discussion questions

In History and Theory, Leigh Raiford highlights lynching images’ evolving purpose throughout history. Initially, they were utilized to reinforce white power and degrade black humanity and worth. However, over time, these same images were employed by anti-lynching organizations to reconstruct “the received narrative of black savagery as one of black vulnerability; white victimization was recast as white terrorism” (Raiford 118).

• Do you think each group successfully achieved the goals they had for reproducing lynching photos (white people’s goal to reaffirm white supremacy, and black people’s goal to reclaim their worth)? Do you think it is morally okay to continue to reproduce these images of violence as a form of activism? Or do you think it desensitizes people and normalizes the act?

On another level, artists, writers, and activists altered lynching photographs to serve different purposes. For example, Emory Douglas collaged a lynching photo to show “a patrilineal descent rooted in the enslaved/lynched black man” (Raiford 122). Moreover, Ken Gonzales-Day’s series Erased Lynching removed the victim from the photograph in order to convey they way “victims and this history have been overlooked and expunged” (Raiford 127).

• Once again, do you think these artists are successful in accomplishing their goals? And again, is it morally okay to reproduce these images of violence?

Julia

A large part of this week's reading is the idea of black men and women as an archetype. For black men, it follows the idea of "the black male rapist/criminal" at the base of black memory and present popular culture. For black women, such archetypes were either docile or completely invisible. In an excerpt from Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments, Saidiya Hartman states, "They never looked wild and wayward or too fast in these pictures." The idea of a free, joyful black woman was never documented other than in the memories of black people. As such, ideas such as these do not exist in the memories of popular culture the way that the negative ones prevail in media.

How does photography shape the perceptions of entire groups of people to the general popular culture, and why does this make black memory and photography so important?

Violet

Both of the readings from this week discuss the use of photography to control the narrative of black people, and how they are meant to fit into American society. The books express how inaccessibility to social and political power has led to the continuation of violence against the black community, , and how this lack of power has created an avenue to "white enjoyment".

In what ways do you recognize how popularized photography reduces black people to 2 dimensional scale, and allows for the furthered oppression of black people? How has this imagery contributed to the implicit biases of today and reinforced them into American society?

Jillian