Racism has been around for centuries, and sadly, it hasn’t gone away. This means that historical events that were rooted in racism, oppression, and hate will be talked about and that they’ll have monuments made about them. It’d be easy to just say “let’s destroy all the racist monuments” but it isn’t that simple. For one, this would cause an insane amount of outrage and just cause more violence and racism and secondly, what would this accomplish? This would just shield younger generations from knowing what happened in history. The events were terrible, but you can’t just turn a blind eye and pretend like it never happened. I think a good solution for this issue would be to add more information and context from different viewpoints so people could become more educated on the events that took place.
Now, the more controversial part. Who can make what art. This question is tricky because I know a lot of people will probably disagree with my opinion, and I might even change my opinion after hearing other arguments.
For me, art is about expression, freedom, creativity, and escaping. It should be where oppressed people come to make whatever they want and where everyone is viewed equally. By saying “only you can make this” and “well, you can’t make that type of art”, aren’t you just adding to the problem of segregation and oppression? I do think that making art from things you’ve experienced can make it more credible, but you can also make art about things you empathize with.
This might piss off some people, but if a white person wants to make a painting about racism and how they empathize with those experiencing it, why can’t they? If someone who has never experienced addiction does the research on what it does to someone, and they want to make art about that… why shouldn’t they be able to? They aren’t meaning any harm by it and they are bringing those issues to light.