Hank Willis Thomas "Rise Up"
Do black lives matter to the art world? Not when it really counts, writes an African American woman working in arts PR: “It’s not like my colleagues don’t know how to talk about blackness in the arts. We talk about it all the time! We write press release upon press release about the importance of promoting artists of color so that their perspectives are included in conversations about race today. And when we’re successful, we pat ourselves on the back for a job well done — because of our work another black voice is featured, and audiences are educated, and we sleep easy knowing that we’ve made a difference. Today, though, there’s no conversation. No job well done. No sleeping easy. It’s a problem that I work in a profession that capitalizes on how cool it is to be black until it’s not cool to be black…”