The N-Word of God, a new book by the artist Mark Doox, is going to freak people out. …

In this unsubtle age people are going to think this is Doox’s own philosophy, and conservatives who know nothing about art (most of them) are going to give awful takes, but Doox is obviously offering a commentary on racism. The pseudo-religious tone of the language and its similarity to crank literature, with its absolute self-assurance, bold words and exclamation points, is obvious satire. The N-Word of God opens with a famous quote from W.E.B. Dubois about the “double consciousness” that black people have. They’re aware not only of themselves and their culture but the culture if whites, which for a lot of our history had been lethal to blacks.

This is the best kind of political art, ingenious, tasteless, bold and fearless. It’s like something you would’ve seen in the much less sensitive 1980s.

[Probably not my cup of tea, but I do get the satirical nature of this effort. Be sure to read it all, but it recalls to me the subplot in ‘Ghost World’ regarding Seymour’s artistic collection of similar commercial iconography. Sometimes, context just doesn’t overcome revulsion. — Ed]