[This week on the Artblog Reader Advisor: Activism across borders; Amy Schumer takes Hollywood to task; and why you shouldn’t put that Baltimore mom on a pedestal. — the Artblog editors]
I don’t want to call this video of Canadian activist Neda Topaloski protesting proposed healthcare legislation at a Quebec news conference AMAZING because that would give you the wrong idea. What is amazing is Culture Minister Hélène David’s 20 seconds of confused/amused/horrified/smug facial expressions, via CBC News
A Frida Kahlo lithograph on display at the Detroit Institute of Art reveals how even the unassuming museum label is still a territory of political engagement, via Hyperallergic
Female body image and the media is Amy Schumer’s forte. This sketch is one of my favorites, via the Wall Street Journal
Cecily Strong pretty much kills it at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner from start to finish, including: “Since I’m only a comedian, I’m not going to try and tell you politicians how to do politics. That would be like you guys telling me what to do with my body. I mean, can you even imagine? Crazy.” and “Let’s give it up for the Secret Service. I don’t want to be too hard on those guys, because they are the only law enforcement agency in the country that will get in trouble if a black man gets shot,” via YouTube
This article does an excellent job explaining how a viral video of a black mother beating her son, caught participating in the Baltimore riots, plays into our white-mediated fantasy–one where we can point to the failure of black families as the cause of recent unrest in Baltimore and other communities. It is convenient for us to believe that if all protestors had had mothers like this, maybe there would be no riots–no racial tensions. This idea is enticing because it absolves us–as well as the economic and political system built FOR us and BY us–from guilt and responsibility. If the same people who christened this woman “Mother of the Year” really cared about families, and if we really believe that “all lives matter,” we should start with the black lives being ended, oppressed, and marginalized, and make an honest assessment of how our white supremacy and our white silence combine to make this violence possible; make this violence inevitable, via the Washington Post
