A lot of ink has been spilled making fetch happen. What I mean by this, is the ink that an art world “reckoning” has occurred in 2020. It’s not enough to say that this didn’t happen — it did not. It was happening in the backdrop of one of the craziest stories of misconduct that has hit the museum world in an extremely long time. Perhaps, ever. And the press was protecting the people and museum responsible for it, by not properly covering the exhibition, TK TK

What does being first mean? In this case, it meant to be the first to be racially terrorized in the very essence of the word. Subsequent firsts — the first Black staff curator, the first Black Chief Curator — are so mired in fraud, the hiding of misconduct, lies, intentional misleading and gaslighting the public and other abuses of power, that it is completely stripped of any moral and noble meaning, except if the goal is to show that Black people too, can be the head of empire.

Take for example, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. She’s not the first Black U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. — that distinction belongs to Andrew Young, appointed by President Carter in 1977 — but is certainly one of the first: only three Black people have held the position. The first Black people to have held these positions have never hesitated to humiliate themselves on behalf of the U.S. — they all have voted aggressively against Palestinian human rights, they have fallen in line with this diplomatic edict from the President that they serve. To be fair, they’re not doing anything different than what a White person appointed as U.N. Ambassador would be asked to do. However, what is different is the virtual and moral signalling inherent in their position.

It is assumed that Black people are more moral, more righteous than White people at any given time. It is t