damali ayo

[MrMidwest]

Posted: 4/10/06 at 5:13pm

I saw damali (she prefers her name in lowercase) on CSPAN discussing her book a couple weeks ago. I found her to be pretty fascinating. I'm not sure if I agree with some of her points and ideas, but I can respect that her feelings of being treated like an object and used as a racial teaching tool by white people are her experiences and that they can't be taken away from her.

One of the points of hers that I did have a problem with was that when she was talking about teachers using black students to teach about race she said something to the effect of "Racism is a white problem. If all the white people just got together in a room I think they could figure out how to fix it." I think that's sort of an oversimplification and I don't think saying things like that really helps in working toward irradicating racism.

Does anyone have any thoughts on her art and her ideas? (Her sites are http://www.damaliayo.com & http://www.rent-a-negro.com/)