art activism: a compararative study
The last post about how nothing ever really happens in day-to-day life due to the pandemic isn’t entirely true. Today, I live just a few miles away from one of the symbolic centers of the BLM movement, which is actually pretty damned inspiring, and has, perhaps accidentally, become a piece of art transcending it’s original intent:
Not all politically motivated guerrilla art is so inspiring. this piece, for example, just depresses me, not just for what it says and how it says it, but also because I also have a personal connection of sorts:
The original TikTok video of the endeavor pictured above, according to local media, was captured, if I remember my childhood geography right, three blocks or so from the house I grew up in. As such, I am disappointed, though knowing the general lay of the political land in that part of the world (of which I have fond memories, but don’t regret leaving in the slightest), it does not surprise me.
It also does not reflect well on the land of my youth, and merely reinforces the “Pennsyltucky” stereotypes of uneducated redneckery, racism and regressive attitudes there. It doesn’t help that one can see just as many Confederate battle flags flying there (in the cradle of abolition) than you can here in the former capital of the Confederacy, without even the tissue-thin excuse of “heritage.”
Incidentally, I also made my first forays into tabletop RPGs in that same neighborhood, though I struggle to believe that the unique spelling in any way refers to a certain undead creature that in all but the most recent editions of D&D could cause players to lose levels, which in story terms, means a loss of skill and understanding, which feels oddly apropos here.
In any case, I found this story rather less than uplifting.
