The Barbican, Brett Bailey, Blankets Woven with PC, the BBC, Nick Griffin
Brett Bailey’s planned Barbican installation, Exhibit B has come under fire from criticisms that it is racist as it shows black models in poses as slaves.
Yet to see is one thing and to understand is quite another. Bailey has been known for his other work that confronts racism and colonialism.
I personally support the exhibition, just because we live in an age of PC does not mean that prejudices in all their forms do not exist. PC has become a blanket, a way to cover up the evils of the past and move on. But surely to move forward we need to confront the past and not hide from it?
This is exactly what happened when the extreme right BNP leader Nick Griffin appeared on BBC’s QuestionTime in 2009, people protested against having him on TV. They said that it would give him a platform to air his views. Well what I did see happen was a scared confused little man who was attacked from all sides by the panel and the audience included. London would not tolerate him!
This I believe was exactly the right thing to do as we should not let historical evils, and those who want to continue with perpetuating them, disappear underground because then the interest for it might peak. We create the draw by lending a mystery to these haters and these atrocities. “If it is so bad why do they not want us to see it?” “Perhaps it is not that bad?”
To defeat prejudices and to move forward as a truly multicultural society we need debate, we need to inform, to dissect and confront. Let this past and these haters be open to scorn that one day we can hopefully say with absolute confidence, certainty and conviction, “never again!”
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