You have to recover the capacity to imagine yourself as an ideal and figure out how to project that into the world.
Kerry James MarshallRead
Blackness has always been stigmatised, even amongst black people who flee from the density of that blackness. Some black people recoil from black people who are that dark because it has always been stigmatised.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote reflects on the internalized stigma and biases surrounding blackness within and outside the black community.
Kerry James Marshall highlights the complex relationship that some individuals within the black community have with the concept of blackness. The stigma associated with being 'black' often leads to a sense of shame or discomfort, causing individuals to distance themselves from darker-skinned peers. This multifaceted perception reveals the deep-rooted societal prejudices that exist not only externally but also within the community itself, emphasizing the need for acceptance and unity in diversity.
Themes
BlacknessStigmaIdentityCommunityAcceptance
In practice
Example use cases
In discussions about racial identity at a cultural workshop.
More from Kerry James Marshall
All quotes →In Western Catholicism, darkness was evil. In the colonial and imperial context, dark skin was always weak, powerless, subjugated. If you see these images all the time, they become commonplace, and they no longer become a spectacular or sensational thing.
Kerry James MarshallRead
My introduction to art history was like everybody else's. You see an art history book that has works by Rembrandt and Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo. Yes, these things are great. But I don't see a reflection of myself in any of these things I'm looking at.
Kerry James MarshallRead
If you think about the way we experience art, the paradigm is still Western European. If I go to the National Gallery, what am I going to see the most of? I'm not going to see a whole lot of black figures in pictures.
Kerry James MarshallRead
When you go to an art museum, the thing you're least likely to encounter is a picture of a black person. When it comes to ideas about art and about beauty, the black figure is absent.
Kerry James MarshallRead
The history of political movements in the African diaspora is that the solution to the problem is never in the hands of people who are advancing the movement. I try and operate on my own terms.
Kerry James MarshallRead
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