Dear White People | Created by Michelle Flamer from Philadelphia, PA.

Dear White People

Created by:

Michelle Flamer from Philadelphia, PA

Exhibit:

Racism: In the Face of Hate We Resist

Artist Statement:

Dear White People,

Why do some of you have trouble understanding “Black Lives Matter?” Your sons and daughters seem to get it because they’re out in the streets protesting with us.

When I say, “Black Lives Matter,” you answer, “but all lives matter.” Are you uninformed? Don’t you know that Black people were brought here as slaves 400 years ago and considered 3/5 a man, not fully human?

You continued to strip us of our humanity with decades of Jim Crow, denying us even the most basic of liberties like attending school, owning a home, voting!

Even if you didn’t get past the sixth grade, you probably learned these words from the Declaration of Independence:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness."

That’s right, life itself is an “unalienable right.” So tell me why is it that when I decry the slaughter of unarmed Black men and women by the police, you respond that statistically more unarmed white people are killed every year? I say that’s a dishonest comparison since Black people are two and a half times more likely to be killed by a cop than whites.

So next time when you read or hear “Black Lives Matter,” please go to your quiet place and give that some additional thought before you confront me with your biased ignorance.

Sincerely,

Michelle Flamer, A Black Woman

2020
41" x 53"
Quilter’s cotton, beads, silk fibers; hand beaded and embroidered, machine pieced and quilted.