Brief History of Structural Violence and Racism in Art Education

How the roots of white supremacy taints the reality of who can and who cannot be an artist.

Much of what is understood to be art and artistic in education in the United States is rooted in a white supremacist notion of what normal is. Normalcy and whiteness are often characterized as universal notions. If deviated from in any capacity, negative reactions become a very real consequence. When it comes to determining what art is, we can look to the aristocracy for evidence of what they value and why. Leavy talks about some physical reactions to art, music, literature, and performance as a powerful force that can jar, move, pass through, and evoke emotions of varying degrees of intensity and duration (2009). Proper and socially acceptable reactions are equally steeped in white supremacy in the United States. If anyone is to become too loud, or too emotional, or too physical in their consumption of art, they run the risk of becoming deviant in the eyes of a white dominant culture. However, these definitions of excess are also rooted in white supremacy. White people who enjoy loud music are often viewed as exercising their constitutional rights whereas Black people who enjoy loud music are often viewed as disruptive. In some cases, the disruption to white people brought about by their Black neighbors results in police action. Even in places where art is supposed to be free of bias like museums we find the dominant racial profile of artists (and workers in the museum) to be white. Examples like this are why…