On May 25, 2020, George Perry Floyds life was ended in a shockingly cruel way: a police officer knelt with his entire weight on George Perry Floyds neck for minutes until he suffocated. The whole world watched as George Perry Floyd took his last breaths. How humiliating. How inhumane. A police officer kills, casually. The world races on. What is a human life worth? What is a black man worth? (Is a black man a human being?) Or is he just an object? A black body, replaceable, worthless, dangerous: without soul, emotions, without feelings?
The images of the death of George Perry Floyd have caused immense sadness in me. Followed by anger. Anger, because I must be afraid in the year 2020. Fear for my brother. Fear for my cousins. Fear for people who look like my relatives. My brother is beautiful, he's honest, he's intelligent, he's sensitive. But in America, it wouldn't matter. There, he too would be just a black body without a soul.
In America, there is a system of racial inequality that has persisted since the beginning of slavery until today. In America, white life is worth more than that of fellow citizens of color. Today's African Americans are the product of strong women and men who made the American Dream a reality. What is still negated, however, is that this capitalist dream is closely linked to systematic racism and only works when one power elite oppresses others. Social inequality has also been clearly demonstrated in the current COVID-19 situation: African Americans* are disproportionately affected by COVID-19. The accompanying despair of African Americans, which has shown itself in the form of demonstrations, was met by the US president with military force. Thus, the economic and political ideology of the American Dream collapses.
This mask was created in the course of the #blacklivesmatter movement. It is made of Czech glass beads that I wove together like fabric threads. Originally, glass beads were used in Africa in the 16th century by European traders as currency in exchange for coveted goods such as ivory, gold and people. More than 12 million people were enslaved in Africa and trafficked across the Atlantic. The pattern I used for the mask is a typical pattern of the Zulu royal house from the Nongoma region of South Africa. It was the Zulus led by their warrior king Shaka Zulu who united several smaller tribes for the first time in the history of Southern Africa. This made it possible for the Zulu tribe to defend itself with concentrated strength against the increasingly strong oppression of the white colonialists.
During apartheid, Nelson Mandela fought against the oppression of his people. In doing so, he deliberately dressed traditionally, e.g. adorned with glass beads, to send a clear signal of pride in his own culture. This is to continue in 2020 my mask.
The beaded mask not only decorates, but symbolizes resistance to injustice. It is for the thousands of people around the world who are risking their lives to demonstrate against police violence and racism in the midst of the global COVID-19 pandemic. It is meant to give strength to them and to all people who stand in solidarity with them: Those who wear the mask become warriors: fearless and proud. Because it is time to be proud. Proud of all those who have gone before us on the path to freedom and equality. Like Jamie Foxx: "Tell the world you are Busy making your ancestors proud."
