Week 2 Blog Response

Hi there! My name is Khani Priest.

Alice Bag is an extraordinary artist and activist. Her excerpt from her book and her music video were not only eye-opening, but informative as well. She used a narrative style of writing in her book that caught the innocence in her point of view and her confusion at what she witnessed. She pushes this issue she witnessed as a kid even further through her song and music video "White Justice". This video was very troubling to me because I knew these acts of racist violence existed, but I had never witnessed any videos or pictures of this hatred before. I learned about a lot of unjust moves by the government and by humanity; it just became real when I watched the video. However, this is exactly what Bag was after with this piece of art. She wanted to pursue this topic of police brutality and racist-armed "heroes". In the main chorus of her music video she sings, "White Justice doesn't work for me, white justice is a travesty...white justice just isn't just "(3:29). Alice Bag wanted to educate and show her audience that there is a problem with this system and the only way to change it is to learn about it. The importance of education was driving force behind part of the Chicana Movement in Long Beach. This group of women found something that changed their lives and their goals for good. "Taking this genealogical strand, they began to weave a historical legacy that animated their own emergent feminista political convictions" (pg. 103). This important finding would not found its way to this group without art-making practices. Someone wrote down the history of past Mexicanas and it strongly influenced the 1960s Chicanas. Art is a very important part of social movements because it spreads a message through non-conventional means. These artists can reach people on a deeper level then they have ever been able to and they can reach people through multiple generations. Art practices is imperative to the spreading of knowledge of social movements.