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Can I Disagree With an Artist and Still Let Them Inspire Me?

After weeks of seeing billboards and temporary installations up and down Sunset, I finally made plans to see Yoko Ono’s exhibit at the Broad.

Before I went, though, I should probably tell you where I stand on judging artists by today’s standards. I’m not really interested in reaching back into the past and pretending people who were in their prime in the 1960s should have somehow had our vocabulary, our awareness, and our understanding of the world in 2026. Context matters. People have blind spots. People inherit ideas from their time. People say things without fully understanding what those words will come to mean later.

That doesn’t mean I think we should excuse everything. There are also people who hide behind plausible deniability when they know exactly what they’re saying is offensive. But I don’t think ignorance and malice are the same thing, and I don’t think historical context should become irrelevant just because we’re uncomfortable with something now.

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I Love Hood Rap. Stay With Me.

I attended a predominantly Black private Christian school until high school while attending a predominantly white dance school, which is where I had one of my funniest early encounters with the cultural contrast I’m about to discuss.

Even though my school was predominantly Black, because it was faith based, there were a lot of values attached to what we were and weren’t supposed to consume, and rap was firmly in the latter category. But I was hearing it constantly in my neighborhood, coming from cars, outside my window, and everywhere around me. So I was familiar with the music even though I wasn’t supposed to be listening to it.

That’s what made it so funny when, in fifth grade, one of my dance classmates, a white girl from a new-money Michigan suburb, showed up with 50 Cent’s new CD. I remember being genuinely stunned that this girl was walking around with the latest 50 Cent album like it was the most normal thing in the world.

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A Different Kind of Armour

I think a lot of people experience me as someone who handles things well. I don’t necessarily see myself that way. I don’t think I am particularly equipped to handle everything life has handed me: an onslaught of autoimmune issues and a ridiculous number of tests issued by the universe in general. I think I have something that allows me to handle it.

That something is my faith.

I have always been hesitant to put too neat of a label around that faith. Even calling myself a Christian can feel strangely loaded. The moment you say it, people seem to think they know what kind of person you are supposed to be. They start looking for inconsistencies.

I thought you were a Christian.

As if being a person of faith means you stop having boundaries. As if forgiveness means continued access. As if believing in...

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