“A Conversation on Race in America” by Sharon Alicia Buttry

I am inviting you to view my artwork and contemplate these four paintings as a way forward in a conversation about racialized trauma in America.

I was honored to be a member of a nationwide community on Zoom convened by my friend, Global Peace Warrior, and leader in the healing arts, Mylinda Baits. Our community agreed to commit ourselves to an art practice related to reading the book My Grandmothers Hands, by Resmaa Menakem. These four paintings reflect my personal art practice while reading the book during the pandemic winter of 2020 – 2021. It was an incredibly valuable experience, sharing my art and race awareness journey with this online community.

I use a “puzzle piece” motif throughout the first of the three more “abstract” paintings. The times that we are in, with so many “names to say,” names that represent the death of so many unarmed black brothers and sisters–these times are puzzling times. When and how can we fit the pieces of our society together in a way that is more just and where power is used for creativity and life instead of death? What are the pieces? Why do only the most powerful people get to handle these puzzle pieces?

If you have ever laid out a jigsaw puzzle on a table it seems to call to you, to sit down and work on it, to try to find the pieces that fit. It can be compelling and addictive! What if the race puzzle would call to us in that way? What can each of us do? What are we morally and spiritually compelled to do? Families will often work together on a puzzle and anyone who walks in the door and sees the puzzle might just sit down and work on it too! How can we build community to put the pieces in the hands of those who have not mattered historically? Can we configure the puzzle and the picture in a completely different way, working together, in a way that represents all of us at our best?

The first painting is about racialized trauma in white bodies, black bodies and police bodies. These are descriptors that Menakem uses to discuss trauma and body-based (somatic) regulation practices. In my paintings, I use the color “orange” for white bodies symbolizing the rhetoric of former President Trump – racist, bigoted and violent, perpetuating racialized trauma. The blue bodies represent police bodies. The black bodies represent blacks. Some bodies are fallen, and some are emerging, some solid and balanced and some are unstable. What do you see? Why do you see it that way?

The second painting depicts a court room scene. Again, there are white bodies, black bodies and police bodies. What is just and unjust about this picture? Why do blue bodies guard black bodies? Why is the black body in a cage?   Why are the jury and the judges all white? Why do we continue to depend on law enforcement to fill cages at a rate unlike any other country in the world?   There are 2,193,798 people in prison in the United States. According to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) in 2018 Black males accounted for 34% of the total male prison population, white males 29%, and Hispanic males 24%. White females comprised 47% of the prison population in comparison to Black females who accounted for 18% of the female population. However, Blacks comprise 13.4 % of the total population of the United States. What if we could create a justice system that no longer tolerated the caging of black bodies? What if every body mattered and the caging of any body was an intolerable crime against humanity? What would we have to shift in time and resources to care for every person, heal trauma, and offer a path for everyone to realize their full potential as human beings?

The third painting is a scene of a black male being lynched in front of a crowd, in front of a church. I used a photograph as a reference, I am sad to say, that is easily found on Google. The historical record of powerful white people capturing black human beings, forced enslavement, beating, lynching, imprisonment, Jim Crow, mass incarceration — it is all documented in photography. The marriage of the church, racist extremists and slavery – it’s all there in the history and photos. This painting is an invitation to think about all those connections, the denial, in the name of God, of the humanity of blacks and the tragic loss of so many precious lives through the early years of the history of the United States, on to today.

I read Menakem, but I also read The Willie Lynch Letter: the Making of a Slave! Mr. Lynch gave a speech that was delivered on the bank of the James River in the colony of Virginia in 1712. Lynch was a British slave owner in the West Indies. He was invited to the colony of Virginia in 1712 to teach his methods to slave owners there. The term “lynching” is derived from his last name.

Here is a quote from his letter:

“Gentlemen, you know what your problems are; I do not need to elaborate. I am not here to enumerate your problems, I am here to introduce you to a method of solving them. In my bag here, I have a foolproof method for controlling your black slaves. I guarantee every one of you that if installed correctly it will control the slaves for at least 300 years [2012]. My method is simple. Any member of your family or your overseer can use it. I have outlined a number of differences among the slaves and make the differences bigger. I use fear, distrust and envy for control.”

Ultimately, his method sanctioned lynching, outright killing, as a means of control of black bodies. Since those times, generational trauma has wormed its way through the bones and DNA of our black brothers and sisters and we are still “lynching” as long as anyone of color has to live in fear of bodily “stop and frisk”, detainment, arrest, incarceration, and execution.  A total of seventeen death row inmates, all men, were executed in the United States in 2020, sixteen by lethal injection and one by electrocution. The Federal government of the United States executed ten individuals in 2020, ending a hiatus on federal executions which had lasted for over 17 years.

Even though death sentences are on the decline in the U.S., the means of death is becoming more ugly.   On May 16^th the Associated Press ran a headline that reads like something from the end of the 19th century: “New law makes inmates choose electric chair or firing squad.”

The law referenced in the headline is a bill signed by South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster(R) on May 16, 2021 which permits the state to kill death row inmates using a firing squad. South Carolina is now one of four states, along with Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Utah, where the practice is lawful. The death penalty is lawful in 27 states. We don’t have to guess to predict that black bodies will bear a disproportionate share of such deaths.

What if we could create a new picture together that would respect and honor all bodies? What if there were no such thing as racialized trauma? Resmaa Menakem teaches us how to exercise our choice, in our bodies, to heal racialized trauma. Dan and I have purchased a curriculum from Racial Equity Tools, “Transforming White Privilege,” that we are piloting with an interfaith group starting this month. The goal is to get white folks to confront racism in ourselves and confront racism at points of power in the every arena of society. To do that we have to work on ourselves and keep on working for the healing of racialized trauma in all bodies. We have to be able to talk about accumulated advantage and disadvantage and call out structural entrenched racism in relationships, institutions and culture. We have to craft a cogent message, deliver it, and stand up for it, shifting this puzzle in a more just direction.

The fourth and final painting is a mother and child: George Floyd and his mother when he was a baby. I also found this image as a reference photo on Google. In the photo, in that moment, all of Larcenia’s hopes and dreams for George are embodied in that small child, innocent and cradled in his mother’s arms. My painting is my interpretation of that moment. I tried to capture her joy and love, delighting in her child, and his perfect peace in her arms.

The Pieta and the “mother and child” motif are common in art history. When you put black bodies in the motif, there is so much poignancy that emerges. Statistics and data predict that many trials and tribulations await this child. In America, the unborn child is also traumatized by race. In my hometown of Detroit, low birth weight and infant mortality among blacks is deplorable. The deck is stacked against the child of color. His life, if he survives birth and childhood, could be at risk for arrest, incarceration and death, just for being black.

I was thrilled to discover another Pieta, on a recent Time magazine cover: https://time.com/6048104/behind-time-equity-cover/   Jordan Casteel painted “God Bless The Child.” For the Equity issue of Time, the editors described how difficult it is to find hopeful and positive art related to equality. I agree, and three of my paintings are painful reminders of racialized trauma. But for me, and apparently for Casteel, the Pieta is the perfect image for all that is hoped for, from cradle to grave. Could this be the first and enduring image of our new puzzle? How can the pieces that follow be laid down in love via new kinds of power? Not for domination and control, but for decency and compassion?

I hope my art motivates you to sit down with the puzzle and work until we truly change the picture. I hope my art encourages you to find the puzzle much too huge to consider alone. Who will you reach out to, engage with and commit to working alongside as your community of healing racialized trauma? There are unlimited pathways that include all of us, our gifts and talents, in art, music, organizing, advocacy, politics and prayer. I hope that we will resolve to work together. I pray the day will come when the children of the future may look back and say “Racism? What a stupid idea, how could there have been such a thing as that?“

For information about Sharon Buttry, click here.