“Art is foremost a creative experience/performance whereby the artist creates an art object that encapsulates and manifests what are deterred as underlying elements of beauty. The painting, drawing, photograph, song, play, dance, novel, poem, and sculpture are mediums for the expression of beauty.”
“As early as the period of African slavery, antebellum writers such as Frances Ellen Watkins Harper created literary works that directly challenged the institution of slavery. Harper’s standpoint was straight to the point, namely, aesthetics was founded on principles affixed to emancipation; “We need men and women whose hearts are the homes of a high and lofty enthusiasm, and noble devotion to the cause of emancipation, who are ready and willing to lay time, talent, money on the alter of universal emancipation.”
Wade in the water,
The deep dark water that God has troubled.
Victory lost and heartache doubled.
Admist the waves of a tumultuous sea,
Searching for the safety of the shores of emancipation for you and for me.
Crashing against the waves of life,
Born of racial hatred and prejudicial strife.
Hoping to find a way to calmer shores,
Finding what we all are looking for.
Inside the emotive,
beyond the exploitative.
Given to the aesthetics that speak to the worthy and progressive ideal.
Swept away by the promise of freedom that only some know is real.
Aligned with power that is potentiated and surreal.
Truth in tone
Right in delivery
Breaking free from the chains of intense misery,
Beyond the realms of slavery lies an untapped mystery.
Art and its resemblance to propaganda.
“For W.E.B Du Bois, however, “all art is and must ever be propaganda.” The notion of beauty and hence aesthetics is decidedly connected to the overriding concern of “Truth” and “Right”. Concurrently the Black artist has the role or duty in advancing the broader aims of social concerns, as with Black liberation.”
“Every artist, every scientist, [every writer] must decide NOW where he stands. He has no alternative. There is no standing above the conflict on Olympian heights. There are no impartial observers… The battlefront is everywhere. There is no sheltered rear… The artist must take sides. He myst elect to fight for freedom or slavery. I have made my choice. I had no alternative. The history of the capitalist era is characterized by the degradation of my people”
-Paul Robeson
Poetry by Eddie Bennett
McClendon, J. H., & Ferguson, S. C. (2019). African American Philosophers and Philosophy. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350057968
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