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1913issue6online

87 He swung out his arms like two French doors. On the night of an exhibit opening, I’d go to the bodega on the corner to purchase one particular kind of plastic cup that was especially clear and squat. I’d unwrap imported goat cheese from the local food co-op, take out the sharp knife from the bathroom and lay these items out like a nurse would onto a wooden cutting board. I’d pour white wine that had been deliv- ered that afternoon and make conversation. Ø Adrian Piper came from an African American family that had been divided into parts: there were those who were light enough to pass for white, and those too dark to try. Piper came from the latter bunch, and never consciously attempted to infiltrate the highest echelons of society by encouraging the misconcep- tion that she was white. Her African American identity was one she’d learn to value growing up. But she was light enough to be mistaken. She looked so white that she often overheard friends make offensive jokes about black people in the elevator. She would need, at one point or another, to inform new friends that she was black. There were distinct stages of dissonance and re- covery in their reaction. To hasten this process, she created calling cards to hand out to people. They stated, among other things: “Dear Friend, I am black.» Piper writes, “A benefit and a disadvantage of looking white is that most people treat you as though you were white. And so, because of how you’ve been treated, you come to expect this sort of treatment, not, perhaps, realizing that you’re being treated this way because people think you’re white, but falsely supposing, rather, that you’re being treated this way because people think you are a valuable person.” Ø Artists that contacted us for exposure usually fell into two dis- tinct categories: they either had an MFA, or they did not. The vast majority of people who fell into the latter category were rejected before they’d finished their pitch. There were more ways of identifying their fate than reading through a CV. If

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