The Killing Ground of the Spirit 1991

“Your being a full human being doesn’t diminish me. I don’t have to diminish somebody and make him something less. This is the killing ground of the spirit.”

Studs Terkel, Race

This work explores how racism hurts everyone – including white people: Racism eats away the humanity of white people. It creates a culture built on domination and hierarchy. It causes fear and alienation. Racism causes poverty for people of color. It motivates white people to support systems that benefit us, hang onto what we have, look down on those who don’t and hide Behind the Blinds. Racism divides cultures, conquers, exploits, appropriates, and cuts social benefits, so it creates not enough for everyone. But there could be. There’s not Enough?

Racism is in our bodies, layered deep in our consciousness. We breath it in with the air and it takes consciousness to get it out.

The ideas in this work, Killing Ground of the Spirit, are explored in story form in the puppet show, American Pie.