I believe that in the past week, the emotions brought by the news to the students must be negative. Trump is capricious again and again, taking national affairs as a joke; Protests all over the United States, including Britain, Australia and other countries around the world are emerging in endlessly, which makes racism, a slightly unfamiliar word to us in peaceful countries, appear in our vision again. Today, we would like to take a look at the current attitude of American art schools towards racism and colonialism, as well as the future development trend of the art world under the influence of the George Floyd incident, and the inspiration for the creation of students' works.

　　 The Attitude of American Art Schools towards Racism and Colonialism

Other public speakers include RICD, SAIC, the Detroit Academy of Arts The Minneapolis Institute of Arts Almost all art colleges and universities, but compared with the direct "hard steel" of art venues, the voice of art colleges and universities is relatively more civilized and rational.

These colleges and universities expressed their commitment to true racial equality and non colonialism practice, and to provide everyone in the college community and other regions with inclusive, diversified and equal places.

Principal RISD's letter to students on Floyd incident

First of all, for British and American art schools, as early as before the Floyd incident, the research and reflection on decolonization has always been a key research topic. I believe you all remember the ninth college launched by the UAL last year, the Decolonization Arts Institute.

Home page of UAL Decolonising Arts Institute

At that time, many students may feel puzzled, but now it seems that the opening of the new college of UAL is very prescient.

Due to the historical legacy of the First and Second World Wars and the Industrial Revolution in Europe and the United States, a considerable number of colored people in Europe and the United States have been discriminated against and oppressed for a long time.

This is especially true in the art world, which is also the purpose of establishing a college specifically for this purpose. College officials hope that through the research of this decolonization art college, they can promote the reform of the whole art world and even the British society, so that art and society can treat people of color differently from the root.

American colleges and universities pay more attention to racial discrimination. Almost all art colleges and universities have expressed regret, anger, condemnation, suggestions and comfort to students on their home pages.

Before this event, Yale University's reform of art history course at the beginning of this year was actually based on the adjustment of de racial differentiation of art education. In addition, RISD, SAIC and other art schools have long put discrimination and racism at the top of their research topics.

RISD "Eradicate Whiteism" related art speech

Similarly, there is no lack of discussion and research on racism in the graduation design of outstanding students in various universities every year. With the support and encouragement of colleges and universities, more and more students began to accept the concept of de differentiation of human race, and committed to the study of seeking equal rights for colored races.

However, historical problems can never be changed overnight. RISD is a representative of anti colonialism in British and American art schools. But some time ago, it was also because an aggressive cultural relic related to colonialism collected by a school was criticized by students and collectively protested.

I believe that when students are watching movies or watching the news, they once had the idea of "whether it would be too exaggerated" when faced with the hidden rules of Hollywood movies such as "black people can never die" and Oscar movies such as "people of color must play".

But in fact, these phenomena are not exaggerated at all, and even show that we still have a long way to go on the issue of de racial differentiation. This Floyd incident does not represent the end of racism in any way. It even indicates that the real change may have just begun.

We can also boldly speculate that whether it is the future social responsibility or in order to conform to the development of the times, the academic research tendency of the major art schools in the future will only increase.

The Problem We All Live With, Northern Rockwell

For the sake of understanding the colleges and universities and controlling the current artistic creation environment, we all suggest that students who choose to study abroad in the arts should take a moment to really think about "racial discrimination", a common topic of human beings that seems to be far away from us, but is actually closely related.

Today, we discussed the heavy topic of racial discrimination with our classmates, but we had to face it directly. It is not only because we have seen the importance attached to this topic by various art colleges, but also because we know that as practitioners of humanities and arts, we must shoulder the responsibility to treat society and even the whole mankind.

SAIC Art Institute of Chicago Special anti racism training for teachers and staff in memory of Martin Luther King

Previously, some students expressed doubts to us. In a highly developed modern society, is it really necessary to pay such attention to the ancient historical legacy of "racial discrimination"?

But now all these practical problems show that there is still a long way to go for the word "equality". Our position in a peaceful country does not mean that there is no discrimination and violence in other parts of the world.

As researchers of humanities, students should first have the courage to face up to all inequalities, and then have the social responsibility to speak up for inequality, which is also what the top art colleges value.

SVA Special Exhibition on Trump and Racial Discrimination

But protesting against inequality does not mean that we should use violence to solve it, which is also the significance of the existence of works of art. It can subtly change people's thinking through creation and communication. It is believed that in the future created by this generation of young people represented by the students, we can truly achieve de racial differentiation, and the tragedy of George Floyd will never be repeated.

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