{"id":9753,"date":"2021-06-24T11:17:01","date_gmt":"2021-06-24T11:17:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/media-archive.blackartinamerica.com\/?p=9753"},"modified":"2021-06-24T12:22:21","modified_gmt":"2021-06-24T12:22:21","slug":"who-would-win-if-nina-simone-james-baldwin-gil-scott-heron-and-miles-davis-played-a-game-of-bid-whist-with-words-artist-bisa-butler-as-well-as-najee-dorseys-new-billboard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/earthexhibitions.org\/media-archive\/?p=9753","title":{"rendered":"\u201cWho Would Win if Nina Simone, James Baldwin, Gil Scott-Heron, and Miles Davis played a Game of Bid-Whist-with-words?\u00a0 Artist Bisa Butler, as Well as Najee Dorsey\u2019s new Billboard might just Hold Some Clues\u201d by Debra Hand"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cWho Would Win if Nina Simone, James Baldwin, Gil Scott-Heron, and Miles Davis played a Game of Bid-Whist-with-words?\u00a0 Artist Bisa Butler, as Well as Najee Dorsey\u2019s new Billboard might just Hold Some Clues\u201d<\/b> by Debra Hand<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Yep.\u00a0 I\u2019m trying to \u201cstart some stuff\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Coming up in Black culture during a time when people still gathered around kitchen tables for lively discussions, my generation got to eavesdrop on some \u201dreal\u201d and powerful \u201cgrown-folk\u201d talk.\u00a0 We got to witness some great kitchen-table-scholars examine and debate every subject affecting Black life and culture.\u00a0 It was exciting to watch clever thinkers in action, volleying opinions and ideas back and forth.\u00a0 And if the host broke out a deck of playing cards, that was all the better. \u00a0 The card table was like a gladiator arena — a strategic battle of wits and witticisms in an atmosphere filled with laughter and one-line retorts punctuating shrewd plays.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So I got to thinking\u2026 what would a Bid Whist game have been like between the following great Black thinkers?\u00a0 I dealt in Nina Simone, James Baldwin, Gil Scott-Heron, and Miles Davis.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now, if you don\u2019t know, Bid-Whist is a cultural favorite when it comes to card games. \u00a0 Even if you don\u2019t know how to play, one thing is quickly observed:\u00a0 the more confident a player is that they\u2019re playing the winning card, the harder they smack that card on the table.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Because it\u2019s just so cool to check your opponent with a clever line while winning the book\u00a0 — all to the sound effect of a smacking card.\u00a0 And nobody smacks a card on the table like a Black person playing Bid Whist or Spades.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Now, to mix up the game a little, instead of playing Bid Whist with regular cards, these four legends have to win this game by using only words.\u00a0 So\u2026 on the cards each is holding, are the statements that person has made in the past about how to exist within, or contribute to, Black culture.\u00a0 This is my way of putting them in dialogue with each other to see what wisdom might be extracted. \u00a0 Whose point of view was right about the role of Black artists in culture?\u00a0 Who will win?\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Let the game begin.<\/span><\/p>\n

Nina Simone has the first play.\u00a0 With queenly confidence, she pulls a card from the spread in her hand.\u00a0 BAM!\u00a0 She smacks it down on the table.\u00a0 It says, \u201cAn artist\u2019s duty, as far as I\u2019m concerned, is to reflect the times!\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Indignant now, Nina looks to Gil Scott-Heron.\u00a0 He smiles knowingly.\u00a0 Gil pulls a card from his hand and slams it down.\u00a0 BAM!\u00a0 The card says, \u201cIf all we\u2019re fighting for is to be Black, then we\u2019re wasting our time \u2018cause we\u2019re already THAT!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Nina sips from her cup, unfazed.\u00a0 Gil looks to James Baldwin who has already pasted a card to his forehead.\u00a0 In dramatic fashion Baldwin peels off the card and smacks it down.\u00a0 BAM!\u00a0 \u201cI left America to live in Paris precisely because I knew one thing\u2026 leaving America was the only way I could find out where being Black ended and I began!\u00a0 And vice versa!\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Gil Scott chuckles.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Now everyone looks to Miles.\u00a0 He has the last play.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Miles is laid back\u2026 too laid back to be slamming stuff.\u00a0 He takes his time, carefully scanning the cards in his spread.\u00a0 He almost chooses one, but changes his mind and selects another card instead.\u00a0 Satisfied, he flicks his card atop the center pile and reads it aloud in a cool throaty whisper.\u00a0 \u201cSometimes you have to play a long time to be able to play like yourself.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The onlookers eye each other curiously.\u00a0 While Miles statement is profound, it seems slightly out of place here.\u00a0 But not to Nina and Gil\u2026 they give each other five.\u00a0 Miles words have not gone over their heads.\u00a0 More about that in a second, but meanwhile, back to the game.\u00a0 Nina pulls another card from her hand.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Wait.\u00a0 Whose play is it?\u00a0 Who won the last book?\u00a0 Was it Nina, Gil, Baldwin, or Miles?\u00a0 Did you find yourself immediately taking a side?\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The fact is, they all won, and especially \u201cus\u201d in particular.\u00a0 They are giving us the game from every facet of the prism of being Black.\u00a0 For that reason, these statements should not be pitted against each other, they should be synthesized into one homogenous lesson we can continue to pass down.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Each statement is powerful and should be admired and reflected on, but we must also keep in mind that each of these artists didn\u2019t just make one finite statement about how to exist as artists or as Black people.\u00a0 At different times, on different days, they expanded on these statements; either in word or in practice. They were all intentional in their art practices, always thinking about the ways in which they could effectively serve culture.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Forever by Bisa Butler, 2020. Cotton, silk, wool, and velvet quilted and appliqu\u00e9d, dimensions 42 \u00d7 86 inches.<\/p><\/div>\n

If we want to use culture effectively as a means of collective progress, our work as Black artists and collectors has to be much bigger than only chasing money, especially when the health of our culture is at stake.\u00a0 These four artists knew this well.\u00a0 Their words attempted to help us prepare.\u00a0 Today, as in their lifetimes, we are still trying to rebuild from the Tsunami of slavery.\u00a0 And the persistent, systemic tidal waves of racism have not let up.\u00a0 How we use art in our culture is critical.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As I\u2019ve said in previous articles, \u201cThere\u2019s a big difference between creating art as a means of culture, and creating art as a business — even when these activities overlap.\u00a0 Culture still must exist on its own, even without the sale of a single piece of art\u2026\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Given the major, major stuff confronting us as a cultural group, it\u2019s pretty clear that we don\u2019t have the time-luxury to \u201cnot\u201d be intentional.\u00a0 We might not have the same luxury as other cultural groups when it comes to our art; particularly those groups who can afford to tape a banana to a wall and call it art.\u00a0 We might need to skip that particular movement and focus on something that can help elevate us as a people, or that can help save our communities from drowning in the chaos of systemic neglect, industrial pollution, underfunded schools, lack of youth services and outlets, and a privatized prison system waiting to swallow their futures. Unlike other cultural groups, we might not have the time-luxury to be participating in art that is not designed to heal us, strengthen us, renew us, nurture us, unite us, inspire us, or inform us in some way.\u00a0 We might not have the time to be standing around trying to look intellectual while we wonder, \u201cWTH is this banana doing taped to this wall, and why did someone just pay $300,000 for it?\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Like, I\u2019m sure it\u2019s an interesting story, and the artist and collector have their reasons, but this is not the kind of activity that will help us culturally; not unless that artist is planning to donate the proceeds of that art to create a youth center in the hood somewhere.\u00a0 If not, everyone is free to stay there and enjoy themselves but, personally, for me, I\u2019ma need to excuse my way past that spectacle and scoot on down the way to some art that resonates with me.\u00a0 Maybe check out Bisa Butler\u2019s work where I can be reminded of the historical through-line language and lineage of Black quilt makers; and where I can be excited by her extraordinary compositions while discussing what part visual imagery plays in reinforcing or eroding our self-images.\u00a0 I\u2019d much rather be inspired and rejuvenated by the gorgeously articulated palettes Butler so masterfully constructs using textiles which, themselves, chronicle African traditions and trace them through Black history into modern day narratives that, as Nina said, \u201cspeak to the times.\u201d\u00a0 I\u2019d much rather be immersed in Bisa Butler\u2019s vividly colored, adventurously-storied world where the subtext is the greatness of my heritage, and the story arcs resound with messages of our strength, resilience, and beauty as a cultural group.\u00a0 I\u2019d much rather hear from the mind of this young, brilliant artist who has the power to take art to its most noble extreme.\u00a0 After all, the true power of art is not in its ability to bring spectators together to drool out mindless chatter.\u00a0 The greatest power of the arts is its ability to create shared moments that enlighten us\u2026 that open our senses to the uniqueness of each other\u2019s cultures while creating space for us to become more reflective, considerate, and thereby, more cohesive, as a human group.\u00a0 Standing next to a non-Black person at a Bisa Butler exhibit, I want them to be able to turn to us and say, \u201cWow, now I\u2019m beginning to see and understand the beauty of who you are.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This is what the work of astonishing artists like Bisa Butler can do for all of us, not just Black people, but for everyone who has been constantly bombarded with negative images and untruths about who we are.\u00a0 Bisa Butler\u2019s work opens this dialog in a powerful, beautiful way as it serves culture to the highest degree: she is helping to set the record straight about us.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Or maybe I\u2019ll ease on down the way to the work of Najee Dorsey, one of the strongest visual voices of the day. \u00a0 Dorsey\u2019s works, while multi-layered in their humanity, speak in the shorthand of Black culture.\u00a0 Visually stunning, they seize your intention immediately, but as you explore them, they deeply inform while etching their way into your consciousness.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In his body of work, \u201cPoor People\u2019s Campaign\u201d, he confronts what\u2019s hiding in plain sight — the constant dump of toxins into communities of color \u2013 a perpetual poisoning of the ground and atmosphere kept in motion by corporate and political greed.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Not only does the art of Najee Dorsey inform, but it also serves as a giant visual protest.\u00a0 He has taken his campaign to the streets, renting a highway billboard to both inform and confront.\u00a0 This is a conversation he intends this nation to have.\u00a0 The child on the billboard is innocent — not ominous or dire looking.\u00a0 She is simply a child trying to exist as a child in a world that is without regard for her existence.\u00a0 It is the simple expression on her face \u2013 yet the stark pronouncement of her fragile humanness against a dystopian industrial wasteland that strikes and echoes in our consciousness.\u00a0 Even without an understanding of how the world should work, this child knows something is off.\u00a0 Those eyes know, and they know we know, and they force us into seeing\u2026 into acknowledgement.\u00a0 We will remember this encounter.\u00a0 Yes, we have seen such warnings before, but not like this.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Ice Cream Melting by Najee Dorsey<\/p><\/div>\n

Enhanced even further by Dorsey\u2019s masterful command of composition, color, and perspective, the girl stares out from the dystopian fallout of industrial greed; peeping from behind her Sponge Bob treat while smokestacks in the backdrop burn bright with chemical combustion, billowing their poisons into the wounded ozone.\u00a0 Not far behind her, a young boy looks on broodingly.\u00a0 He\u2019s been left out.\u00a0 Today, for him, they\u2019ll be no decent air or ice cream.<\/span><\/p>\n

Still, it is the girl whose face we won\u2019t forget.\u00a0 She will make all who see her think more deeply about the toxic industries so casually concentrated in Black and Brown communities, as well as every community where the least economic power exists.<\/span><\/p>\n

Najee Dorsey, like Bisa Butler, and like Nina Simone, has created work that intensely speaks to the time.\u00a0 As Simone said, this \u201c\u2026 is the duty of the artist.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Nina, however, is not alone in her opinion at this card table.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Gil Scott, holding his cards closer now carefully chooses one.\u00a0 It reads, \u201cThe first step in having people change is to try to change their minds.\u00a0 That\u2019s where the real revolution happens — in your mind, not on television.\u201d\u00a0 BAM!<\/span><\/p>\n

Gil smiles softly at Nina.\u00a0 \u201cBy the way, your new love song, \u2018I Put a Spell On You,\u2019\u00a0 that\u2019s fyr!\u201c\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Nina blushes.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s right.\u00a0 As an artist Nina Simone was not just one dimensional.\u00a0 She used her art to explore and express her full humanity.\u00a0 She reflected the times, and those times included all the situations she found herself in, both socially and emotionally.\u00a0 She immersed herself in the joys and complexities of being a woman in love.\u00a0 She obviously understood that it was important to nurture and cultivate all of who we are.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This is what James Baldwin was trying to do when he moved to Paris.\u00a0 He wanted to discover \u201call\u201d of who he was.\u00a0 As he said, \u201cI want to find out the difference between what\u2018s happening to me because of my doing, as opposed to that which is happening to me because I am Black.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

“This My Baldwin” by Najee Dorsey<\/p><\/div>\n

What Black person wouldn\u2019t benefit from exploring and discovering the difference between those two things?\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Even as artists, we should sometimes experience creating art that is driven purely by our creative impulses.\u00a0 We must allow space for the exploration that will make us adept with our brushes and mediums so that when we do choose to \u201cspeak to the times\u201d through art, we do so with the fluency and skill of a Bisa Butler or a Najee Dorsey.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

To that point, James Baldwin plays the next card.\u00a0 BAM!\u00a0 \u201cA society must assume it is stable, but the artist must know, and he <\/span>must<\/span> let us know, that there is nothing stable under heaven\u2026\u00a0 The artist must drive to the heart of every answer and expose the question the answer hides.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Miles nods.\u00a0 It sounds good to him.\u00a0 His cell phone lights and buzzes.\u00a0 It\u2019s Cicely Tyson.\u00a0 He steps away to take the call.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, \u201cWinter in America\u201d plays.\u00a0 Nina closes her eyes and sways her head to the lush sounds.\u00a0 This song is one of Gil Scott-Heron\u2019s masterpieces.\u00a0 He co-created it with the musical genius Brian Jackson, Gil\u2019s longtime writing partner and the other half of the story that catapulted Gil Scott into fame and sustained his career though a ten-year proliferation of his best work.\u00a0 The collaboration between these two artists was the perfect alchemy.\u00a0 Gil handled all the ABC\u2019s and Brian Jackson handled all the musical notes.\u00a0 \u201cWinter in America\u201d remains one of the most stunning musical compositions ever written.\u00a0 The profound words written by Gil Scott show clearly, that while Gil wanted to experience life in terms that went beyond just being Black in America, he and Jackson were clearly devoted to using art to reflect and speak to the times.\u00a0 In fact, this was a theme in Gil\u2019s life until the end.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When it comes to Black culture and how to exist in it, we need the wise words and creativity of our great artists and thinkers to not only inform, but also to inspire us.\u00a0 There is so much rebuilding yet to be done. \u00a0 As Dr. Margaret Burroughs said, \u201cThe wealth of 3 continents has been built on the backs of our ancestors.\u201d \u00a0 The rippling effects are still in full effect.\u00a0 Winter in America is far from welcoming spring.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As Miles returns to the table, Gil rises.\u00a0 He apologies for having to leave, and tosses his cards on the table.\u00a0 One card flips over.\u00a0 It reads, \u201cif you\u2019re in a struggle to correct some wrong, then whatever you can possibly do\u00a0 – vote, demonstrate, teach, protest, organize, activate \u2013 you do whatever you can do.\u00a0 I feel the thing I\u2019m most qualified to do is in the field in which I drew my education; and that concerns poetry and art.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Notice that Gil referred to his training.\u00a0 This is important.\u00a0 Artists have to practice their crafts in order to uncover their own potential.\u00a0 As artists, we have to spend time challenging ourselves and pushing ourselves to break past boundaries to see what\u2019s possible. \u00a0 It\u2019s how we discover who we are and what our unique contributions to life and culture can be.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Contributing the best of ourselves to culture boils down to the simple statement by Miles Davis:\u00a0 \u201cSometimes it takes a long time to learn how to play like yourself.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Putting in the work to discover what you have to offer as a unique being on Earth is the most important piece of it all.\u00a0 It\u2019s about who you are in your full humanity and how you might best use your creativity to contribute something valuable to culture, and to the world. And nothing about that process should be limited or constrained by categories of your complexion.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Finding your special gifts involves both learning and unlearning.\u00a0 It involves unshackling your mind from the negative labels projected onto you and your culture, by others.\u00a0 It involves us finding the confidence to stand in our full power — first as individuals, and then collectively as a cultural group.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Our lives are too complex to be adequately informed by one single sound-bite, no matter how great the thinker is.\u00a0 On the subjects of art, life and culture, Nina, Gil, Baldwin, and Miles had many different things to say, depending on what they were faced with at that moment, both in society and in their lives.\u00a0 Different situations call for different things from us, and from our art.\u00a0 We must not forget to also nourish our culture through our art and to speak to our full humanity.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So often we talk about freedom as if the word only exists in relation to slavery.\u00a0 But, within the laws of nature, freedom was never an authority granted to historic White men to distribute to the rest of us.\u00a0 It is our birthright.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

These four artists remind us that we should not fail to experience it fully, nor fail to reflect it fully, otherwise we limit our humanity as individuals, as artists, and, especially, as a cultural group.\u00a0 \u201cLearning to play like yourself\u201d will ultimately allow each of us to make the greatest cultural contribution possible.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Please enjoy this brief but powerful video featuring Najee Dorsey\u2019s billboard.<\/b><\/p>\n