QUARANTINE LIFE: VIRTUAL DECOR

“Listen to the mustn'ts, child. 

Listen to the don'ts.

Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts.

Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me:

Anything can happen, child. Anything can be.”

~Shel Silverstein

As long as I can remember, I've paid attention to whole pictures. Everything in a picture matters--foreground, background, details--and affects the principal thing. 

Some things enhance. Others distract, overpower, and even amuse. 

Do the television anchors, meteorologists, and hosts, who are now reporting from home, know that placing a plant behind them makes it look like they have something growing out of their heads? 

Do they know that some viewers are paying attention to everything from photos, paintings, book titles, posters, and furniture?

Sometimes, things are arranged purely for decoration, because they're liked, or have some meaning or significance. But do viewer's perceptions matter? Is there consideration or discussion about what people, armed with their own experiences, see when invited into another person's space?  Are the optics meant to invite, tease, defy, alienate, anger, educate, or spark dialogue? Is the intention to be impressive, daring, provocative, offensive, or decorative? 

Does dismissing, minimizing, or ignoring the optics, in order to hear the message, demand discipline, grace, maturity, or naiveté? 

One setting for a live presentation made me pause. It made me reiterate to myself how racism has been so effective in tainting even things that are, in and of themselves, innocent and harmless.

There on my screen this afternoon, was beloved actor, LeVar Burton. Depending on your experience, he's either Kunta Kinte, Toby, Geordi, or the uber-enthusiastic, wide-eyed "Reading Rainbow" guy. 

There he was, a baby boomer; a Black man, reading the work of the late author, poet, and artist Shel Silverstein. Behind him was a painting of two Black girls eating from the same large slice of watermelon. 

On a table was a vase filled with flowering cotton. 

My first thought was "Nooooooooo!" 

It's not that I have a problem with watermelon. I love watermelon and, frankly, can't wait to enjoy a bowl full (seeded, no salt, and with a knife, please). 

I'm a woman of a certain age, so cotton, with it's breathable quality, is my cherished friend. 

I love art. (Have you met me?) 

I'm all for indoor plants, too. 

Still, the optics seemed so embarrassing, uncomfortable, and problematic. 

Why? 

I wondered if anyone else had a similar reaction. 

I realized it was my issue. I had to examine myself. I needed to know whether my reaction was a result of what I was taught, or a product of what I truly believed. 

Was it just me wondering who thought the collective items were a good idea?

Frankly, I'm strangely happy for those over whose heads the image flew; who didn't grow up during my era; who will never understand why what I saw made me recoil and laugh nervously at the same time. 

I envy their cognitive dissonance; even their willful ignorance. I, however, couldn't unsee the background. It was screaming, yelling, taunting, and shouting--daring me, the daughter of parents born in the deep South, to be offended.

I couldn't hear what was being said for wondering if there was some subliminal message I was supposed to get. 

Was there an African-American artist who specialized in primitive art who I should google? 

Was I to explore the benefits of cotton as an effective indoor house plant during a pandemic? 

Was I supposed to find a Shel Silverstein quote that explained the irony of it all? 

Was I supposed to just stop thinking and enjoy the poetry?

I wrote my own poem instead.

Being Black in America is an adventure. 

Perhaps the goal is to redefine, reclaim, re-purpose, laugh at, and master the art of ignoring everything deliberately designed to be offensive, triggering, and demeaning. 

You know. 

Pick your battles. 

Lighten up, right? 

 

Ummm hmmm.

TROPE DECOR

Little Black girls sharing fruit?

Flowers plucked up by the root?

Whose tastes did they try to suit?

Racist tropes are resolute

Why not just enjoy the show-

Ignore optics, eyelids low?

Kept on scrolling. 

Had to go

Surely, someone had to know

Not just fruit, but watermelon

Did anybody try to tell them?

Cotton--vase, or field won't sell them

Why not choose what won't repel them

When the offender's one of us

So clueless, none cares to discuss

What's left but to sigh in disgust?

Tone deafness makes you wanna cuss

So, some children missed the story

Parents searched for inventory

Taught why tropes don't deserve glory

From History, painful and gory