Notions of a photo series by Matze Schmidt. To reconsider ones own traditional racism isn't a nice thing. Especially not as a 'licenced ethnic' dealing with phantasmal categories like race or ethnicity. The series has no title but I had in mind 
a notice going "poor because black, black because poor". Of course "race" in Germany is circumstanced very differently compared to the US or even France. Here two generations ago we had the most brutal origin of masters mastering humans. Taking this into account race is a
question of economical reasons and coded physiognomics, coded colour and power over bodies. Black over here is still dirt and bad, if it's body. If it's fashion, it's in vogue. But racism is another dimension. So I find these photos not
appropriately. They hurt, they are kitsch. I feel shame and I guess many do so in touching what can't be touched. I have partly used photographed photos. And now I see that they are a trial. It's like testing what kind of pictures are possible for asking.
The "Mohr", kind of the cliche of the black person in German becomes a flipped image when you apply it to yourself in an open stupid blackfacing which contains the trained fascination of the "other" that's been used for selling chocolate. This turn can only be
failing as some single step in class society decomposing working classes into colours.
@threadreaderapp unroll
