UB art student's racial provocation adds to trauma, September 20, 2016
Title
UB art student's racial provocation adds to trauma, September 20, 2016
Subject
Black Student Union (State University of New York at Buffalo)
Description
Photocopied newspaper pages of The Buffalo News article "UB art student's racial provocation adds to trauma" by Colin Dabkowski, September 20, 2016.
Creator
Buffalo news
Source
Black Student Union Vertical File (I18)
Publisher
State University of New York at Buffalo. University Libraries
Date
2016-09-20
Contributor
State University of New York at Buffalo. University Archives
Rights
Researchers must contact University Archives to obtain reproductions of images and to request permission to use any image. Persons who publish or use this material in any manner assume all responsibility for identifying copyright holders and meeting any requisites for use.
Format
application/pdf
Language
en-US
Type
Text
Identifier
VF_I18G_015
Date Created
2023-11-03
Is Part Of
Black Student Union collection (LIB-UA005)
Extent
22x28cm
Transcription
UB art student's racial provocation adds to trauma
Colin Dabkowski
Commentary
On Wednesday, University at Buffalo
graduate student Ashley Powell set
off a campuswide controversy when
she posted several racially provocative signs
in Clemens Hall on UB's North Campus in
Amherst, according to the UB Spectrum.
The signs, which she posted outside the
men's and women's restrooms in the building,
read "White Only" and "Black Only." Powell's
poorly conceived art project, completed as
part of a course on urban installation art,
was calculated to evoke a specific response
on UB's suburban campus. And so it did.
Students, upon encountering Jim Crow
language at their school, feared for their
safety, felt deeply traumatized and aired
their anger on social media and
through the university'a Black
Student Union. They also quickly
alerted UB officials, who promised
to review the matter.
Powell, who is black, got
exactly what she wanted,
which was attention. It came
in the form of a rambling
letter to the Spectrum and
an audience in front of her victimes Thursday
night at a meeting of the Black Student
Union.
According to Powell's self-aggrandizing
non-apology, the project was designed
to shock the university community into
recognition of the experience of
black Americans like herself who
suffer from "self-hate, trauma,
pain and an unbearable and
deafening indignation."
"I understand that I forced
people to feel pain that they
otherwise would not have had
to deal with in this magnitude,"
Powell wrote in her
screed. "But I ask, should nonwhite people
not express or confront their trauma? Should
we be content with not having to confront
that pain?"
But here's the thing: Powell did not
"express or confront" her pain or trauma at
all. She instead chose to deploy a particularly
paintful instance of historic oppression as
a psychological weapon against her fellow
black students. She then had the temerity to
characterize that assault as "an antidote that
brings about healing."
In that way, quite contrary to her goal of
addressing cultural pain, she exacerbated
it. What's more, the project's glaring lack
of context ensured no segue to a deeper
conversation about how the overt racism of
Jim Crow has morphed into more insidious
and covert forms.
Aside from the self-delusion at its root,
See Dabkowski on Page D2
BN 9/20/16
UB art student's racial provocation adds to trauma
Colin Dabkowski
Commentary
On Wednesday, University at Buffalo
graduate student Ashley Powell set
off a campuswide controversy when
she posted several racially provocative signs
in Clemens Hall on UB's North Campus in
Amherst, according to the UB Spectrum.
The signs, which she posted outside the
men's and women's restrooms in the building,
read "White Only" and "Black Only." Powell's
poorly conceived art project, completed as
part of a course on urban installation art,
was calculated to evoke a specific response
on UB's suburban campus. And so it did.
Students, upon encountering Jim Crow
language at their school, feared for their
safety, felt deeply traumatized and aired
their anger on social media and
through the university'a Black
Student Union. They also quickly
alerted UB officials, who promised
to review the matter.
Powell, who is black, got
exactly what she wanted,
which was attention. It came
in the form of a rambling
letter to the Spectrum and
an audience in front of her victimes Thursday
night at a meeting of the Black Student
Union.
According to Powell's self-aggrandizing
non-apology, the project was designed
to shock the university community into
recognition of the experience of
black Americans like herself who
suffer from "self-hate, trauma,
pain and an unbearable and
deafening indignation."
"I understand that I forced
people to feel pain that they
otherwise would not have had
to deal with in this magnitude,"
Powell wrote in her
screed. "But I ask, should nonwhite people
not express or confront their trauma? Should
we be content with not having to confront
that pain?"
But here's the thing: Powell did not
"express or confront" her pain or trauma at
all. She instead chose to deploy a particularly
paintful instance of historic oppression as
a psychological weapon against her fellow
black students. She then had the temerity to
characterize that assault as "an antidote that
brings about healing."
In that way, quite contrary to her goal of
addressing cultural pain, she exacerbated
it. What's more, the project's glaring lack
of context ensured no segue to a deeper
conversation about how the overt racism of
Jim Crow has morphed into more insidious
and covert forms.
Aside from the self-delusion at its root,
See Dabkowski on Page D2
BN 9/20/16
There are useful ways
to funnel one's rage
DABKOWSKI - from D1
Powell's astounding attempt to justify
her project contains a clear false
dichotomy: That somehow the only
way to face up to the violent realities of
race in America or to "vent" about the
daily terror of mere existence for black
Americans is to physically bring past
traumas back to life.
Though it fits the broad definition
of art, Powell's project boils down to
a cruel and counterproductive act of
psychological violence against the
very grou pof people she purports to
represent.
None of this is to say that there
aren't useful ways to funnel one's rage
about the unfathomable injustices
perpetrated upon black America or
the numb horror of daily existence
for this historically marginalized
community into something resem-
bling thoughtful commentary. There
certainly are, including plenty of
examples right here in Buffalo, where
there continues to be a disturbing
paucity of practicing minority artists.
Take Dana McKnight's recent
film, "Which Consumption Mac and
Cheese," a short piece about the white
commodification of black musical
culture, in which a young white man
simply eats dish after dish of macaroni
and cheese to the sounds of Stevie
Wonder, Michael Jackson and other
artists. Or take Stacey Robinson's
performance as part of his studies at
UB, during which he stood in a corner
of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in
2014 and asked methodically and
passionately about the lack of black
artists included in the collection.
(These two projects happen to be
polite, but politeness need not be a
feature of such art.)
If your practice involves intentionally
retraumatizing a population
that is already deeply scarred from
centuries of systematic abuse and
violent oppression hardly salved by
the accomplishments of the civil
rights movement, you are not making
thoughtful art or launching a smart
conversation; you are throwing an
adolescent tantrum and, in this case,
desperately scrambling to dress
up your ugly, subsophomoric gut
instincts in the see-through clothing of
academic art-speak.
"I understand my art project has
exhumed our shared pain," Powell
wrote. "However, our society cannot
heal or change until nonwhite people
are able to confront and gain agency
through our burdens, and white
people are able to confront and
become accountable for their privilege.
It is a delusion to believe that we can
change society without first changing
ourselves."
Powell's jargon-filled display of
intellectual acrobatics may impress
some, but to me it smacks of a base
and uncritical esire to light a fire and
damn who it burns.
What's more, the idea that this
project has accomplished its function
as some kind of progressive
conversation starter is laughable. The
converesation that's been started in
the wake of the stunt is largely about
the narcissism of its progenitor and
the emotional well-being of the stunt's
black victims. Whiel those victims
recove,r the deep rots of systemic
oppression and institutional racism
remain very much unshaken.
You also could start a "conversation"
by yelling "fire!" in a crowded building,
or throwing a tantrum in Wegmans.
The trouble is that the converesation
will rarely be about the topic you
purport to be "interrogating" with your
genius avant-garde strategy, but about
the severe limits of your critique.
As a white, male critic, I understand
I am writing from a position of
privilege. I am in no way pleading for
black artists to make their work more
palatable in order to satisfy mainstream
tastes. I'm arguing against
inflicting another round of psychological
trauma on a community that can
hardly bear any more.
email: cdabkowski@buffnews.com
Colin Dabkowski
Commentary
On Wednesday, University at Buffalo
graduate student Ashley Powell set
off a campuswide controversy when
she posted several racially provocative signs
in Clemens Hall on UB's North Campus in
Amherst, according to the UB Spectrum.
The signs, which she posted outside the
men's and women's restrooms in the building,
read "White Only" and "Black Only." Powell's
poorly conceived art project, completed as
part of a course on urban installation art,
was calculated to evoke a specific response
on UB's suburban campus. And so it did.
Students, upon encountering Jim Crow
language at their school, feared for their
safety, felt deeply traumatized and aired
their anger on social media and
through the university'a Black
Student Union. They also quickly
alerted UB officials, who promised
to review the matter.
Powell, who is black, got
exactly what she wanted,
which was attention. It came
in the form of a rambling
letter to the Spectrum and
an audience in front of her victimes Thursday
night at a meeting of the Black Student
Union.
According to Powell's self-aggrandizing
non-apology, the project was designed
to shock the university community into
recognition of the experience of
black Americans like herself who
suffer from "self-hate, trauma,
pain and an unbearable and
deafening indignation."
"I understand that I forced
people to feel pain that they
otherwise would not have had
to deal with in this magnitude,"
Powell wrote in her
screed. "But I ask, should nonwhite people
not express or confront their trauma? Should
we be content with not having to confront
that pain?"
But here's the thing: Powell did not
"express or confront" her pain or trauma at
all. She instead chose to deploy a particularly
paintful instance of historic oppression as
a psychological weapon against her fellow
black students. She then had the temerity to
characterize that assault as "an antidote that
brings about healing."
In that way, quite contrary to her goal of
addressing cultural pain, she exacerbated
it. What's more, the project's glaring lack
of context ensured no segue to a deeper
conversation about how the overt racism of
Jim Crow has morphed into more insidious
and covert forms.
Aside from the self-delusion at its root,
See Dabkowski on Page D2
BN 9/20/16
UB art student's racial provocation adds to trauma
Colin Dabkowski
Commentary
On Wednesday, University at Buffalo
graduate student Ashley Powell set
off a campuswide controversy when
she posted several racially provocative signs
in Clemens Hall on UB's North Campus in
Amherst, according to the UB Spectrum.
The signs, which she posted outside the
men's and women's restrooms in the building,
read "White Only" and "Black Only." Powell's
poorly conceived art project, completed as
part of a course on urban installation art,
was calculated to evoke a specific response
on UB's suburban campus. And so it did.
Students, upon encountering Jim Crow
language at their school, feared for their
safety, felt deeply traumatized and aired
their anger on social media and
through the university'a Black
Student Union. They also quickly
alerted UB officials, who promised
to review the matter.
Powell, who is black, got
exactly what she wanted,
which was attention. It came
in the form of a rambling
letter to the Spectrum and
an audience in front of her victimes Thursday
night at a meeting of the Black Student
Union.
According to Powell's self-aggrandizing
non-apology, the project was designed
to shock the university community into
recognition of the experience of
black Americans like herself who
suffer from "self-hate, trauma,
pain and an unbearable and
deafening indignation."
"I understand that I forced
people to feel pain that they
otherwise would not have had
to deal with in this magnitude,"
Powell wrote in her
screed. "But I ask, should nonwhite people
not express or confront their trauma? Should
we be content with not having to confront
that pain?"
But here's the thing: Powell did not
"express or confront" her pain or trauma at
all. She instead chose to deploy a particularly
paintful instance of historic oppression as
a psychological weapon against her fellow
black students. She then had the temerity to
characterize that assault as "an antidote that
brings about healing."
In that way, quite contrary to her goal of
addressing cultural pain, she exacerbated
it. What's more, the project's glaring lack
of context ensured no segue to a deeper
conversation about how the overt racism of
Jim Crow has morphed into more insidious
and covert forms.
Aside from the self-delusion at its root,
See Dabkowski on Page D2
BN 9/20/16
There are useful ways
to funnel one's rage
DABKOWSKI - from D1
Powell's astounding attempt to justify
her project contains a clear false
dichotomy: That somehow the only
way to face up to the violent realities of
race in America or to "vent" about the
daily terror of mere existence for black
Americans is to physically bring past
traumas back to life.
Though it fits the broad definition
of art, Powell's project boils down to
a cruel and counterproductive act of
psychological violence against the
very grou pof people she purports to
represent.
None of this is to say that there
aren't useful ways to funnel one's rage
about the unfathomable injustices
perpetrated upon black America or
the numb horror of daily existence
for this historically marginalized
community into something resem-
bling thoughtful commentary. There
certainly are, including plenty of
examples right here in Buffalo, where
there continues to be a disturbing
paucity of practicing minority artists.
Take Dana McKnight's recent
film, "Which Consumption Mac and
Cheese," a short piece about the white
commodification of black musical
culture, in which a young white man
simply eats dish after dish of macaroni
and cheese to the sounds of Stevie
Wonder, Michael Jackson and other
artists. Or take Stacey Robinson's
performance as part of his studies at
UB, during which he stood in a corner
of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in
2014 and asked methodically and
passionately about the lack of black
artists included in the collection.
(These two projects happen to be
polite, but politeness need not be a
feature of such art.)
If your practice involves intentionally
retraumatizing a population
that is already deeply scarred from
centuries of systematic abuse and
violent oppression hardly salved by
the accomplishments of the civil
rights movement, you are not making
thoughtful art or launching a smart
conversation; you are throwing an
adolescent tantrum and, in this case,
desperately scrambling to dress
up your ugly, subsophomoric gut
instincts in the see-through clothing of
academic art-speak.
"I understand my art project has
exhumed our shared pain," Powell
wrote. "However, our society cannot
heal or change until nonwhite people
are able to confront and gain agency
through our burdens, and white
people are able to confront and
become accountable for their privilege.
It is a delusion to believe that we can
change society without first changing
ourselves."
Powell's jargon-filled display of
intellectual acrobatics may impress
some, but to me it smacks of a base
and uncritical esire to light a fire and
damn who it burns.
What's more, the idea that this
project has accomplished its function
as some kind of progressive
conversation starter is laughable. The
converesation that's been started in
the wake of the stunt is largely about
the narcissism of its progenitor and
the emotional well-being of the stunt's
black victims. Whiel those victims
recove,r the deep rots of systemic
oppression and institutional racism
remain very much unshaken.
You also could start a "conversation"
by yelling "fire!" in a crowded building,
or throwing a tantrum in Wegmans.
The trouble is that the converesation
will rarely be about the topic you
purport to be "interrogating" with your
genius avant-garde strategy, but about
the severe limits of your critique.
As a white, male critic, I understand
I am writing from a position of
privilege. I am in no way pleading for
black artists to make their work more
palatable in order to satisfy mainstream
tastes. I'm arguing against
inflicting another round of psychological
trauma on a community that can
hardly bear any more.
email: cdabkowski@buffnews.com
Collection
Citation
Buffalo news, “UB art student's racial provocation adds to trauma, September 20, 2016,” Digital Collections - University at Buffalo Libraries, accessed May 9, 2024, https://digital.lib.buffalo.edu/items/show/97814.