Painting: Oil on Canvas

Painted: 2024

Size: 12” x 16”

Owner: In storage                                                                                                                                                          

Music Selection: “Sunshine” by John Denver

It was a cold morning in Pheonix as I walked out of a store, I noticed an attractive young woman that standing with her face turned towards the sun. She had recently immigrated here from Africa. “The sun feels so good on my face.” she said. It was a sweet moment of appreciation for the small things in life, so I wanted to capture that moment in a painting.

 There was a problem. The young lady was black, but I could not portray her ethnicity without being accused of cultural appropriation. This is a byproduct of the liberal segregationists’ movement in America in 2024. The young protagonist in the painting is portrayed with ambiguous skin tones. This painting is my quiet protest against these narrow-minded, self-righteous, pseudo intellectuals. The left now wants to segregate Americans by race. I’m certain that the Klan could not be prouder of liberals today. I was lucky to live in the eighties and nineties when race was not a political tool used to divide the country. Today everyone is a racist. Calling everyone racist makes the word benign or meaningless.

Comedians in 2024 must tread lightly on what they say, or they will be cancelled by the culture. Liberals have silenced the speech that they do not agree with. In the seventies and eighties, we were exposed to various ideas. It was up to the individual to decide what had value and what was silly, but in modern times students shout down any opposition to thoughts that differ to those espoused within their echo chambers or esoteric circles. We shout now believing that the louder you get the closer you are to winning the argument. Volume has replaced logic. One day, my hope is we listen to the teachings of Reverend King, and that his holiday becomes more than a reason to get paid for not working.

If we are forced to live in an atmosphere of cultural appropriation there will be side effects. We can no longer listen to Jazz because the music was composed on instruments developed by Europeans, so black artists cannot use these tools to make their art. Jimmy Hendrix, arguably the one of the greatest guitar players of all time, must be accused of cultural appropriation too because the electric guitar did not originate in Africa. Frida Kahlo’s paintings must be removed from art museums because painting has its origins in Europe as well. If you believe in cultural appropriation, art is truly dead.