Video exhibition on race at the Wexner Center

The Wexner Center, the art museum at OSU, had a video exhibition that I went to a few weeks ago called "Same Difference and Other Meditations" by Una-Kariim Cross. I really liked the video and wanted to blog about it, but I did not get a chance to until now. This video presents footage of "real" every day events as well as interviews with people of the African Diaspora, challenging media stereotypes and asking viewers to think of race as more than simply identity.

In some of the video’s interview footage, people of the African Diaspora discuss how they conceive of their identity. Most of the people talked about how race was one of the primary aspects of their identity, but what was particularly interesting was the differences in the way these people conceived of their racial identity. For example, one woman said that she considered herself black and/or African (and American), but not African American. In class, we have discussed the intersectionality of race and gender, and we frequently talk about the need for a variety of media portrayals. However, this video raises an issue we have not talked a lot about yet: when we ask for more diverse portrayals of black women, we often do not consider (or at least do not talk about) the need to ask for a diversity in the way these women experience their racial identity. I think this is a really important issue, both for our class and for the feminist community as a whole, and this video, in my opinion, moves the conversation about race forward in really interesting ways.

Also, I found the artist’s website, so if you’re interested in learning more about the video/the artist, click here.