMING LEAVES OUT BLACK DISABLED CHILDREN

The Black disabled child was left out when it was time for education. Especially if the parents of that child did not know the various educational programs available for their child.

The disabled child would sit at home and watch TV. Wasting away his/her chance to improve. Parents and disabled young adults should contact the Social Security office in your local town to get started.

There are (OJT’s) On The Job Training programs from the (DVR) Department of Vocational Rehabilitation There are tutors and assistance for the disabled student in high schools and colleges.

YOU HAVE TO ASK!!!!

When a child reaches the age of 18 the United Statesgovernment issues a Federal assistance check for the rest of their lives. Most African American children and their parents do not know this because they are not in the disabled networking system.

AGAIN YOU HAVE TO ASK!!!

In 2000 this situation has gotten better. If the disabled child is black, male, big, and loud he/she gets categorized as DD or AD Developmental Disabled or Attention Deficit. Once this child receives this label it stays with him/her for life.

Most Children with Cerebral Palsy were labeled DD 80 % of the time. This is tragic and is very difficult to remove. Most of these children are not DD, but the teachers, doctors, and counselors cannot handle the cultural and physical issues.

EXCLUSION FROM THE DISABLED MOVEMENT

Disabled African Americans were excluded from the disabled movement years ago when five white disabled males inBerkeley, California created The Center for Independent Living.

The Center gave young disabled adults their first chance at a job, the first chance to politically, socially, and economically join forces. However, this did not include African American Disabled. This was an error of omission not commission, but it should not occur.

It was great to have a disabled movement in American but just like the beginnings of the women’s movement it lacked the participation of people of color.

Again it has improved but the cultural and economic issues are being ignored by the movement similar to the 1970’s women’s movement. That movement did not understand that African American females had been liberated 60 years earlier. Black Disabled youth know what time it is and make their own way not waiting for the disabled movement to help them.

— Disabled African Americans are living on the outskirts of two worlds with neither world accepting them for who they are. My disabled brother, author, writer and Krip Hop artist Leroy Moore Jr. from Buffalo New York also has Cerebral Palsy.

He coined this phrase “Living on the Outskirts”. This term defines African American disabled live on the outskirts of the black and white communities.

The White community does not accept the Black disabled because they are African American, The Black community does not accept them because they are disabled.

So the Black Disabled American gets bounced like a ping pong ball from one group to another and never really feels at home in either culture. The Black Disabled love southern fried cooking, dancing, sports, music and a love life, just like everybody else.

Oscar Pistoris and Natalie Du Toit from South Africa both competed in the Beijing Summer Games, then two weeks later competed in the Beijing Paralympics Games.

Pistoris rose above the controversy of his “Cheetah” carbon fiber legs. It was later known that able-bodied runners had the advantage at the starting blocks because Pistoris could not push off the blocks with his Cheetahs like able-bodied runners use the heels of their feet. It was shown to have almost a full second advantage. Will the Olympic Games equalize the starting blocks for disabled athletes when they compete against non-disabled athletes, NO.?

These athletes are on the outskirts of two worlds, disabled and non-disabled world with neither one accepting them either. These two individuals are so good that they beat disabled athletes with relative ease, but they struggle against able-bodied athletes because the rules restrict their abilities.

BUSH AND THE ADA SIGNING TABLE IN 1992-93

The disabled finally got their civil rights but Disabled African Americans and disabled females were asking do we have the same rights because they were not representative.

President Bush’s set along side of the disabled and made many in the community happy. This was their first visual political act by Washington D.C. But there was still NO LOVE for the Asian, Latino, or Black Disabled communities.

DID NON-DISABLED PEOPLE MAKE LIFE DECISIONS FOR THE DISABLED?

The issue of non-disabled people making legal and medical decisions for the disabled and for the Disabled African American has additional cultural bias issues.

It is happening all over again in Washington D.C. with the current and pending 2011 Congressional legislation on Medical and Medical. The health of Black Disabled Americans will be in danger if the cuts are implemented.

Many years ago Terry Schiavo’s seven-year right to life battle between her husband and parents to extend Terri’s life or let her die without medical assistance. Ms Schiavo passed away after a long life in the hospital in 2005.

Little Ashley’s right to have children and grow into a woman was prevented by her parents. They made the decision to have doctors perform a hysterectomy and breast surgery to limit her growth.

They also gave her at 10 years old hormones to limit her physical growth. Ashley is at her full height and weight. The parents did this for their convenience. Not asking Ashley what she wanted.

This is repeated in the Disabled African American community. Drugs are administered to the disabled child to “calm him/her down” or to relax his/her muscles. Valium is a favorite drug given to young people with Cerebral Palsy

This drug alters the disabled person personality forever yet not much protest.

So you think the N-word is bad? Can you imagine growing up with Cerebral Palsy? A disability that affects all of the muscular motor skills of the body?

Now think about this, other disabled children calling you the N-word. Cerebral Palsy was considered on the lowest rung of the disabled community hierarchy.

Children with CP talked funny, drooled, and were spastic and jumped at sudden loud noises. All of these issues were frowned upon by the greater disabled community.

For a white disabled child, it may or may not matter, but for a disabled African American Child this was a triple play, Black, male, and disabled. The 1960-70 era America did not like Black disabled folk because they were a new political threat.

People who you thought were your allies and would support you because you had a common bond-disability were now calling you the N-word. So the disabled child with Cerebral Palsy had to have a thick skin.

A white disabled child grew up with racist parents grew up more intense with the same attitude because they stayed at home, these kids did not socialize with other kids of a different cultural background to dispel their parent’s myths, and cultural believes so they were intense with their feelings of race, sex, and social status.

The same event occurred with Black disabled children if his/her parents were prejudice. They mimicked their parent’s views politically, socially, and economically.

POLITICAL AND SOCIAL LEADERS

Christopher Reeve’s becoming the spokesmen for the disabled community when he was only disabled for two years was profound. He did not know many of the issues the confronted the disabled community. Why?

Because he never lived, talked, or worked with other Disabled Americans.

Many issues did not get addressed because of his star power. Yes, he did wonderful things for stem cell research but many other important issues were left unacknowledged.

While disabled singers like the late Curtis Mayfield andPhiladelphia star Teddy Pendergrass, both quadriplegics, addressed inner city issues and health care issues for the African American with disabilities, something the White Disabled leadership still fails to address. They also address the issue of Black fathers leaving the family after finding out their child was disabled. Leaving leadership of the family to Black women, AGAIN.

Unfortunately, the issues of the handicapped aren’t sexy enough for the American media or the White Disabled leadership.

Dodger Hall of Fame catcher Roy Campanella was the first disabled coach in Major league history. Every spring, Campanella would travel with the Dodgers to their spring training camp in Florida.

He would help the young catchers on the art of defense behind the plate. Whenever a team member had a problem they would visit Campanella. He used his disability to help others with words of wisdom and words of experience.

Anyone having the grace to live into your eighties, nineties, or a century most likely a certain part of your body will fail. That is just human nature and then the body will force you to join the disabled community, whither you want to or not.

GET PERMISSION BEFORE YOU HELP

Please ask if the disabled person wants to be helped, it is a common courtesy to ask before assisting. Don’t be offended if he/she says no, it’s just part of being independent.

Remember we teach all of our children to be independent, the same can be said for disabled youth.

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by: Max Eternity

“Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it” is an oft-recited quote attributed to George Satayana — philosopher, poet, essayist and novelist. It’s a somewhat cliché statement that nevertheless clearly recognizes the importance of historical erudition. As it is self-evident that there are many things, especially war, colonization, chattel slavery, genocide and holocausts of all sorts, which should never be repeated.

“Storytelling is a way to make sense of the world” says Jasmine Moorhead. Though for as critical as it is, historical study tends not to be the most exciting subject matter in the world. And yet, who disputes its vital relevancy to society, the progression of civilization, and the recognition of shared values?

History must be presented as catalyzing food-for-thought if it is to be passed down through the ages, resonating generation after generation. And what better way to do this than with art and storytelling?

Curated by Jasmine Moorhead for her gallery in San Francisco’s East Bay, Ron Moultrie Saunders and Karen Seneferu have conjured a meritorious two-person exhibition, which offers up a responsive helping of sensory manna that tells both the historical Middle Passage story of Africans taken forcibly from their homeland and brought to America, while also telling the story of a personal and collective, contemporary evolutionary process that infuses the prescient technological advancement of humankind and the individual growth processes of Seneferu and Saunders.

Employing photography, sculpture and video within the 3 rooms of Krowswork Gallery — located in Downtown Oakland — anthropology and technology are wed in the show, bearing the titlePassage.

Moorhead, an art advocate and art historian who at one time lived in a small village in the West African nation of Cote d’Ivoire, says she’s a lover of birds. This alludes to the nomenclature of her gallery, Krowswork, whose name is a palindrome — a word which is spelled the same backwards and forth. The space was founded in 2009 by Moorhead, a Yale graduate and former employee to New York’s Dia Center for the Arts and Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), and she spoke about the mission of the gallery and the Passage exhibit in a series of recent conversations.

Max Eternity (ME): I understand both your parents are artists? What’s that been like and how does it influence your life — your career decisions?

Jasmine Moorhead (JM): (laughs) I grew up thinking about art, this is something I feel very familiar with and comfortable with. The creative process has always been part of who I am. It’s jut there. There wasn’t a separation between people who were creating and my life. I remember as a kid thinking, “who would be crazy enough to do this?” I was very aware that the parents of my friends went off to jobs and weren’t there. But, my parents were always around.

The apple doesn’t fall that far from the tree. And so, it’s something I feel I have something to say about, because I’ve been thinking about it for a long time. And of course, it’s something I value — it’s personal and emotional, on that level. It’s never been an intellectual exercise. ME: Krowswork is your first gallery. Tell me about the name?

JM: I’m a bird person, I really like birds. Like many people, I’m drawn to hawks and raptures. Thinking about more of who I am as a person, I was like: You know, I’m more like a crow. They are very protective and social. They’re smart, they’re everywhere. The name Krowswork is a palindrome, it reads the same backwards and forwards.

It alludes to Alfred Stieglitz’s first magazine, to treat photography as a fine art. His magazine was called Camerawork. So, that was purposeful as well. Plus, it’s work.

ME: In the mission statement of the gallery you say “My wish for Krowswork is that it provides an instinctual, intellectual, and poetic framework within which to examine the mediums of photography and video in a larger art/historical context.” How so, and why photography and video?

JM: Photography and video, I think, these are the mediums of our time. Everybody has a camera. We take it for granted that you can go to Facebook and look at images and Youtube to look at video. This is the past 8 years. We’re not looking at a very long time this phenomenon has happened. There is so much of it. It is so successful. I think it’s important to try to wade through that and pull things out, and ask this is interesting, and why?

People who work in those mediums have more opportunity, but also more responsibility.

For me, this is also a creative venture and therefore I’m interested in shaping something. It’s instinctual, so it’s coming out of that reaction to itself, but also speaking to other work; the continuum of the shows at the gallery responding to one another.

That’s the most important job of a curator, to have a great eye, to select great work, but to really be able to see the forest for the trees. To say, this is why this is important right now.

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By ERIC K. ARNOLD

The culture of street art “is about reclaiming our visual space … in the name of freedom and expression.”

So says local visual-art legend Refa One, co-founder of the Bay Area Aerosol Heritage Society, while leading a gallery tour of what he calls style writing, graf or aerosol art — and what the rest of us might call graffiti.

Titled “AeroSoul 2,” the show, which runs until Sunday at the Joyce Gordon Gallery in downtown Oakland, traces the history of spray can art through its many strands. And unlike many of the mainstream gallery shows and commercial products that have drawn inspiration from urban street art, “AeroSoul 2” highlights the seminal hip-hop art form’s African-American originators.

Conceived as a Black History Month event and co-curated by Refa, the exhibit touches on five generations of black style writing, from New York’s old-school subway painters Stan 153 and Chain 3 to West Coast masters like Cre8 and Toons to new-schoolers like Ace Born and MadHatter. International figures like the UK’s Mode 2 and Senegal’s Docta complete the connection to the African Diaspora, while the Bay’s own storied graf history is represented by pioneers like Oakland’s Del/Phresh, San Francisco’s UB40 and Cuba, and Berkeley’s Shadow.

Stylistic tangents include the Afrocentric comic book art of Dawud Anyabwile, the mixed-media street portraits of Brett Cook-Dizney, the funky canvases of Overton Lloyd and the sociopolitical commentary of Emory Douglas.

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By Dexter Mullins

(ThyBlackMan.com) Short of dropping the n-bomb on someone, there are few things more insulting to many African-Americans than being called an “Uncle Tom.” The term originates from the character in Harriett Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin which was published in 1852. And ever since the term has stirred emotions and sparked controversy almost everywhere it surfaces.

But do black people really know their “Uncle Tom?”

Most people often think of a “Tom” as a sell-out, someone who has benefited from turning their back on the black community in exchange for self-gratification. But for the millions of people out there fluidly throwing around the term, it’s most certain a vast majority of them do not really know who “Tom” is.

E. Ethelbert Miller, Howard University Afro-American Studies Director, says that people forget Tom was a noble character, and it’s true that history has not been kind to him. While he appears happy to be a slave living on the bottom rafters of civilization and thrilled to please his master, the reality could not be further from the truth.

Passive and timid as he appears, Tom is not the old decrepit man we have all come to know. His character, deeply rooted in his Christian faith, finds ways to spread his beliefs everywhere he goes. He stands firm to his convictions when it matters most, protecting slaves who are on the run.

“You may not like him, but the reality is that Tom wasn’t the bad guy,” Miller said. “Being an ‘Uncle Tom’ can be a survival move. People don’t want to rock the boat but at the end of the day they are concerned about you, about your children.”

That isn’t the description of Tom people know and use today. This begs the question, how did Uncle Tom become such a negative character?

Miller says the phrase has become divorced from its literary meaning, and the black power movement helped to redefine the definition of the phrase. Now, he says, the term is outdated.

But not everyone agrees. While the reference people use may not be accurate, that doesn’t necessarily make it irrelevant.

“I think that it is updated, not outdated,” Rev. Al Sharpton, founder of the National Action Network said. “Updated in the since that it takes different forms because we’re in different social settings now, we have different options now.”

On Tuesday during his nationally syndicated radio show Keeping It Real, Sharpton discussed at length with his audience the notion of Uncle Tom, who he really was, what the term should mean, and what it means now. After engaging dialogue about the history and true origins of Tom, Sharpton gave a modern, “updated” definition for the criteria to be a Tom.

He sums it up as this: An Uncle Tom is one that in a deliberate way, seeks personal favor or acceptance at the expense of his race and at the expense of what he or she knows to be right.

During the radio program a few callers threw out names of individuals who they considered “Uncle Toms.” Names like conservative Armstrong Williams, Fox News pundit Juan Williams and former RNC chair Michael Steele. But Sharpton quickly made the point that political ideology does not make a person a Tom.

However, the name most used by the callers during the discussion was Justice Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court. A few callers pointed to recent reports that Thomas hasn’t spoken on the bench in five years. They felt that he was simply put on the court as the “black justice” to further an anti-black agenda.

“Does one believe that Clarence Thomas genuinely believes that he is on the Supreme Court based on his merit and therefore makes those decisions or does he recognize that he was put there by George Bush as a replacement for Thurgood Marshall as the black on the court and therefore he uses the designation for purposes other than need of the purposes that designation was assigned for. If you believe that latter than you would have to say that he’s an Uncle Tom. If you believe the former than you have to say he isn’t,” Sharpton said.

Although he recognizes the reasons why some black people today consider Clarence Thomas a “Tom,” Miller reflected on the justice’s 1991 confirmation hearings to point out that the real “Tom” in that situation wasn’t Thomas but actually Benjamin Hooks. Hooks was the president of the NAACP at the time of Thomas’ confirmation.

Miller says had the NAACP spoken out against Thomas and not rubber stamped him because he is black, it would have made it easier for others to do so. By not speaking out, Hook allowed Thomas to slide through knowing that it was wrong.

Whether people subscribe to Sharpton’s definition of what makes someone a Tom, or if they have their own ideas, it still doesn’t change the stigma around the label. Some argue that people are unjustly labeled a Tom because they have achieved a level of wealth and stability, or have managed to elevate themselves in the community.

“I think that you’ve got wealthy blacks like Earl Graves and Muhammad Ali in his height, that clearly were not Tom’s,” Sharpton said. “You’ve got people that I know that were on welfare in Brooklyn that could give out master degrees in book dancing and Tom-ing.”

One of Sharpton’s callers said that he was criticized for opening his business in the white neighborhood and not the black neighborhood. People call him a Tom because he speaks with proper diction and grammar and doesn’t use the n-word. When someone asked him why he didn’t open shop in the black community, he replied, “The only way the black community will support someone is if the white community supports them first.”

Sharpton also pointed to rap artists, arguing that many of them are paid by white owned record labels to perform lyrics that degrade themselves and black women. He refers to them as “closeted Toms.”

If there is one certainty around the term it is that it is still a hot button issue among African-Americans and that no profession, political ideology, or socioeconomic class justifies or makes someone exempt from being considered an “Uncle Tom.

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by: John Marin

The High Museum of Art will host “John Marin’s Watercolors: A Medium for Modernism,” the first major comprehensive exhibition addressing John Marin’s (1870–1953) modernist achievements in the watercolor medium. Comprising more than 100 works, the exhibition includes a group of 40 watercolors from the collection of Alfred Stieglitz donated to the Art Institute of Chicago in 1949 and 1956 by his wife Georgia O’Keeffe, many of which have rarely or never before been on public display. Additional selections of oil paintings, drawings and etchings will showcase Marin’s experimentation throughout his career. Organized by and debuting at the Art Institute of Chicago, “John Marin’s Watercolors: A Medium for Modernism” will be on view at the High from June 26 to September 11, 2011.

“In 1948, a nationwide survey published in Life magazine celebrated John Marin as America’s number-one artist. This is a testament to Marin’s exuberant and improvisational paintings, and how they are recognized today as critical to the evolution of American modernism even through to today,” says Stephanie Heydt, the High’s Terry and Margaret Stent Curator of American Art. “Less well known, though, is the extent to which Marin pushed the limits of the watercolor medium, establishing for a new generation of artists its inherent suitability to avant-garde expression.”

The exhibition reveals Marin’s working method as it developed through etching and into watercolor as well as his development of the natural properties of the medium to craft a new avant-garde approach. The exhibition showcases important intersections between media, artistic character and the politics of modern art, shedding new light on the question of why watercolor became such an important instrument for avant-garde artistic practice in the hands of Marin and other American artists of the Stieglitz circle, including Charles Demuth, Arthur Dove, Georgia O’Keeffe and Marsden Hartley.

A notable aspect of the exhibition is the particular attention paid to the frames that Marin made for his watercolors. He felt strongly about the mode of presentation for the works, and his choices of frames and mounts departed radically from the ornate European styles favored in the late 19th century. The Art Institute collection—including the 40 works from Alfred Stieglitz’s personal collection via Georgia O’Keeffe—contains the largest surviving museum holdings of Marin’s original mounts and frames, thus providing essential information about the presentation and promotion of modern watercolor during the first half of the 20th century. The original frames and mounts have been researched and preserved, and replica frames based on these models have been built for the works without original frames, making the Art Institute’s presentation of these works as close to Marin’s intent as possible and showing, for the first time, how Marin’s innovation and originality extended beyond his painted compositions.

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