I RECENTLY directed a music video where I became a white woman, dressed with white make-up, blue contacts and a prosthetic nose. As the video develops I wipe of my white mask and reveal myself as a proud black woman.

My video is based on the subject of dual consciousness, a concept created by Doctor Franz Fanon who spoke about how black people often put on a white mask in order to feel accepted and cope in a society mainly catered to white people. Throughout this process of compromise there is a sacrifice of the identity and a process of self-hate that often swarms our community.

There has been a lot of support towards my music video but it's interesting hearing some of the opposing arguments where people have accused me of being racist for whitening up, and that if it was the other way round; a white woman blacking up, the video would be banned.

It's a tough premise understanding the in-balance of white and black conciseness and how it affects us today. It's almost impossible for a white person to try and understand the black experience. I would almost compare it to a shark trying to understand how it must feel like to walk on land. It's a completely different state of being. Growing up in a society where everything white is deemed positive and most things black are deemed negative is like swimming in water with a strong tide against the wind. You have to swim harder.

How can a black person whitening up be seen to be racist? Blackface is associated to a history of derogatory negative images. Black people could not grace the stages of theatre and movies etc, so white people would dress up as black people and act with negative, docile behaviourism's. Dressing up as a white woman can have no racist implications because there is no history of negativity associated it. A white face serves as a political statement that the white mask is a representation of the oppression suffered. Black people have been made into the troublemakers, criminals, and wrongdoers for too long. We however, have been the victims, but through the guilt of the perpetrator or the oppressor, we have become accustomed to it being flipped around in the name of the shame felt by their own ignorance. No more.

Taking off the mask

This premise of this black and white construct has had a huge effect on the black identity and our self-esteem and its sad to know this psychological state still exists in some of us. Bleaching our skin, wearing European hair, being told your more beautiful if your lighter skinned, rejecting our blackness and feeling we should be whiter to be better.

The white mask in my music video is a political statement. It represents how we need to move forward. It defies the remedy that denying our history or forgetting the pain caused is the way forward. We are often encouraged to take the chip of our shoulder and embrace the modern world. Some encourage us to forget because they have painfully naive perspectives making them completely unaware of the real in-balance. They live in a world that serves them and assume that this world serves everyone with the same silver spoon.

Education is the key and cultural enlightenment is a beautiful thing. When one can understand another mans history they can truly understand the solutions and answers to another mans future. Ignorance prevents empathy and understanding and without these powerful concepts embraced it makes a truly multicultural future seems bleak.

However, the blame is not only served towards the ignorant and the self-hating. Its more than just taking of a white mask and embracing how beautiful we are within ourselves. The psychological consequences of our compromised identities have affected us seeing how beautiful we are together. With all the knowledge in the world there will be no real change without solidarity within our own community.

Watch Sacrifice below:

What kind of world do we want to live in? A world where these articles do not need to be written anymore? I would hope so. I say this message clear: To all those who accused me of being racist, unfortunately this ignorance doesn’t lead to any kind of progression. To those who said that the message in the music video was redundant, this doesn’t help either, as redundant is the opposite of what it is as Issues of inequality still exist to this day.

We can’t and should not ignore the oppression and truth that have existed for centuries and still exists today. We should be able to have an open debate, black, white, pink and green without fear and ignorance.

Lets remove the self-hate, the white guilt and begin to repair with true understanding of where things went wrong. When we can look at these issues with transparency it is then we can truly move forward to a balanced multi-cultural society.

For more information about VV Brown, visit: www.vvbrown.com