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-17 Mapping

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I say, for instance, that this book is based in art by people of color --because I can hardly say, ludicrously, "art of color." I use the term "people of color" because it is, at this writing, the nomenclature of choice among the self-named. Yet we are all aware that it too is somewhat absurd, when the range of pinks and browns take in virtually everybody across racial borders. Liberals talk alot about "blue or green or purple people" ("We're all alike under the skin") hoping for a humanist filter that will rid them of uncomfortable semantics and guilt. But society itself -- censuses, segregation, racism, as well as local and family history and memory, affirmative action, and self-representation-- acknowledges differences for good reasons. And marginalized groups can still be intimidated into veiling their true images in order to be acceptable in the dominant culture. (FN to Adrian and Ed RUscha Colored People; MUMMERS sidebar here?)

At the moment, artists "of color" has replaced "Third-World" artists, which was more or less acceptable to all concerned in the '70s. Although sometimes still used in that context today, it has proved confusing when applied to people of color born in, or citizens of, the U.S., and as Vietnamese filmmaker Trinh T. Minh Ha has insisted, "There is a Third World in every First World and in every Third World," and vice versa. Like "the West," the term Third World now has more clearly geographical and economic