Comforting Words to the Speaker, Not the Listener

George McCalman (Chron photo)

For years San Francisco artist George McCalman has heard words of sympathy from well-meaning white friends when a black person's death is in the news.

He's sick of the words that seem to comfort them more than they do him:[bold added]

This summer brought a reverberating pattern of conversations and emails and texts from friends, collaborators and acquaintances, revealing a prescribed and self-accepted way of communicating. A form letter of sameness of how white people in America discuss race, with us and themselves...

In staring at my mourning, I began to collect the phrases that had triggered me the most — variations on the same theme of a lack of accountability, a blithe uselessness and an emotional apathy. They communicated a silent expectation that the burden was mine to carry, that it was for me to orient and settle the speaker. My role was victim and teacher all at once. I was the antagonist, and they were the protagonist in their own narrative. “Race” was being done to them. This was the language of white America that I knew. Far away and up close. It sucked the air out of our exchanges. And I wanted to breathe...

In a flash of Black anger, I wanted to act. My soul and sanity demanded it. I decided I was going to paint the phrases. Art as therapy. I wanted to create billboards as three-dimensional totems and reflect them as far away as possible. I wanted to return them energetically to their origins. I wanted to take these seemingly benign words and show the garish truth. Reveal the context of their meaning, back to its source. Away from me.

Some of the phrases that set him off, and his explanation why:

“Here If You Ever Want To Talk” (Unsolicited kinship with no context.)

“For Your Selfcare” (Unsolicited money being offered to pacify the speaker.)

“I’m Ashamed Of My Complicity” (Said by too many white women everywhere.)

“I’m Just Here To Listen” (For what, exactly?)

George McCalman responds creatively and honestly to his pain. I doubt his politics agree much with mine, but I'll bet we foresee a familiar outcome to this recent turmoil. As I wrote three months ago:

I am not going to dismiss or deride the feelings of those who are upset, but this geezer has seen such emotion many times before. Programs will be started, most of which will be ineffectual.

All this, too, shall pass.