Artist Creates Book of Thirty-Nine Questions for White People

The project is meant to generate a discussion around white privilege.

By Jamilah King Nov 13, 2013

Naima Lowe is a queer black artist based in Washington state whose most recent project is causing quite a stir. She’s created a book called "39 Questions for White People," a collection of simple questions that are meant to generate a discussion around white privilege. Here’s how Lowe describes it:

The deceptively simple text asks complex questions about race and accountability. Each page of this limited edition, forty-page, loose-leaf book, was hand inked and hand typed at a small collectively run print shop in Olympia, WA. This work started as an experiment based in my curiosity about how whiteness is framed and understood by white people. The work of creating the book became an exercise in turning the emotional labor of racism into tangible physical labor. I was able to turn all that pain into an object, which is incredibly strange, but also incredibly freeing.

Questions include: How do you know that you’re white? Do you notice when the last white person leaves the room?

Copies of the book just went on sale and it’s currently on display at The Wing Luke Museum in Seattle as part of their special exhibition "Under My Skin: Artists Explore Race in the 21st Century."