Politics, Race and Cartoons November 24, 2025

Conversation Overview 

In a climate plagued by what might be perceived as “culture wars,” books are banned, art and historical artifacts rejected, and performing artists canceled. America’s First Amendment rights are being challenged. Will artistic expression shift? Will art institutions fold? Can history be erased? Is this the dawn of massive censorship?

Join us for Messy Conversations as we explore these and other hard questions faced in this moment. David G. Brown, cartoonist for the Los Angeles Sentinel newspaper, will be in conversation with visual artist Mark Steven Greenfield, sharing how their work might be affected.

Facilitated by Messy Conversations team member Clarence R. Williams, this discussion will surely demonstrate how race and politics inform art and culture.

David G. Brown- David G. Brown is an award-winning, Artist, Educator and Publisher. He is a nationally recognized, political cartoonist, who also produces graphic novels and comic books with positive messages for others. Brown is a former Career Technical Education (CTE) instructor of Arts, Media and Entertainment for the Los Angeles Unified School District and also taught Cartooning for the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts).

He is currently the political cartoonist for the Los Angeles Sentinel newspaper and featured contributor to the Washington Post and San Francisco Bay View newspapers. In 2009 he was awarded a NAACP Image Award for his political humor book “Barack, Race and the Media: Drawing my own Conclusions” The book is a collection of inspiring, yet humorous cartoons highlighting the historical Presidential campaign and election of Barack Obama the first African American President of the United States.

His versatility as a commercial artist and designer has produced excellence in other areas including multi-media and illustration through his promotional work for clients including Los Angeles World Airports, Automobile Club of Southern California. Warner Bros., City of Los Angeles, Wells Fargo Bank, California African American Museum, ABC-TV and others.

 Mark Steven Greenfield - A native Angeleno, Mark Steven Greenfield studied under Charles White and John Riddle at Otis Art Institute in a program sponsored by the Golden State Life Insurance Company. He went on to receive his Bachelor’s degree in Art Education in 1973 from California State University, Long Beach.  To support his ability to make his art, he held various positions as a visual display artist, a park director, a graphic design instructor and a police artist before returning to school, graduating with Master of Fine Arts degree in painting and drawing from California State University, Los Angeles in 1987. From 1993 through 2010 he was an arts administrator for the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs; first as the director of the Watts Towers Arts Center and the Towers of Simon Rodia and later as the director of the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery.   In 1998 he served as the Head of the U. S. delegation to the World Cup Cultural Festival in Paris, France and in 2002 he was part of the Getty Visiting Scholars program. He has served on the boards of the Downtown Arts Development Association, the Korean American Museum, and The Armory Center for the Arts , and was past president of the Los Angeles Art Association/Gallery 825 . He currently serves on the boards of Side Street Projects, The Harpo Foundation and Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions. 

Greenfield’s work has been exhibited extensively throughout the United States most notably at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia, the Wignall Museum of Contemporary Art, the Monterey Museum of Art, the Museum of art and History and the California African American Museum.  Internationally he has exhibited in Thailand at the Chiang Mai Art Museum, in Naples, Italy at Art 1307, Villa Donato , the Gang Dong Art Center in Seoul, South Korea and the Blue Roof Museum in Chengdu, PRC.  He is represented by the Ricco Maresca Gallery in New York and the William Turner Gallery in Santa Monica, California. His work deals primarily with the African American experience and in recent years has focused on the effects of stereotypes on American culture stimulating much-needed and long overdue dialog on issues of race. He is a recipient of the L.A. Artcore Crystal Award (2006), Los Angeles Artist Laboratory Fellowship Grant (2011), the City of Los Angeles Individual Artist Fellowship (COLA 2012), The California Community Foundation Artist Fellowship (2012),  the Instituto Sacatar Artist Residency in Salvador, Brazil (2013) , the McColl Center for Art + Innovation Residency in 2016 and the Loghaven Artist Residency (2021). He was a visiting professor at the California Institute of the Arts in 2013 ,  and was artist-in-residence at California State University, Los Angeles in 2016.