this inheritance

this inheritance

sometimes there is not a choice
(events have occurred causing other events, something happens and changes the course of the future, something happens with direct impact, a namesake is given)

other times, there is a choice
(whether or not to engage what has occurred, whether to connect it with the life that is now lived, to take it up as one’s legacy, to allow it to have an impact on one’s outlook, how one handles the information)

what if the inheritance is a sense of reverence?
what does respect hide in my questioning? what will not be questioned out of respect?

a simultaneous desire to affirm and reiterate the events and their significance
as well, a pull to disavow and refuse them

these buttons collected
during the past forty years
frame the time from 1968 to the present

1968- Assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Columbia University student occupation
Black power salutes at the Mexico City Olympics
Paris’ May

to even make a shorthand reference to this year, to these events, to these particular events,
points to an ongoing significance

(who hears the shorthand? who continues to make these connections?)

what is the connection of these events over this time to the present?

buttons announce significant events
though the details and particularities
have now fallen away

what was absent on that day? what presence did it highlight?

the button front affixes meaning for a wearer, for the viewer
affixes identification, allegiance, a sense of pride

the button backs- a metal marked with a rust patina

what to do with these events, this history?

something beyond wearing a button, beyond an allegiance, beyond simple shorthand

a grappling with decision and impulse, with inheritance and disavowal, with making and denying meaning

~ by wehavetobehavetobeerrant on February 28, 2008.