Dear Angela Davis,
You analyze some of the manifestations of Black liberation through music, specifically Black women's liberation through Blues. As you explored the music of quotidian routine and expectations of women, you also made substantial claims about the status of Black women in the movement for Black progress. It made me think more deeply about art as a radical political force: a tool which results in cultural revolution, which is arguably just as important, if not more important than, sociopolitical and economic revolution. With the evolution of the political aesthetic in visual and performing arts, we have seen counterculture movements ignite and propel ideology toward reconciliation and reform. That is to say, a cultural revolution changes the mind in a generational fashion such that policy has no option but to accommodate for this shift.
Similarly, however, I wonder what we lose with an aestheticized politic? Within the increasingly narrower constrictions of capitalist structure, as it is applicable both to the political body as well as to the conscious ideologies, we find that art as careerism dilutes the gravity and essence of such art. Art as a capitalist livelihood thus defeats the purpose of art in representation of the People, with limited accessibility, audience/buyer-interested aestheticism, and commodification of social message.
And from this arises the question: what is Black art? How intimately involved is it with Black consciousness, and how is this intimacy received by audiences? What are its advantages and downfalls in the pursuit of collectivism (as it pertains to identity and selfhood)?
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