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'YO MAMA' IS A BIGOT
New York City
Arthur C. Danto contends that Renee Cox's Yo Mama's Last Supper is not anti-Catholic and deserves First Amendment protection ["In the Bosom of Jesus," May 28]. He should listen to the artist's own words and then reread the First Amendment. Renee Cox, debating me on CNN and other media outlets, made it clear that her art is designed to attack the Catholic Church. Her claims ranged from "the Catholic Church is all about money...about big business" to "40 percent of the slaveowners in the South were Catholic." As far as the First Amendment is concerned, she has a constitutional right to show her bigoted work. What she doesn't have is a right to the public purse. If taxpayers' money can't be used to further one's religion, how can it logically be permitted to be used to denigrate it?
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About Arthur C. Danto
The Nation's art critic since 1984, Arthur Danto is also Columbia
University's Johnsonian Professor of Philosophy. His numerous book
credits include the 1990 National Book Critics Circle Award winner
Encounters and Reflections: Art in the Historical Present and
The
Madonna of the Future: Essays in a Pluralistic Art World
(2000).
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About Eric Alterman
Eric Alterman is a Distinguished Professor of English, Brooklyn College,
City University of New York, and Professor of Journalism at the CUNY
Graduate School of Journalism. He is also "The Liberal Media" columnist
for The Nation and a fellow of The Nation Institute, a senior fellow at
the Center for American Progress in Washington, DC, where he writes and
edits the "Think Again" column, a senior fellow (since 1985) at the
World Policy Institute . Alterman is also a regular columnist for Moment
magazine and a regular contributor to The Daily Beast. He is the author
of seven books, including the national bestsellers, What Liberal Media?
The Truth About Bias and the News (2003, 2004), and The Book on Bush:
How George W. (Mis)leads America (2004). The others include: When
Presidents Lie: A History of Official Deception and its Consequences,
(2004, 2005). His Sound & Fury: The Making of the Punditocracy (1992,
2000), won the 1992 George Orwell Award and his It Ain't No Sin to be
Glad You're Alive: The Promise of Bruce Springsteen (1999, 2001), won
the 1999 Stephen Crane Literary Award, and Who Speaks for America? Why
Democracy Matters in Foreign Policy, (1998). His most recent book is Why
We're Liberals: A Handbook for Restoring America's Most Important
Ideals (2008, 2009).
more...
About Maria Margaronis
Maria Margaronis writes from
The Nation's London bureau. Some of her translations are forthcoming in
The Greek Poets: Homer to the Present, edited by Peter Constantine, Edmund Keeley, Rachel Hadas and Karen Van Dyck (Norton).
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