My tendency to tear everyone down for whatever way they are contributing to or indicative of racism, sexism, classism, heterosexism, etc. is complicated by the general intersections and nuances people naturally have in their personalities, associations, and tastes.
Examples:
1) Local Seattle artists of color such as Wanz are supporting, touring and making music with Macklemore, who
through no fault of his own has raised my rankles (because despite his catchy songs, for many of us his Grammy wins are emblematic of white supremacy). If you just watch how different the performances at the Grammys (read:comfortable white space) were from those at the NBA All-Star Games (read:comfortable brown space), it is notable how Jay-Z, Pharrell, and other black superstars didn't seem to care at all about the Grammys and did lackluster performances, yet at the NBA All-Star games, their performances were outstandingly brilliant and confident.
2) Picasso annoys me because people praise him despite to me what seems especially considering his affairs and philandery reputation, very violent and objectifying of women--just within the visual content of some of his artwork. And yet, Spike Lee's grandmother, as I learned today--a woman of African descent taught (in a Jim Crow south, segregated school) art for fifty years, and her favorite artist was Picasso. A somewhat circular multicultural artistic influence, considering how inspired Picasso was by African sculpture.
That's collage/pastiche, baby.
3) I dislike and judge Heidegger for his Nazi associations, but love the fact that my theologian friend's spiritual awakening occurred through through Gabriel Garcia Marquez's 100 Years of Solitude, TS Eliot's The Waste Land,and Heidegger. i.e. there must be something redeeming (literally) there.
4) I am tempted to write off Bill Murray completely for stomping on a white guy dressed up as an indigenous person for a sports game. But The Royal Tenenbaums and Groundhog Day are so incredibly good, and he employs a rakish, embittered Bill Murray-ness I can relate to so perfectly in both!
5) Esther Leslie's sarcastic commentary on our shared writer-hero Walter Benjamin in her biography of his life. He was progressive and lovely in thought, yet clearly believed in male dominance/superiority in some small quips in his writings.
6) I h-h-h-hate it when snooty progressives say basically they're too good for hip-hop because it's so misogynistic, materialistic, and homophobic when they have noooo connection to or interest in the culture and have never tried, but I'm probably giving hip-hop the benefit of the doubt instead of calling those that need to be called out--I'm hesitant to judge, say, the glorification of wealth, abundance, and barbecues when it comes from a place of lack (as opposed to a Wolf of Wall Street type situation). Speaking of rap music, that reminds me of Nelly raising blood for his sister on a campus where sisters on campus were protesting his music video.
He was trying to do good. They were trying to do good.
If you think about this, it's really not that complicated to think that you can love someone and they can be flawed. Art and people and the people who make art are the same in this way. But/and--as a woman of color, I love finding artists that speak to me artistically and in a way that empowers--i.e. that don't disappoint me and bring me and other marginalized groups down in some way. So, would I rather watch a film made by people of color starring people of color than your garden variety white male artistic production? Yeah, maybe. Does that make me biased against white male art? Yeah, maybe. But, can I seek art that represents me and those like me instead of passively accepting dominance by an unspoken "norm" of white straight cis maleness, in an endless vast sea of power, privilege, education, status, of said group? Um, I think so. I don't want to perpetually be invisible or at the margins of every story, because by definition I cannot be in my real life story. Why should I be relegated to the edges in my artistic endeavors and consumption?
