weekend in review

On Saturday I made sure I packed my digital and Flip cameras before leaving the house; I planned to attend a talk between Mitali Perkins and Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich at the Brooklyn Book Festival, and wanted to record the experience for this blog.  I spent the morning applying for jobs, then got myself ready to meet a friend at the Brooklyn Museum at noon.  I never watched Work of Art, the reality show where actual artists compete to have a solo show at the Brooklyn Museum.  But I’m glad my friend introduced me to Abdi Farah‘s work:

He’s a very skilled artist, but the images—and these charred sculptures in particular—were kind of grim.  If you’re in the city, do check it out.  Usually when I go to the museum I head straight for one particular exhibit and then leave because it’s easy to get overwhelmed by a lot of art—too much stimuli for an HSP.  But I wasn’t alone, and so after the Farah exhibit we went to the Andy Warhol show, which is actually on two floors.  We stopped by the feminist gallery, too, and my friend assured me that the curators of the Kiki Smith show finally changed their opening write-up to acknowledge the presence of a black woman slave; they basically said, “She’s in the picture, too,” and not “the unpaid labor of this enslaved black woman made it possible for the white woman in the center of the image to pursue her artistic interests.”  But I guess we could call that progress.  By the time we reached the lobby, I was ready to step back into the sunlight.  It was nearly two, and one member of our party of three suggested lunch.  And this was the moment of truth—would I go to lunch and talk about the art we’d seen? would I go to the book festival to see my friend? or would I go downtown for the 9/11 rally at City Hall?  Ultimately, two of us chose option #3.  And I’m glad that we did.  But our preparation for the rally wasn’t ideal: we’d seen some rather edgy art and we did stop at the farmer’s market for a snack (maple syrup caramel corn for me).  Then my friend and I got on the train, reached our stop, and came up from the subway to find just one young white man railing against Islam.  My friend spotted a young black man with a placard advocating for religious tolerance, and we asked him where the rally went.  He pointed us in the right direction, thanked us for coming, and we headed for the marchers moving off in the distance.  Almost immediately we ran into a man I work with; during orientation last week, he and I realized we used to move in the same activist circles “back in the day.”  But as we joined the protestors marching toward City Hall, I was keenly aware of my age and all that had transpired in my life since I last attended a political rally in the ’90s.  I took some snapshots of the many placards, but I wasn’t holding one myself.  There were many elders in attendance, and I wondered whether they were Sixties radicals still fighting the good fight, or simply concerned citizens standing up for their beliefs.  My friend was wary of the many photographers because she’s a professor and some right-wing group now keeps track of “Anti-American academics.”  She has a right to be at that rally, but one photograph in the wrong hands could make her professional life quite difficult.  I was thinking these things as we reached the stage and listened to a number of different speakers articulating their commitment to the principles of religious freedom and economic justice.  We ran into another friend, met her friends, and there were hundreds of people around us…but I felt quite detached.  And inside, like something of a failure.  And I wondered, is it wrong to prefer the museum? the library? my desk at home as the site of my resistance?  As we headed back to the train, my friend assured me that we can be activists in different ways, but sometimes you need to put your body on the line.  I didn’t feel like I’d done that by attending the rally, and I didn’t feel we were truly united; the moment felt symbolic and important but impersonal.  Maybe unity demands that.  I try to advocate for justice in my writing, but is that enough?  In the museum there was a quote from Booker T. Washington that I thought about for quite a while:  “The study of art that does not result in making the strong less willing to oppress the weak means little.”

The next day I went to the Brooklyn Book Festival and listened to Mitali Perkins, Francisco X. Stork, and Kate Milford read from their books and talk about the survival instinct in young adults.  They’re not fearless, and they’re often the most vulnerable, but they take risks more readily than many adults.  More than this adult…