Outline for Essay

Thesis: Adrian Piper’s “Funk Lessons” aims to bridge the racial gaps between people of all ethnicities primarily to show the undeserved tension created by the fear of another’s unknown culture. She uses the global language of music and of movement in order to relate to all people, regardless of their race.

Quotes:

“Education and self-expression is so important, not only for African Americans but for European America. If African Americans can find constructive outlets of their ‘racialized experiences,’ they will be less damaged and less dangerous.” – Mapping Mindsets

“My work doesn’t address any particular audience, or race of audience. Nor does it seek to ‘disturb of enlighten them about forms of injustice.’ It targets particular attitudes through humor, mimicry and/or the use of the grammatical second person; and allows different individual viewers to situate themselves in relation to those attitudes.” – Mapping Mindsets

“Piper’s outsider status was complicated by her light skin and intellect, factors that would inform her work about racism.” – Warhol Illustrates Piper’s Lure

“… Paralleling the conundrum of why something—race, gender—that is not a big deal is a big deal.” –Warhol Illustrates Piper’s Lure

“[It] seems to begin as a mokumentary, as she teaches a group of mostly white students how to dance by separating movements into easy steps. Her underlying subject is the murky boundary between white appreciation of black culture and white appropriation of it.” –Sampling Hip hop

“Her work is about consciousness-raising. Her primary subjects are race, racism and their links to class and gender. Sugar coating isn’t her style.” –A canvas of concerns

“The artist uses the fact that both her parents were of mixed-race heritage as a strategic point from which to attack essentialist concepts of race itself.” – A Canvas of concerns

“She earnestly uses diagrams and personal demonstrations to instruct students in the how-to’s of popular music and dance, generating lively class participation in the process.” – A canvas of concerns

“Her mission is to reveal racist attitudes and behavior and call them by their right name.”—Canvas