An alligator basks in the midday sun in the Okefenokee Swamp along the Georgia-Florida line. They call it black-water country, but in this sandy-bottomed stretch the water looks as red as cranberry juice owing to tannins from decaying leaves. photo: Melissa Farlow (1992)

Neptune and the moon Triton recorded by the James Webb Space Telescope

Vasily Vereshchagin - Uzbek Woman in Tashkent (1873)

Chavariii ‘Feels Like Rain’ Summer 2022

コウモリ

bat

2017.1.29

Deepti Barth: chainmail tie (2015)

Andy Goldsworthy: pointed rocks (1980)

tattoo work by orientalismsz

Akira Yamaoka | Never Forgive Me, Never Forget Me from Silent Hill 3

the current trend of "tumblr users embarrassing themselves by proudly announcing why they don't listen to any music made by black people" is really astounding.

i cannot help but think this is a direct result of liberal White Guilt and how people have interpreted "anti-racism" as form of cultural self-segregation - the kind of person who thinks trying to cook chicken curry is cultural appropriation, or sends white people anon hate for wearing a kimono (yes, this kind of discourse happened). like, "oh, no, i could never participate in this culture, i'd get my evil white hands all over it! it would be more Progressive if I only did White things."

if you're a poc you've seen this, i'm sure - this deer-in-the-headlights stare you can get from white people when you play music / show art / share a story / anything that is Racially Coded, this total refusal to actually engage with it out of fear that it is in some way Wrong for them to have any opinion on it. because they read somewhere that it's bad to use AAVE but the only lesson they actually learned from that is "gotcha, white people are not allowed to interact with other cultures as punishment for my White Crimes. this helps to fill up the gaping pit of my white guilt and makes me one of the Good People." this transforms their discomfort around non-white cultures (black culture, especially, i should add) into a kind of virtue

anyway if you are white and reading this. go listen to some fucking haliu mergia. ethiopian jazz. will knock your dick right off. go listen to rap or reggae or bollywood and have a genuine reaction to it - like, an actual, from-the-heart reaction. you are allowed to not like some of it. but you will definitely like at least a little. yes, you can compare it to lemon demon (or whatever) if that helps you get into it and that's your only point of reference. maybe don't say that part out loud. but don't, like, separate yourself from it, like you are seeing it in a museum and the only polite thing to do is go "ahh, huh, very interesting, so much culture here."

TRUE LOVE BY STEVE RACE

Tian Jianxin, Crease, 2023 aluminium tray, 60 x 40 x 5 cm, 23 1/2 x 16 x 2 in, Copyright the Artist. Courtesy of the Artist and Capsule Shanghai