NOT DREAMING OF A WOKE XMAS

 In that hot, pandemic, "woke" summer of 2020 I made it my business to rid the streets of the little town of Mountaindale of a Confederate flag flown persistently from the back of a local woman's Jeep. I was still on social media in those days. So I posted my "antiracist" crusade and started a 90 person group email hoping concerned (mostly white) citizens could come together and shame this cracker into compliance. What happened was both enlightening and unpredictable.  Although, in organizing a predominantly "woke and white" Love Parade, we were able to get the stars and bars replaced with a "Blue Lives Matter" flag on the Jeep (small victory) I was faced with a backlash from my own community, disparaged as not being "woke" enough and in the following months canceled and marginalized within a town I thought was on my side. I withdrew from social media and participation in town affairs. If you think a thirteen year old girl is at risk of social media mob pressure, try being a sixty-eight-year-old, heterosexual, white man. Down with the patriarchy! Day after day of sitting in a tree NOT seeing deer makes one's mind wander and masticate the past. It still hurts. I just got a new book by John McWhorter, Woke Racism How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America. I think Mr. McWhorter is onto something. Here's a taste of what I went through on that email chain during that summer:

Mike, 

We need to listen when black and nonwhite people in town say that they don’t feel safe coming to this event. If this is going to be anything more than a performative feel-good pageant for white people, we need to take these concerns seriously.  If we’re doing this to show support for black and nonwhite folks, we need to listen when they tell us they don’t feel safe. We can’t rely on the police to keep black people safe. Police kill black people with impunity.

() and I are going to paint a king sized sheet with black lives matter than can be used to block the flag if they bring it.  I think that because the confederate flag is a targeted threat of violence toward black people, the opposing message should be specifically in support of black people.

I think it’s also important to report back whatever we come up with to the larger group so that people can decide whether or not they feel safe coming.

Here is my reply: 

     I Just had dinner with the “black” folks you are referring to. And they trust me. Enough with the listen to POC bullshit. I’m doing everything in my power to make this safe and fun for all. Again, AGAIN, fucking AGAIN. This is about LOVE- not color. I’m trying to make this fun for everyone who wants to profess love and not get bogged down in color line crap. I’m just saying this to you. So report that back [to the larger group] if you want.

    If I understand John McWhorter's premise correctly that "...Third Wave Antiracism forces us to pretend that performance art is politics." he puts art in the same compartment as religion; something that exists outside of logic and critical thought. I agree. Yet, politics these days seem to be neck and neck with these absurdist endeavors - only way more dangerous. I can freely admit that I'm racist. I think we all are. It's how you deal with your racism that matters. Just because I love children doesn't make me a pedophile.

    In 2016 I learned two things: my ancestors (both maternal and paternal) were enslavers of captive Africans in the Northeast....for generations. The second thing I learned was that the descendants of these Osterhout slaves were the aunts, uncles and step-grandparents of the great Harlem Renaissance photographer James VanDerZee. Inserting myself into the VanDerZee legacy has been a complex, exhausting and ultimately very rewarding process. I feel a kinship (albeit fictive) with VanDerZee and am friends with his widow Donna. Am I woke? Not even close. I'm an artist. I have the freedom to be as much of an asshole as I wish. I just ordered a rug emblazoned with a runaway slave newspaper ad image from one of my relatives. Problematic? You bet. I can't write books like McWhorter's, but I can organize Love Parades, put on "churches" and do my best to create performance art that may or may not deal with our history of racism....as an old, straight, white man. Now back to the hunt.