BLACK-IMAGES AFRICAN-AMERICAN IDENTITIES - CORPORATE CULTURAL PROJECTION IN THE SONGS OF MY PEOPLE

By creating a vision of African American progress and success, Songs o f My People, produced by African American editors, masks for its mass audience the organized agency of white racism. The legitimation of a p ositive dominant racial narrative embedded in ''black'' images is the aim of this successful act of ''black'' cultural projection. The publi shed catalogue and exhibition succeeded because of the images' broad p opular appeal to both African Americans who were relieved to be recogn ized as artists and art subjects, and to a mainly European American ma instream audience relieved to see African Americans portrayed as non-t hreatening to whiteness. Time Warner's sponsorship of Songs of My Peop le was implemented by a professional African American cultural agent w hose job it was to provide the funding and infrastructural interface b etween corporate elites, African American artists, and mass markets fo r ''black'' commodities. With the resources made available, that cultu ral agent transformed the simple project of publishing a book of Afric an American photographs into an expansive multimedia display crf globa l scope that became Time Warner's ''black'' cultural projection, a mea ns of accomplishing long-term corporate marketing goals.