December 15, 2016 - 20:36
Taking the 360 Poetics and Politics of Race 360 this past semester has been incredibly challenging for me. I came in with the intention to learn theory and gain curatorial skills. I was excited to finally get the chance to explore the intersections of race, art, education, and literature. However, looking back I feel as though my excitement for the course has dwindled down and my expectations were not met. From the first week, I knew that it wasn’t going to be an easy road. However, everyone was telling me that this opportunity was amazing and that I would be a crazy to give it up so easily.
Reflecting back on my contributions, I must say that I do feel that I put in a lot of effort and work. From physical products, I am proud of everything I wrote and I think my wall text/layout looks amazing. I am also very happy with my final English project. I honestly think that this photo journal is my best work yet. I’m grateful for this 360 because it gave me a platform to put my love for photography to use. I loved every single museum trip. The spaces sparked so much emotion and creativity out of me. I was lucky to capture it. Without my camera, I do not think that I would have been able to push past all of the painful conversations and tension encountered in the classroom.
Looking back on classroom conversations, I often left upset because I felt as if my contributions only mattered because I am a black girl. Furthermore, because I am a black girl from the inner city.
I do not think that this is fair. But I have learned that at a predominately white institution, that this is the way the game will be played. It bothered me how instead of introducing ourselves and grounding ourselves in scholarship, first, we talked about experiences. I’ll never forget the panic attack I had after we were asked to form race groups. One classmate made the comment, “I can see who’s black, and who’s Asian, and who’s white, but I want to know who’s queer.” After that I found myself asking why a lot. Why was that the way we entered discourse around race and education. Why did I say that my history with literature was traumatizing? Why was I prompted to revisit that? Why is that my personal struggles are insightful and will gain my peers some more knowledge in this room.
Once again, it’s not fair. But I understand this game so much better now. I think once I accepted the fact that this process would be painful, and that only reason why I had something to contribute was because my way of thinking was painful, I was able to get a lot more from the course. I felt a huge turn around when I have my Presentation on Primitive Art in Civilized Spaces in Art History. I had finally encountered writing that I hadn’t seen before and was able to learn and articulate in a way that made sense for me and hopefully classmates. Talking about the reading and also bringing in Jay Z’s Picasso Baby performed at MoMA gave me a feeling of accomplishment.
To close, I do not feel inclined to do a 360 on this level again. I went in as, Alliyah, the religion major and Africana studies concentrator who had just figured out she wanted to enter into curatorial and design work. I left as, Alliyah, the black girl who takes pictures and talked way too much about how she felt. What’s important to me about that is that I did accomplish a lot this past semester and I did grow. So I do thank all of my professors and peers for providing that space. I do wish that we would have been more grounded in the content and material across the board, but I do think that we ended up creating a beautiful exhibit. I can’t wait to see it open next month.