Just Who Am I Anyway?

When I was a little girl, oh around six or seven, my world changed. I was happily moving along in my own childhood (which is an imaginal space in its own right) when suddenly, it was interrupted by race. I grew up in a small town in North Carolina. Typical of most southern towns in the early 1960s, Southern Pines was segregated, which meant that I grew up in a rather isolated environment. Looking back, it was very much a sanctuary. I was safe and secure, situated in a space where I was surrounded on all sides by aunts, uncles, and caring neighbors--surrounded in the same way that the women surrounded and protected MV on her imagined Rice Raft.

But when I was around six or seven, everything changed. I rode with my father to city hall to pay our utility bills. Just behind city hall was a lovely park with swings, see-saws, and teeter totters--just the thing to entice a playful and rambunctious toddler turned young missy. I immediately begged my father to let me play in the park. I can remember the troubled look on his face when he was forced to deny me such a small delight. I learned that day that the playground was not for "colored."

What was "colored"? I remember thinking about my crayons and my coloring books. My crayons, waxy, bright and cheerful, brought the black lines and white space to life--what a dull book without color.

We returned home and within a few weeks, I had my own swing set. Daddy ordered it from Sears and he was proud of himself when it arrived. The motto in our house was they would never be better than we. We are just as good as they. My heart fluttered and my toes reached for the sky with each gentle push from my father's strong hands. I was quite happy.

Throughout my life, my world would be "colored" by race. Like a well-designed trap or a blues song, race has inspired and hindered, caused me to laugh and to cry--all at the same time. I remember first meeting Milburn Crowe in the African American town of Mound Bayou in 1989 and asking him if I lived there could I have had an ice cream in the Crowe's Nest, the restaurant that he ran on legendary Highway 61. He assured me that I could have gone anywhere I wished, because segregation did not exist there. (I later learned that the train depot had a bathroom for colored and white, but no one used the white toilet.) The people at the electric company were colored and as well as the mayor, so had my beautiful playground existed, I could have lingered for as long as I wished. I have often wondered how my growing up in Mound Bayou would have changed how I looked at myself.

Who Are You?

We are Sistagraphy, a collective of African American female photographers. The mere fact that we have chosen to group ourselves based on race says much about who we are and how our world has been "colored." It is for this reason that I am going to suggest, as I did in the last post that we consider self-portraits for this project. I'd like for us to take a look at the work of Renee Cox, Carrie Mae Weems, Nikki S. Lee, and Cindy Sherman and I have provided links to sites that will familiarize you with their work below as well as a site that looks at self-portraiture. Please also Google the names for further info.

Carrie Mae Weems - http://www.villagevoice.com/art/0310,carr,42270,13.html
Renee Cox - http://www.reneecox.net/gallery.html
Nikki S. Lee - http://www.mocp.org/collections/permanent/lee_nikki_s.php
Cindy Sherman - http://www.moma.org/exhibitions/1997/sherman/index.html
Self Portraiture - http://www.shutterbug.net/refreshercourse/portrait_tips/197/index.html

The above photo copyright Lynn Marshall-Linnemeier, 1993