Howardena Pindell’s raw video

BY: Jes Zurell

A writer’s job is to present reality in a light that makes people think. We may offer opinions and fact-checked evidence to tilt an audience towards our point of view, but the high goal is to put something resonant into the world or to recognize when it’s already been done.

In the case of Free, White and 21, the iconic tape Howardena Pindell created in 1980, she assembled all the truest words one could ever write about her piece when she revisited it in 1999. Nearly two decades later, her message is more relevant and raw than ever. We invite you to consider the artist’s thoughts on this short film, and see her work for yourself.

“I decided to make Free, White and 21 after yet another run-in with racism in the art world and the white feminists. I was feeling very isolated as a token. I found that white women wanted me to be limited to their agenda. When they were beginning to be represented by galleries and shown in exhibitions, women of color were rarely considered. Their omission was rarely noticed except by a few. I was told I was jealous because i noticed and talked about it. Racism, as a constant assault in the daily lives of all people of color, was not a high priority for them. It was seen as ‘a cause’, ‘a special interest group’, ‘political’ – something for their temporary concern if their attention was engaged. Some of the women of color who spoke out were considered ‘belligerent’. I remember hearing that the feminists wished I had been ‘co-operative.’

“The white voice was the dominant voice. What the white male’s voice was to the white female’s voice, the white female’s voice was to the woman of color’s voice. The dominant voice was usually limited to the middle- and upper-class white women but all classes of white women participated consciously or unconsciously in racism. (Several years after I made the tape, when I saw the ending, I felt that it was symbolic of the women’s auxiliary of the KKK. Instead of a white sheet, like a bank robber, the white character covers her face with a ‘polite’ white stocking.) I remember hearing racism explained as a distraction from the real issues offered by the system which needed a scapegoat. The white voice was to be the dominant voice; its goals were to be the dominant goals. The collectives in the 1970s were often predominantly white. If they were not in charge, then business was not to be conducted.

“It was about domination and the erasure of experience, cancelling and rewriting history in a way that made one group feel safe and not threatened. I call it the ‘Hatshepsut maneuver’ – when the pharaohs who followed her reign (Hatshepsut) removed the cartouche in an attempt to cancel out her place in history. In this case, the white women were removing the cartouches of women of color…”

– Howardena Pindell, Third Text, Volume 2, 1988 – Issue 3 – 4. Published online June 19, 2008.