Let’s talk about these awful Obama portraits for a minute.
First let me say, I don’t really care.
But it’s a good example of our progressive society today.
These portraits represent three aspects of our modern society:
1) Everything is rooted in identity politics.
2) There’s no such thing as truth.
3) Progressives think the only way to fight oppression is to oppress.
Three days before these portraits were unveiled Andrew Sullivan wrote in New York Magazine, about campus culture infecting the rest of America, “Objective truth? Ha! The culture is now saturated with the concept of “your own truth” — based usually on your experience of race and gender. In the culture, it is now highly controversial for individuals in one racial/gender group to write about or portray anyone outside it — because there is no art that isn’t rooted in identity…”
Enter Erin Biba, science writer for BBC. She wrote on Twitter, “Dear white people, it is beautiful that the Obama portraits are bringing so much joy to the black community. That is the only opinion you need to have about them.”
There it is. Perfect example of what Sullivan was talking about. There is no art that is not rooted in identity. The Obama portraits were unveiled, they’re objectively terrible and inappropriate for this project, but it has to be seen through the lens of race: black people have to love it, white people have to be happy that black people love it, and if you have any other opinion other than that you’re racist.
You can’t look at this art as a person. You have to look at it based on your racial identity. So say progressives.
Second, there’s no such thing as truth.
The Michelle Obama portrait doesn’t look like her.
Kate Bennett from CNN, “It’s not supposed to “look like her” in the traditional sense of portraiture.”
That makes no sense. “It’s not supposed to look like her?” Yes it is. It is supposed to look like her. Exactly in the traditional sense of portraiture, it’s supposed to look like her.
We’re at such a point in “there’s no such thing as truth” where portraits aren’t even supposed to look like the people who are being painted.
Third, progressives think the only way to fight oppression is to oppress.
The artist who painted the Obama portrait has two other paintings where a black woman is cutting off the head of a white woman.
Barack Obama said he chose the artist because “What I was always struck by when I saw his portraits was the degree to which they challenged our ideas of power and privilege”
So these paintings are a take on Judith of Holofernes:
The story of Judith, she was a beautiful woman, the general of an invading army was about to invade her hometown. She seduces him, He gets drunk, passes out, and then she beheads him.”
You may have heard that this Obama artist “likes to place black people in historical scenes”. I read that and thought, “Oh, so he takes the battle of Lexington and Concord and paints black people in it.” He’ll “Hamiltonize” historical scenes!
Well, not really. What he did was take this one story involving two white people, he made Judith black and the he made the general a white woman.
This isn’t heroic. To use Barack Obama’s words, I guess he’s challenging the idea of power and privilege. But, he’s doing it with different power and privilege.
This is Neo-Marxism. Marxism is seeing the world as a battle between the oppressed and the oppressors. If you view the world this way, then the only solution is to switch roles and for you to become the oppressor.
If your heads were once cut off, the only solution is to now cut off heads.
Which is what we’re supposed to celebrate with this artist’s paintings.
So, in conclusion, again, I don’t really care, but garbage in, garbage out. Our modern culture says 1) You are your identity group 2) There’s no such thing as truth and 3) If you’re oppressed, you need to get power so you can oppress.
These paintings are a nice example of all of this.
Garbage in, garbage out.