by Corva Corvax
During a 6-hour event on Sunday at the Venice beach handball courts, a group of regional power-broker women, dubbed "mavens" in the press release, will participate in the creation of two large canvas murals. The murals are designed by two women of color, Alyse Stone, a celebrity-commissioned artist, and Dolly Singh, a "diversity and inclusion evangelist." The collaboration is titled #THEARTOFMAKING NOISE.
The first mural is to represent the "pain and persecution of the Black American experience," and the second will show the power of healing through "allyship and community." Stone will direct each of the "power women" collaborators, including Nichol Whiteman, CEO of the LA Dodgers Foundation, as they add their hands to the art work.
The net proceeds from future sale of the canvases will be donated to "causes championing equity and justice for marginalized communities."
Accompanying the press release was a 7-page essay, called a white paper, entitled "White Privilege, Built on Black Bodies and Brown Blood."
The essay gives the history of white oppressiveness in the United States, beginning with a timeline starting in 1492. The first 127 years are called "The Great Dying" as 56 million indigenous people died of disease, warfare and "other atrocities of colonialism." In 1619, slavery began, ending hundreds of years later in 1865, which was then followed by segregation.
The timeline indicates that in 1954 segregation was replaced by "Systematic Dehumanization of Black and Brown People."
The date of 1964 and the Civil Rights Act prohibiting discrimination based on race does not appear on the timeline.
The essay goes on to explain that today's black prison inmate is equivalent to a pre-Civil War slave. "In the age of smartphones and spaceships, there are nearly 500,000 Black Americans in jail; 100,000 more people than their enslaved ancestors." According the authors of the essay, this "guarantees a steady supply of free labor into America's prison industrial complex."
The white paper goes on to tell us that "In America, a white man devoid of any redeeming qualities, can live a life of power and prestige, using his whiteness like a super power."
On the other hand, blackness can be a "sentence of death," the essay continues. Victims like George Floyd have been "murdered by the community" in a "ritualistic and sanctioned" manner.
The essay concludes by urging us all to unify so we can "slay this demon once and for all."
Sunday 12 noon in Venice. Sounds like a fun time.
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