Art fights racism: what true art can really do!

Racism and it’s ways of seeing and interpreting things, is one of our largest global problems now. It’s not new, but is acute in our day. Racism is a a false view of others; it’s a faulty interpretation of things. So we need a clearer view in order to see others well. The roots of racism are fear and judging others from our own wounds, rather than for who they actually are in God’s View. Art can help us get more of God’s view on things.

One reason art matters so much now is that it informs how we see others and “other” itself. Starting with our image of who God is, and then our image of who other people are. It matters how we see one another. You see that racism sees others incorrectly. True art, a spiritual art would help correct racisms view of others. By healing the imagination, we start to see others as poems and as having innate dignity. This is why art and real symbol making is part of toppling racism. And racism is one of the worse “ways” on the earth. And contains a lie about how things really are. It’s a false vision or interpretation of things. Art combats that faulty vision!

True art helps reconcile things to what they really are. It is part of restoring dignity to self and others, seeing them more as they truly are, valuable, infinitely worth something.

When I see you as a piece of art made by God, i cannot hate and fear and murder you. So it matters how we see one another. Art then is not just decoration or escape, it is vital to how we interpret other people and nations, and is essential in overcoming the racist spirit which is running rampant again in our times.

True art, even if its subject is about the artist’s own healing journey points towards and redemptive, nuanced view of being human. It points, in short, away from the view of racism, which want to destroy self and other as worthless. If things and people, conversely, have intrinsic worth and dignity, as God says, then true art illustrates that healing reconciliation, making things more themselves, process.

If we can truly see others as thou’s (Buber) invested by God with dignity and unique beauty, we cannot live in constant fear of others as it they were “its” or objects of my fear’s projections. Art is medicine against a racist view of Reality. A dualistic I-it way of seeing. If I truly encounter another through art, i will see more of them than my worst fears. I will see the complex and redeemable poetry each of us is slowly becoming. Art helps us fight racism!

True art is trying to give us a clearer and more nuanced image of how things really are. When we see the truth of how things are, we can’t hate or kill others. When we see them through love’s lens, we will instead want to serve and honor them. We will see ourselves and others as having equal dignity, worth and a poetry of being, worth loving and beholding forever! Art is part of seeing things more as they actually are, and that truth will set you free from the hatred of racism. When I see you well, i will not hate you, i will find myself, instead, in love!