Election Day
March 24th, 2024
Today is election day in Senegal. Millions of people around the country have been lining up since early in the morning to choose their next president. Walking around the city, you will see colorful posters with smiling men in suits and slogans in French and Wolof asking for support. You might also notice that most of the posters still reference the “élection présidentielle du 25 Février 2024,” a date that passed exactly a month ago. That is because Senegal’s current president, Macky Sall, announced on February 3rd that the election would be indefinitely postponed, ostensibly to clarify the process around determining the eligibility of the candidates running. Sall has been President since 2012 and is at the end of his constitutionally limited time in office. When he called off the election, there were alarm bells raised around the world about the potential democratic backslide of a country that has been remarkably stable since its independence in 1960. In the days and weeks that followed, there were large protests that were often met with violence by the state. The uncertainty lingered even when the Senegalese Constitutional Council invalidated the President’s indefinite postponement. Sall, accepting the ruling, reaffirmed that he would leave office when his term ended at the beginning of April but did not set a new date for the elections. It wasn’t until March 6th that the new election date of March 24th was announced.
*****
I arrived in Senegal on the night of March 4th, just before the new election date was confirmed. I had been keenly monitoring the political situation both out of an interest and concern for world events as well as for more practical reasons surrounding my time in the country. Even after I landed in Dakar, I was only vaguely aware of the primary characters who figured in this political drama. I learned that Amadou Ba, who I quickly noted was winning the contest for the most posters around the city, was the current Prime Minister and closest ally of the outgoing President. Even judging just from his posters, I could guess that he was the establishment figure in the race – not exciting but a known quantity. I knew that two of the leading opposition figures, Ousmane Sonko and Bassirou Diomaye Faye, were both in prison for reasons that their supporters believed were illegitimate; Faye was charged with insurrection while Sonko, like Plato, was convicted of "corrupting the youth." About a week after I arrived, both Sonko and Faye were released from prison. However, Sonko, because of the nature of his conviction, is still not allowed to run for office and as a result, Faye is standing in his place. Both men represent the most animated anti-establishment voice in the election.
Thinking I was at the end of the chaos surrounding the election, I fell down another rabbit hole after learning of Karim Wade, the son of former President Abdoulaye Wade. President Wade left office in 2012 when he was defeated by President Sall. That election, must like this year’s, was shrouded in controversy because of Wade’s attempt to win an unprecedented and possibly unconstitutional third term. He was ultimately defeated handily by Sall, backed by a strong youth movement seeking to reject the apparent corruption and illiberalism of Wade’s administration. 12 years later, Sall found himself in a similar role of inciting the passion and fury of the Senegalese people against a potential authoritarian cling to power. The younger Wade was expected to be one of the main challengers but in another dramatic twist, his candidacy came under jeopardy over his dual citizenship with France. So rather than the two leaders in prison, it was Wade whose eligibility was the initial purported cause of the delayed election. Through a series of legislative and judicial decisions that I do not fully understand, Wade was ultimately ruled ineligible. In his absence, his father has endorsed Faye. So, in a further layer of complexity, the stand-in for Sonko is now also a stand-in for Wade.
Amid the media coverage focused on threats to democracy, political violence, politically-motivated prosecution, bureaucratic machinations, and all the high drama surrounding the candidates and current and former presidents, it has been difficult to learn much about what any of the candidates are advocating for. Though, as an outsider, it has been hard enough for me to understand the multi-dimensional and multi-generational power struggles without adding another layer of local policy debate. Indeed, from the view of a neutral observer, many of the circumstances of this election are much like those of the U.S. presidential election taking place in November. In much the same way, our election coverage is dominated by criminal cases, legislative investigations, courts attempting to disqualify candidates from the ballot, and both sides claiming that the other represents an existential threat to the democratic order and survival of the country. To anyone unfamiliar with the specifics of our politics or system of government, would our election seem any less tumultuous?
Donald Trump, who currently leads in the national polling average, unwillingly left office three years ago amid unfounded claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him. He attempted to cling to power through a series of increasingly hair-brained schemes, culminating in his supporters attacking the U.S. Capitol while he urged his Vice President to overturn the results of the election. In the time since, he has been indicted and faces trial in four separate criminal cases, including two related to his attempt to overturn the election. He separately owes over half a billion dollars in legal penalties after losing two civil cases related to business fraud and an alleged sexual assault. Yet, as I mentioned, he is currently leading in the polls over current President Joe Biden, a Democrat who, for blatantly retaliatory reasons, is being investigated by Republicans in Congress for unsubstantiated allegations of taking bribes related to his drug-addicted son’s foreign business dealings. It is not difficult to understand how discussion of policy can be drowned out by the more inflammatory circumstances surrounding a race.
Thinking I was at the end of the chaos surrounding the election, I fell down another rabbit hole after learning of Karim Wade, the son of former President Abdoulaye Wade. President Wade left office in 2012 when he was defeated by President Sall. That election, must like this year’s, was shrouded in controversy because of Wade’s attempt to win an unprecedented and possibly unconstitutional third term. He was ultimately defeated handily by Sall, backed by a strong youth movement seeking to reject the apparent corruption and illiberalism of Wade’s administration. 12 years later, Sall found himself in a similar role of inciting the passion and fury of the Senegalese people against a potential authoritarian cling to power. The younger Wade was expected to be one of the main challengers but in another dramatic twist, his candidacy came under jeopardy over his dual citizenship with France. So rather than the two leaders in prison, it was Wade whose eligibility was the initial purported cause of the delayed election. Through a series of legislative and judicial decisions that I do not fully understand, Wade was ultimately ruled ineligible. In his absence, his father has endorsed Faye. So, in a further layer of complexity, the stand-in for Sonko is now also a stand-in for Wade.
Amid the media coverage focused on threats to democracy, political violence, politically-motivated prosecution, bureaucratic machinations, and all the high drama surrounding the candidates and current and former presidents, it has been difficult to learn much about what any of the candidates are advocating for. Though, as an outsider, it has been hard enough for me to understand the multi-dimensional and multi-generational power struggles without adding another layer of local policy debate. Indeed, from the view of a neutral observer, many of the circumstances of this election are much like those of the U.S. presidential election taking place in November. In much the same way, our election coverage is dominated by criminal cases, legislative investigations, courts attempting to disqualify candidates from the ballot, and both sides claiming that the other represents an existential threat to the democratic order and survival of the country. To anyone unfamiliar with the specifics of our politics or system of government, would our election seem any less tumultuous?
Donald Trump, who currently leads in the national polling average, unwillingly left office three years ago amid unfounded claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him. He attempted to cling to power through a series of increasingly hair-brained schemes, culminating in his supporters attacking the U.S. Capitol while he urged his Vice President to overturn the results of the election. In the time since, he has been indicted and faces trial in four separate criminal cases, including two related to his attempt to overturn the election. He separately owes over half a billion dollars in legal penalties after losing two civil cases related to business fraud and an alleged sexual assault. Yet, as I mentioned, he is currently leading in the polls over current President Joe Biden, a Democrat who, for blatantly retaliatory reasons, is being investigated by Republicans in Congress for unsubstantiated allegations of taking bribes related to his drug-addicted son’s foreign business dealings. It is not difficult to understand how discussion of policy can be drowned out by the more inflammatory circumstances surrounding a race.
*****
I went on a walk today in hope that I would see what democracy in action looks like in Senegal. I was surprised to see the streets almost deserted. I have thus far failed to mention that it is the middle of Ramadan, the month of the year when Muslims fast from dawn until sunset. It is a stunning contrast to see the nation nearly dormant during what could be one of the most pivotal elections in its history. Whereas the weeks following the initial postponement were full of massive demonstrations and rallies, such activity is incongruous with the pace of life during this holy month. To my surprise, I have not encountered much protest over the decision of when to reschedule the election. Given that the President must leave office in just two weeks, there may not have been any way to avoid the clash – other than if the original election date of February 24th had been respected. So, my walk through the city was quiet and peaceful. I passed many candidate posters. Some have been defaced, others have started to peel having been asked to outlast their intended period of use. If I hadn’t known better, I would have passed these posters thinking that the election had taken place a month ago and the city had returned to a state of calm in its wake. I will have to wait for the votes to be counted to see if anything changes.
Reflections Ahead of Black Rock Residency
February 2024
In advance of my departure for Senegal, where I will be staying for a month as part of the Black Rock residency program in Dakar, I wanted to reflect on this opportunity. I specifically wanted to write before I left in case something about my approach or perspective is meaningfully changed by my time in Senegal.
*****
In my last term as an undergraduate, I took a class on African Diaspora Literature. As I have been preparing to go to Dakar, I have found myself returning to a central theme of the class regarding the relationship, in both reality and our imagination, between black Americans and black Africans and their shared and divergent histories. Central to this topic is the role of the slave trade but also subsequent developments spanning colonialism, migration and economic development, justice movements, political Pan-Africanism, and more. There are no simple narratives, nor is there a coherent vision that can adequately incapsulate the commonalities and differences in what it means to be black in the context of the African diaspora. Readings for the class included Yaa Gyasi’s novel Homegoing, Saidiya Hartman’s Lose Your Mother, Maya Angelou’s memoire, All God’s Children Need Traveling Shoes, about her time in Ghana, essays by Frantz Fanon, among other political texts, poetry, and film. As is the case with much of the reading I did in college, I have a far from perfect recall of this material. However, the class stands out as one whose material and discussions have remained imprinted in my mind since graduation.
In the time since I was a student, in large part due to my life as a black artist, I have engaged on a more personal level with many of the issues surrounding my place in and thoughts on the wider African diaspora. It is no small thing that my first significant exhibition was the 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair in Harlem in 2022, followed by another edition of the fair in Marrakech in early 2023. Particularly in Marrakech, I had several conversations with fair attendees and participants who were either unsure of, or resistant to the idea of black Americans being included in this celebration of African art. In an interview with a European media platform, I was asked about my specific familial connection to Africa to which I responded very matter-of-factly that through my father’s side of the family I am the descendant of slaves who were brought to North America from West Africa, but that otherwise I had no direct connection to the continent.
In the time since I was a student, in large part due to my life as a black artist, I have engaged on a more personal level with many of the issues surrounding my place in and thoughts on the wider African diaspora. It is no small thing that my first significant exhibition was the 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair in Harlem in 2022, followed by another edition of the fair in Marrakech in early 2023. Particularly in Marrakech, I had several conversations with fair attendees and participants who were either unsure of, or resistant to the idea of black Americans being included in this celebration of African art. In an interview with a European media platform, I was asked about my specific familial connection to Africa to which I responded very matter-of-factly that through my father’s side of the family I am the descendant of slaves who were brought to North America from West Africa, but that otherwise I had no direct connection to the continent.
*****
When I arrive in Senegal it will be my first time in sub-Saharan Africa. As far as I know, it will be the first time anyone in my family has been to West Africa since my ancestors were forcibly brought to America, however many centuries ago. I imagine this would not be uncommon for most black Americans visiting their place of origin. The very idea in our cultural imagination of Africa as the spiritual “homeland” of black American descendants of slaves seems rarely to inspire many to make the journey—although it must be said that not all are fortunate enough to have the resources to make such a trip if they wanted to. Save for past quasi-colonial projects like the establishment of communities of black Americans in Liberia in the nineteenth century, or the small numbers of black Americans that have since emigrated to West Africa (the subject of black Americans moving to Ghana was one of the most interesting in my class), the status of Africa in the minds of black Americans can seem more chimeric than real.
There is, of course, no single or prevailing view of Africa in the collective consciousness of black Americans. On one hand, there is an enduring fascination that can be an immense source of inspiration and empowerment. In one of my favorite musical moments, Kendrick Lamar performed a brilliantly theatrical medley of “The Blacker the Berry” and “Alright” at the 2016 Grammy’s that heavily employed African instrumentation and dancing, and concluded with a borderless map of the continent with “Compton” printed across its center. On the other hand, there can be a sense of superiority among black Americans reflecting the disparate social and economic status between the developed and developing nations. Here I sometimes think about a joke told by Jordan Peele during an introduction of a sketch from the first season of Key & Peele where he says, “Look, slavery was an awful thing . . . All I’m saying, silver lining, it got my ass out of Africa.” While clearly said in jest, it speaks to something that dominates the duality: there may be commonality in our blackness, but black Americas are still Americans, and there is a lot of baggage that comes along with being both subject and citizen of the preeminent global superpower.
There are hardly any new observations to be made about the paradox of being black and American. It is a problem that has been analyzed thoroughly from Fredrick Douglas’ What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?, to W.E.B. Du Bois’ theory of double consciousness, to then-candidate Barack Obama’s A More Perfect Union speech given in the wake of backlash over the anti-American sermons of Obama’s former minister Jeremiah Wright. But for these reflections, I want to include an excerpt from my favorite James Baldwin essay, Stranger in the Village.
There is, of course, no single or prevailing view of Africa in the collective consciousness of black Americans. On one hand, there is an enduring fascination that can be an immense source of inspiration and empowerment. In one of my favorite musical moments, Kendrick Lamar performed a brilliantly theatrical medley of “The Blacker the Berry” and “Alright” at the 2016 Grammy’s that heavily employed African instrumentation and dancing, and concluded with a borderless map of the continent with “Compton” printed across its center. On the other hand, there can be a sense of superiority among black Americans reflecting the disparate social and economic status between the developed and developing nations. Here I sometimes think about a joke told by Jordan Peele during an introduction of a sketch from the first season of Key & Peele where he says, “Look, slavery was an awful thing . . . All I’m saying, silver lining, it got my ass out of Africa.” While clearly said in jest, it speaks to something that dominates the duality: there may be commonality in our blackness, but black Americas are still Americans, and there is a lot of baggage that comes along with being both subject and citizen of the preeminent global superpower.
There are hardly any new observations to be made about the paradox of being black and American. It is a problem that has been analyzed thoroughly from Fredrick Douglas’ What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?, to W.E.B. Du Bois’ theory of double consciousness, to then-candidate Barack Obama’s A More Perfect Union speech given in the wake of backlash over the anti-American sermons of Obama’s former minister Jeremiah Wright. But for these reflections, I want to include an excerpt from my favorite James Baldwin essay, Stranger in the Village.
[The American Negro] is unique among the black men of the world in that his past was taken from him, almost literally, at one blow. One wonders what on earth the first slave found to say to the first dark child he bore. I am told that there are Haitians able to trace their ancestry back to African kings, but any American Negro wishing to go back so far will find his journey through time abruptly arrested by the signature on the bill of sale which served as the entrance paper for his ancestor… It was his necessity, in the words of E. Franklin Frazier, to find a “motive for living under American culture or die.” The identity of the American Negro comes out of this extreme situation[.]
I think there is a place for envy, from a black American’s perspective, of the ownership that black Africans and others in the diaspora have of their own history and culture. While there is an obvious privilege in living in one of the richest and most powerful nations in human history, there is something invaluable in having an unsevered lineage. There are clear parallels between the experiences of Africans under colonization and the struggle of black Americans for freedom and civil rights, but there is also a key difference between the African desire of liberation from an outside force and the black American fight for liberation within a system that is the only one we have ever known.
There is also a risk that as Americans, we may be either arrogant or feel resentment toward black Africans and the role that African kingdoms and merchants played in the slave trade, as if there is still an unpaid balance owed by descendants of African slave traders to the descendants of black slaves. While this can take the form of unproductive invective, there has also been, to be sure, illuminating discussion of the issue. In a 2010 editorial in The New York Times, for example, Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. discussed the role of African slave traders in contemporary discussions over reparations writing, “Advocates of reparations for the descendants of those slaves generally ignore this untidy problem of the significant role that Africans played in the trade, choosing to believe the romanticized version that our ancestors were all kidnapped unawares by evil white men, like Kunta Kinte was in ‘Roots.’” To illustrate the enduring nature of this issue, Gates quotes Fredrick Douglas who stated in 1859, “The savage chiefs of the western coasts of Africa, who for ages have been accustomed to selling their captives into bondage and pocketing the ready cash for them, will not more readily accept our moral and economical ideas than the slave traders of Maryland and Virginia.” So, for centuries there has been this lingering sense that the cleft between black Americans and black Africans was not just an accident of history, or an evil perpetrated by Europe, but rather a crime committed between peoples who now fall precariously under a common identity.
There is also a risk that as Americans, we may be either arrogant or feel resentment toward black Africans and the role that African kingdoms and merchants played in the slave trade, as if there is still an unpaid balance owed by descendants of African slave traders to the descendants of black slaves. While this can take the form of unproductive invective, there has also been, to be sure, illuminating discussion of the issue. In a 2010 editorial in The New York Times, for example, Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. discussed the role of African slave traders in contemporary discussions over reparations writing, “Advocates of reparations for the descendants of those slaves generally ignore this untidy problem of the significant role that Africans played in the trade, choosing to believe the romanticized version that our ancestors were all kidnapped unawares by evil white men, like Kunta Kinte was in ‘Roots.’” To illustrate the enduring nature of this issue, Gates quotes Fredrick Douglas who stated in 1859, “The savage chiefs of the western coasts of Africa, who for ages have been accustomed to selling their captives into bondage and pocketing the ready cash for them, will not more readily accept our moral and economical ideas than the slave traders of Maryland and Virginia.” So, for centuries there has been this lingering sense that the cleft between black Americans and black Africans was not just an accident of history, or an evil perpetrated by Europe, but rather a crime committed between peoples who now fall precariously under a common identity.
*****
Returning to the subject of art, the recent explosion in international interest in black art has brought an entire new dimension to my experience of the relationship between black Americans and black Africans. In many ways, the institutional elevation of black art has been a successful project in the sort of Pan-Africanism that often seems quixotic. Driven in part by the American-led “racial reckoning” following the murder of George Floyd, there has been a genuine international movement to uplift black voices, stories, and histories across many facets of society. This period has included some truly groundbreaking artistic exhibitions, such as the American tour of Afro-Atlantic Histories, a sweeping show that started in Brazil and was adapted and brought to the United States in 2021, with an explicitly Pan-African focus on black art since the seventeenth century. It has also brought immense opportunities to a younger generation of black artists, in addition to delivering overdue institutional recognition to those from previous generations. While there has certainly been a distasteful element of exploitation on the part of those in power and a crass commodification of and profiteering off the work of those black artists, I would still argue that this movement has been a massive net positive.
I have no doubt that whatever success and opportunities I have found so far as an artist are owed in large part to these monumental forces propelling a wider interest in black art. At times, it has been difficult to appreciate fully what I am able to contribute to this moment. My work has never been explicitly about race or racial identity. I think of my paintings as being autobiographical, and as such, the extent to which they deal with topics related to race is determined by how salient those topics are in my self-conception.
I come from a mixed family – my mother was born in Switzerland but moved to the United States as a child and was raised by her Swiss mother and a black American father who was a direct descendant of William and Ellen Craft as well as William Monroe Trotter. My father, as I have mentioned, is a black American descendant of slaves from a family in North Carolina. I grew up in Durham, North Carolina where both of my parents worked (and still work) as law professors at Duke. While growing up I had a vague sense of the richness of my family history, but I lived in a mostly white community and attended mostly white schools. Notwithstanding that, I generally had ethnically diverse social groups with roughly equal numbers of white, Asian, Jewish, and black friends. At times, I succumbed to the immature and conceited temptation of seeing my circumstances as unique or special, and I think that the coherence of my racial identity probably suffered as a result.
My art has always been an exercise in reinvention and identity-forming in ways both public and private. As I have started to exhibit and share my work with a broader audience, I have been challenged to rethink how I perceive and present myself. In this sense, I would say that perhaps my racial identity has been informed by my art more than my art has been informed by my racial identity. Still, I have a hard time honestly articulating the ways in which my work fits into the larger genre of black art. On one hand, it is easy enough to say that black art is simply any art created by black people. But to do so would be to ignore the complex sociopolitical dynamics that both allow for and necessitate the existence of a separate category within art specific to a historically marginalized group.
As I prepare to leave for Black Rock, I am once again set to benefit enormously from the forces propelling the growing power and prominence of the black artistic community. I am unequivocally proud to have some place within this story. I have no desire to find easy answers to any of the questions I have raised here. I suspect that I, and many around the world, will wrestle with the complex and evolving matters of race and identity in perpetuity. The magic of art is that the purest beauty can be created out of questions left unanswered. Our highest calling is to illuminate the ideas that one would be foolish to attempt to put into words. It is the universal experience of the artist to revel in that ambiguity. No matter how concrete the issues we approach, our prerogative will always be to answer in ways that begin, not end, discussion. I am glad to be an artist more than I am glad to be anything else.
I have no doubt that whatever success and opportunities I have found so far as an artist are owed in large part to these monumental forces propelling a wider interest in black art. At times, it has been difficult to appreciate fully what I am able to contribute to this moment. My work has never been explicitly about race or racial identity. I think of my paintings as being autobiographical, and as such, the extent to which they deal with topics related to race is determined by how salient those topics are in my self-conception.
I come from a mixed family – my mother was born in Switzerland but moved to the United States as a child and was raised by her Swiss mother and a black American father who was a direct descendant of William and Ellen Craft as well as William Monroe Trotter. My father, as I have mentioned, is a black American descendant of slaves from a family in North Carolina. I grew up in Durham, North Carolina where both of my parents worked (and still work) as law professors at Duke. While growing up I had a vague sense of the richness of my family history, but I lived in a mostly white community and attended mostly white schools. Notwithstanding that, I generally had ethnically diverse social groups with roughly equal numbers of white, Asian, Jewish, and black friends. At times, I succumbed to the immature and conceited temptation of seeing my circumstances as unique or special, and I think that the coherence of my racial identity probably suffered as a result.
My art has always been an exercise in reinvention and identity-forming in ways both public and private. As I have started to exhibit and share my work with a broader audience, I have been challenged to rethink how I perceive and present myself. In this sense, I would say that perhaps my racial identity has been informed by my art more than my art has been informed by my racial identity. Still, I have a hard time honestly articulating the ways in which my work fits into the larger genre of black art. On one hand, it is easy enough to say that black art is simply any art created by black people. But to do so would be to ignore the complex sociopolitical dynamics that both allow for and necessitate the existence of a separate category within art specific to a historically marginalized group.
As I prepare to leave for Black Rock, I am once again set to benefit enormously from the forces propelling the growing power and prominence of the black artistic community. I am unequivocally proud to have some place within this story. I have no desire to find easy answers to any of the questions I have raised here. I suspect that I, and many around the world, will wrestle with the complex and evolving matters of race and identity in perpetuity. The magic of art is that the purest beauty can be created out of questions left unanswered. Our highest calling is to illuminate the ideas that one would be foolish to attempt to put into words. It is the universal experience of the artist to revel in that ambiguity. No matter how concrete the issues we approach, our prerogative will always be to answer in ways that begin, not end, discussion. I am glad to be an artist more than I am glad to be anything else.