I’m not really the type of person who likes to fly off the handle without any context but…there is basically no context that would make this ok. This isn’t a penis cake at a bachelorette party.
This cake was part of a “installation” at the Modern Art museum in Stockholm. The supposed purpose of the piece is to highlight the plight of female circumcision. The woman cutting the cake is Lena Adelsohn Liljeroth, the Minister of Culture and sports in Sweden. The artist is Makode Aj Linde, and in a special added bonus, thats his head at the top of the cake. Not a model of his head. THATS HIM.
From the artists Facebook page:
“Before cutting me up she whispered, ‘Your life will be better after this’.”
Mmm hmmm.
So we’ve got a male artist making a piece of “art” that is supposed to highlight an injustice pushed upon many African women and girls…and then a bunch of white people laugh and have a goddamn awesome time while cutting into it. Everyone around is laughing and drinking and having a jolly good time. Yeah, I really get the impression that Liljeroth really gets their pain, don’t you?
But wait, there’s more:
the culture minister began cutting a large cake shaped like a black woman, symbolically starting at the clitoris.
Yes, because a stereotypical depiction of a black woman isn’t quite bad enough, they had to…mutilate the “genitals” of the creation….to demonstrate how horribad genital mutilation is? Really gotta drive the point home I guess.
In addition to the tumblr posts about the subject, I found these articles that further explain the participants and shows video as to what was going on, including how the artist “screams” every time someone cuts the cake…much to the delight of everyone around.
Not for the weak of hearts, my friends.
Are we human to anyone? Do our bodies belong to us at all? Are black women only here to be consumed & destroyed?
— Mikki Kendall (@Karnythia) April 17, 2012
For those of my readers who aren’t quite as familiar with some of this gross history of using the bodies of black women in these and other horrible ways, please read up on Sara Baartman/Hottentot Venus, who was enslaved and exhibited as a side show freak. Follow that up with learning about Henrieta Lacks, including the book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot.
shikagoland 
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