MARLBORO – Marlboro College seniors, Allison and Tanner, have begun hanging up fliers around Marlboro’s campus advertising an exhibit featuring their artwork opening on Friday night . Tanner, who appears tanner than few, claims that “like, you totally can’t see this exhibit and still be, like, a racist or whatever. You know? Like, it’s going to definitely change the way everyone thinks about race and stuff like that.”
Allison concurred, adding; “I think it’s just that, like, most people really don’t know what it’s, like, like to be a minority. I really think our art will change that.”
The art that will be on display at the exhibit is a culmination of Allison and Tanner’s work in a class last semester: A.R.T (Altering Racist Tendencies). Dr. Smith, creator of the A.R.T curriculum and tenured professor at Marlboro College, stated that Tanner and Allison have a “knack for translating systemic racism into abstract paintings.” Dr. Smith has lobbied to make attendance at the exhibit mandatory for all Marlboro College students with little success. Dr. Smith also lacks some melanin.
Allison concluded her statement to The Winooski by explaining that “white people, I think, just need to learn, like, where it is their place to do things. Tanner and I both know that, like, this exhibit will help show them that.” Tanner added that this is especially important “like, with all the supremacy going on and things like that.”
Both have promised that nothing “discriminatory or racially insensitive” will take place at the exhibit. Tickets can be bought in advance on the college’s website.
Tanner and Allison will probably be, like, elected to the Vermont Legislature. Even though they, like, aren’t even registered to vote in their home state of Massachusetts or in Vermont.
This reminds me of a dance piece done last year at this college by a woman of Wabanaki ancestry who’s (tribal member) relatives were in the audience. She was vilified by half the campus for ‘cultural appropriation’ because her skin wasn’t dark and she’d only spent a small part of her life on a reservation, which basically proved the point of the piece about racism being alive and well within the anti-racism movement. I appreciate this satire, even if it’s a bit sophomoric.