Same Game, Different Faces
Joel Addison Fuller
Degree: MFA
Area: Digital Art
Joel Addison Fuller
Thesis Statement
“I don’t understand, why is race an issue?” — White America
In America, there is “White Innocence '' — an innocence that serves as a quiet affirmation of the continuing racial paradigm against black Americans. First used by Gloria Wekker from her book White Innocence: Paradoxes of Colonialism and Race, the term was used in reference to her Dutch ancestry, where the same issues of racial denial were and still remain present. I look to use this term when connecting the systematic rejection of white Americans toward racial discrimination and the adverse effects of silence. In this series, I take inspiration from William Pope L. by using satire not simply to examine the stereotypes surrounding race but to dissect the damage these preconceptions do to both black and white individuals and, more broadly, to society. This includes but is not limited to the continued use of blackface, black cultural appropriation, and black people being seen as commodities of entertainment, objects of obsession, and subjects of fear. It is in this recognition that we understand the racial divide still taking place in what we were raised to believe was a “post-racial” America.
“The game hasn’t changed, the faces are just different” — Black America