EDITORIAL
The real obscenity
There's a public museum in New York that features a
breathtakingly offensive piece of "art." It's the American
Museum of Natural History. To enter the museum, you must walk
by a huge statue of Theodore Roosevelt armed and on horseback,
towering above--vanquishing--a Native person and an African
person.
Has Mayor Rudolph Giuliani ever said the museum should lose
public funding because of this horrible, shockingly racist
statue? Of course not. "Art" that celebrates imperialism and
colonialism is right up his alley.
But when an artist of African heritage depicts a Christian
religious figure in an unconventional way--with a clearly
non-European face and partly composed of materials rich in
African cultural references--Giuliani blows his stack. The
mayor believes this piece is an affront to his religion.
Reason enough, in Giulianiville, for the city to pull $27
million in funding from the Brooklyn Museum of Art. The piece,
"The Holy Virgin Mary" by African-British (and Catholic) artist
Chris Ofili, is part of the exhibit "Sensation" set to open
Oct. 2 at the museum.
The actual affront here is Giuliani's racist, fascist-like
assault on artistic freedom. It smacks of Hitlerism. It must
not be allowed--in New York, of all places. New York is not
only an international center of the arts. It is a multinational
city--enlivened every day by the varied, vibrant cultural
expressions that emanate from hundreds of different
communities.
It's no accident that Giuliani is targeting the Brooklyn
Museum. The second-big gest art museum in the entire country,
it is in the heart of Brooklyn's Black community. In the recent
period, it has more and more featured artists of color, along
with educational programs designed for the children of the
community. Its permanent collections focus on the arts of
Africa and Asia. In October, its "First Saturday" program of
arts and entertainment will feature hip-hop/jazz/reggae artist
Jeni Fujita, Hawaiian band the Haoles, and a performance by the
Mohawk Singers and Dancers.
Giuliani's effort to quash the Brooklyn Museum exhibit is
part of a broader attack on freedom of expression for any but
those favored by the white, moneyed philistines who rule in
this capitalist society. It is allied with the ongoing national
offensive to block federal funding for programs that feature
artists or art that's unacceptable to the right wing, which
mostly means art by or about people of color, lesbians and
gays, women.
Yet the mayor claims that blocking funding for the museum
does not infringe on the First Amendment right to freedom of
expression. This just goes to show how the capitalist
establishment will twist its own laws, turn its own
Constitution inside out in the interests of its broader
political or ideological goals. When Giuliani doesn't like art,
he says the city doesn't have to fund it. When he doesn't like
political views-- as with the Million Youth March, or the
annual October march against police brutality--he tries to ban
them, arguing that the city doesn't have to provide the
sidewalks or pay for traffic control, etc. They can show their
art in private galleries, he says. Let them give speeches
against the police at their own meetings, he says.
Actually, it is precisely public space for free expression
that the First Amendment supposedly does protect. And that of
course includes public funding. Interestingly enough,
government officials regularly make this exact argument when
the politics in question are on the other side: Whenever the
Klan or the Nazis announce their intent to march, mayors and
police officials scramble to protect their "freedom of speech."
They clear public spaces for them, provide government vehicles
for them to ride in, and so on. Giuliani is no exception; when
an ultra-reactionary group recently staged an anti-gay picket
outside the Stonewall bar in lower Manhattan, his police
protected the bigots and whisked them away in city vehicles
when they were done.
So the Constitution protects freedom of expression when the
ruling class sanctions what's being expressed. Anything else
comes up against the might of the State.
Giuliani's racist war against the Brooklyn Museum is of a
piece with his overall program--more police and rising police
brutality, dumping impoverished women off welfare and forcing
them into slave-labor workfare, shutting city hospitals,
cutting funding for AIDS programs, selling off city services to
private contractors. In fact, one purpose of his art attack is
to divert mass anger away from all this.
It won't work. At the Oct. 1 demonstration to defend the
Brooklyn Museum, and beyond, let's build the struggle against
Giuliani's attack. Let his Nazi-style offensive come up against
the might of the masses--which one day, not too far away, will
also topple Teddy Roosevelt from his imperialist perch.
This article is copyright under a Creative Commons License.
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