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Apr 30, 2023 · Clara Saito


Inspiration for hypothetical white feminist text



Idea: Do a version of « I’m offended » by Guillermo Gómez-Peña where an imaginary young white academic who just recently learned about intersectionality, would tell me all what I did wrong in the work, starting every sentence by saying how they feel uncomfortable.

Intro for the text by Guillermo Gómez-Peña in his book Gómez-Peña Unplugged:

« This text takes on frontally the unbearable culture of privileged hypersensitivity permeating the art world, the media and academia in English-speaking countries, especially in the US and Canada. Every time it has been performed it is different, incorporating a lot of site and theme specificities. This is one of many versions, followed by a lot of hate mail by humorless and uptight young academics to remain nameless. Please circulate it in your own artist communities. Let’s keep it real, carnales. »

Some ideas for sentences by the young white academic:

  • I feel uncomfortable that you are only half-brazilian but you use the theatre of the oppressed as inspiration.
  • I feel uncomfortable that you might be appropriating the Theater of the Oppressed.
  • I feel uncomfortable that you use the word oppressed and it might make feel the people concerned uncomfortable.
  • I feel uncomfortable that you also identify as an oppressed person.
  • I feel uncomfortable that you might not be aware of your privilege.
  • I feel uncomfortable that by listening of stories of people less privileged than you, it might inspire you and you will use it in the future for your own gain and then it will be extractivism.
  • I feel uncomfortable because I think you are not healthy enough, not smart enough, not experienced enough and not strong enough to hold space for people less privileged than you.
  • I feel uncomfortable that you didn’t manage to get any of the funds for your project, there might be something wrong with the project, or with the way that you write, or with you in general.
  • I feel uncomfortable that you do not want to hear my feedback.
  • I feel uncomfortable that you talk about your emotions.
  • I feel uncomfortable that you are angry.
  • I feel uncomfortable hearing your life stories about poverty, murder, rape, immigration, organs stealing, aids.
  • I feel uncomfortable to hear that you didn’t heal, maybe you should go to see a therapist.
  • I feel uncomfortable that you didn’t give a trigger warning.
  • I feel uncomfortable that this text is talking about me.
  • I feel uncomfortable that I didn’t realize that you are culturally different.
  • I feel uncomfortable that you use humor to talk about heavy things.
  • I feel uncomfortable because you do not seem to understand that you are triggering people.

“Not exactly Jean-Paul Gaultier”: Gómes-Peña’s classic portrait by Zen Cohen in “Studio 24,” Galeria de la Raza, his last San Francisco studio, the month before he was evicted, 2014.