The Brooklyn Rail

“The precise role of the artist … is to illuminate … so that we will not, in all our doing, lose sight of its purpose … to make the world a more human dwelling.”

—James Baldwin, The Creative Process, 1962

“The people who do this thing, who practice racism, are bereft. That is something distorted about the psyche. It’s a huge waste and it’s a corruption and a distortion.”

—Toni Morrison, The Pieces I Am, 2019

“Humans are remarkable creatures … The search to understand who we are and where we come from is a uniquely human enterprise and, like us, our story continues to evolve and change.”

—Sarah Wild, Human Origins: A Short History, 2024

My own life in the art world has been a creative, imaginative process that has been exhilarating, challenging, and inspired, while yet giving me moments of serious pause. I am, after all, Black—of African-Caribbean descent—and a woman! Paleoanthropologists have confirmed that the DNA of all modern-day Homo sapiens evolved from a single woman known as the “Mitochondrial Eve” who lived in Africa. It is a rich, fascinating, and enormously complex history, how all humans migrated, back and forth, populating this planet. It gives one a sense of “pause” to consider the gravity of this scientific evidence, especially in the face of pseudoscience and socio-political fallacies in the construction of racism. My “pause” is also connected to the erasure of this fundamental history of human origins from our educational, political, religious, and economic systems that dismiss and negate the fact that we are all one species, with one singular origin. Toni Morrison could not have been more astute in citing racist practice as bereft, corrupt, distorted, and a “huge waste” of time, energy, and intellect. In working with students, young aspiring artists, and community groups I have often posed this question: What else could we become, in the great beyond of our future, if we did not have to deal with racism with all its relentless toxicities?

My career has been spent teaching, curating, researching, and advocating for the arts to make, as James Baldwin states, “the world a more human dwelling place.” Because America, however, remains a nation that is hardwired with a history of Middle Passage enslavement, plantation culture, colonialism, and groups who champion the institutionalization of white supremacist beliefs of entitlement and privilege, I have come to believe that the arts cannot radically change racist beliefs, behaviors, or practices. Perhaps modify in some ways through education and legislation but even with these interventions, America is a nation still riddled with xenophobias that have impact at the global level and that challenge the humanity that the arts seek to define and celebrate.

In the course of human evolution, the ability of all people to be creative, to imagine, to make language, music, dance, and song is seen as a remarkable achievement—a marker of being human. Yet, in twenty-first century America, critical challenges to artistic freedoms, liberties, gender and sexual identities, race, religion, economic health, wellness, and the environment are escalating. The rights of the American Constitution’s First Amendment to protect our freedoms from government interference must be pressed into action, especially now, to preserve the integrity of artistic expression in this country.

On this topic, a 2025 White House Executive Order, published March 27, states that the Smithsonian Institution has “come under the influence of a divisive, race-centered ideology.” Apparently targeting shows that foreground racial and other forms of oppression, the order seeks “to remove improper ideology” from the Smithsonian under threat of prohibiting “expenditure on exhibits or programs that degrade shared American values.” In the wake of this order, artist Amy Sherald, famed for her portrait of Michelle Obama and her art that celebrates “unseen,” ordinary African American people, was compelled to take an audacious action to preserve the integrity of her artistic expression. American Sublime, her 2025 retrospective, was scheduled to open in September at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery. After Sherald was informed that the painting Trans Forming Liberty (2024), of the Statue of Liberty as a Black trans woman, would not be included in the exhibition, she refused to exhibit at the NPG stating that, “This painting exists to hold space for someone whose humanity has been politicized and disregarded. I cannot in good conscience comply with a culture of censorship, especially when it targets vulnerable communities.” The Smithsonian continues to struggle with how to deal with the First Amendment rights of the artists it seeks to represent. In a symposium for The Shape of Power (an exhibit specifically referenced in the White House Executive Order mentioned above) at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, participants were informed that it was changed from a public to a private event, thus creating a silencing of the participants and no access to public engagement. Indigenous artist Nicholas Galanin and Mexican-American Margarita Cabrera withdrew from the symposium.

Before we can get to a state of “beyond” in the conundrums and quagmires of racism, it is imperative that the arts and artists protect and voice their integrity, authenticity, and agency. Artists of all disciplines and genres are empathetic visionaries, truth tellers, and wisdom keepers, whose collective moral compass guides us as to how the dwelling places of humanity must be protected and celebrated in the art and culture of America. The title of this essay, “Acting Up/Out,” signifies being in a position to move beyond racist ideologies, which is the crisis of our era just as it was for Frederick Douglass in his time. When asked advice on how to navigate the future, he said, “Agitate! Agitate! Agitate!” Humanity must continue this complex journey in order to change and evolve to a higher level of being and living in a space of Baldwin’s human dwelling.