Social Justice and the Art of Cheryl Gleason, by Steve Iverson, Fellow Human Being

I don’t think anyone can doubt that in this country today we are menaced – intolerably menaced – by a lack of vision. James Baldwin: A Talk to Teachers (1963)

There is no lack of vision here! Both works “Open Your Eyes” and “Enough is Enough” express Cheryl’s continuing concern for the unequal treatment of black and brown people in America. Frustration with events in 2020 exacerbated that concern causing “Enough is Enough” to pour out of her onto the canvas. The events in question all involved racial habits expressing the prejudice that white people (really men) matter more than others.  

The belief that white people matter most is a trap. That belief is the aggressive cancer of modern human history … [it] fixes the place of white people in legend and myth … blinding them to the humanity of others. Eddie S. Glaude Jr. Democracy in Black (2016). 

The advocates of this entrenched sense of “white-social-justice”, over the last several years, 2020 in particular, were invited to assert this prejudice using all the symbols and political imperatives claimed to define the idea of “America.” Once again in the name of “freedom and liberty” “law and order” or a “free-market,” brutality and suffering were ignored or blamed on the victims. Cheryl’s art targets this entrenched prejudice at the root of America’s unequal freedoms.  

“Open Your Eyes”

A visceral concern for reality is expressed here. As depicted past efforts to realize civil rights in America did involve James Meredith, Birmingham Churches, Rosa Parks, Linda Brown, and Dr. King. But the real “Fake News” is that we now live in a post-racial society. The initials of the dead included (a list that sadly can be greatly expanded) and the 846 reference put that claim to the lie. In fact, entrenched walls of prejudice and privilege remain as does racism in the streets. Under the flag today, voices are still muted, words and ideals distorted, violence perpetrated, resulting in death. Cheryl Gleason would open our eyes to these Current Events. 

People who shut their eyes to reality simply invite their own destruction, and anyone who insists on remaining in a state of innocence long after that innocence is dead turns himself into a monster. James Baldwin: Notes of a Native Son (1955) 

“Enough is Enough”

Under the wire with “shoes dangling,” representing “lynching’s past and present,” a non-binary “colorless” human being (Cheryl Gleason the artist herself) screams Enough is Enough. Cheryl screams in the midst of onlookers, some simply silent, some privileged turning their backs, some hanging their head in apparent sympathy, but all refusing to act despite the broken bodies and hearts. Cheryl screams what are we waiting for? Are we simply going to witness another pair of shoes added to the wire of American race history? Cheryl screams “No!”   

Steve A. Iverson