[ARIANA HABIBI]

This weeks theme of lyrical representation of segregation immediately think of the rapper, Kendrick Lamar. Kendrick has established himself as an artist that raps in a poetic and purposeful manner. Themes of discrimination and injustice have been a signature to his verses. This excerpt is from his song, “The Blacker the Berry”. He puts a different spin to the positive phrase, “The blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice”. Instead, he says “The blacker the berry, the bigger I shoot” which he uses to demonstrate the tendency of black males to be incriminated in our society. He goes on to mention that he’s “irrelevant to society” and that only a penitentiary would only hire him. He goes on to describe the ways in which his race has predisposed him to threats, danger, and descrimination. He mentions that incarceration is another way he has been kept a slave. The ways in which he uses his voice to speak of his experience and showcase these topics such as mass incarceration and descrimination towards the black population is very powerful and purposeful.

Released on:‎ February 9, 2015
Link to the song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdPtVZDspIY

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[ARIANA HABIBI]

This image shows a white woman, Bella, barefoot in the streets of Brooklyn calling the cops on a woman for standing under the doorway during a rainstorm as she waited for her Uber. The woman, while calling the police described the other woman as “pretty old, heavyset, and wearing jeans that were made for a 20-year-old”. The woman who was being harassed, Darsell, was described as black by Bella when she was actually Hispanic. When the uber arrives, Bella follows the uber as it is driving away and tells the driver that if he drives away he will be “committing a crime as well”, as she details the license plate number to the police. Anyone else would do the same thing if it were pouring rain and they had to wait outside for their ride, however, this woman was flagged as a threat and dangerous enough to call the cops on. This exemplifies the sense of entitelemnt held over a public space. This form of entitlement labels this space as a public space only for the use of whites.

Date: 8/2/18

Video linked here: https://www.theroot.com/video/3549614?utm_medium=sharefromsite&utm_source=The_Root&jwsource=cl

 

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[ARIANA HABIBI]

This image shows ingenious petroglyphs that were carved on a rock in New Mexico’s Ojito Wilderness. The art form is shown to be slowly deteriorating until it will no longer stand anymore. In a way, this is representative of our theme of the week in that once this art is gone, there is no standing memory of those who inhabited the land long before these national parks and spaces were established. Many of romanticize these lands as being a safe place and place to clear our minds, but how could one look at this image and not understand the implications the creation of this space has had on populations?

Source: Bureau of Land Management
Year: 2017

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[ARIANA HABIBI]

The slogan mentioned in this poster means that even though segregation was legally ended, it has taken a new form. Our criminal justice system exploits individuals based on the color of their skin and uses the prison system as a form of racial control. Prior to this weeks discussion, I was never truly aware of the harsh statistics and realities that surround the mass incarceration. I had always thought of prisons as a place that punishes people for crimes like they deserved to be. However, as I start to pay closer attention to trending stories and discussions, I notice that certain populations are punished for doing the same crimes differently based on the color of their skin. This weeks discussion has really opened my eyes to the ways in which prisons are used to segregate people of color, black individuals especially, and deprive them of their rights as an American citizen.

Date: July 26th, 2013

Source: https://newjimcrowgen.wordpress.com/2013/07/26/the-new-jim-crow-generation-who-we-are/

 

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[ARIANA HABIBI]

This image shows a group of children from the Chiracahua Apache tribe who were attending the Carlisle Indian School. This school was the first boarding school off of the reservation. As described in class, these students were forced into these schools in order to assimilate indigenous children into the American society. The school’s degrading slogan is “To civilize the Indian, get him into civilization. To keep him civilized, let him stay.” These children were often assigned new names and were oftentimes abused both physically and mentally by their “educators”. How could one possibly assimilate in such an antagonizing and prejudiced environment?

Image taken from: the National Archives

Date: 1886

 

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[ARIANA HABIBI]

 

<span style=”font-weight: 400;”>This image below shows a member of the Nation of Islam protesting at an NAACP rally in Harlem. His poster reads, “Integration no! Separation yes!”. As discussed in class, members of the NOI believed that separation was the only true solution. Prior to our discussion around the Baldwin piece, I was confused as to why separation was such a major belief/desire held by the NOI’s members and thought it to be too radical. However, I became aware of the brutal circumstances and systems that repeatedly have segregated black individuals. I understand that it seems reasonable to want to be separated from a society who has consistently shown time and time again that they are not capable of truly integrating people different from them into their society, and therefore the idea of separation became much less radical to me than before. </span>

 

<span style=”font-weight: 400;”>Date: 1961</span>

<span style=”font-weight: 400;”>Source: NAACP collection, Library of Congress</span>

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[ARIANA HABIBI]

The image shown below depicts the sharp racial division in Hartford, Connecticut as proven from data from the 2010 census. As we discussed in class this week, often times groups of people are often divided racially by highways, bridges, or even just by the road in between the two sides of the sidewalk. This image shows the stark differences in racial demographic in the city. The railroad is what separates the two populations. This division has been engraved into these cities through systematic racism and residential segregation with little chance of escape.

 

Source: U-Va. Cooper Center analysis of 2010 Census data

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[ARIANA HABIBI]

I remember being in grade school and learning how to sing “This Land is My Land”, completely oblivious to the whitewashing of history that was taking place at such a young age. After discussing the concept of space in relation to race, we have concluded that, in fact, this land never truly belonged to any of us. Then why are we so quick to become territorial and create exclusionary policies in order to “protect” territory that was never even ours to “protect” in the first place? This image was released by the Radical Indigenous Survivance and Empowerment, also known as R.I.S.E. The image’s powerful message is shown over a map of indigenous territories.

Date: July 15, 2015

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[ARIANA HABIBI]

While discussing the idea of white space and the “trespassing” of this space, I learned what white space actually entailed. These were the spaces that were predominantly exclusionary to people of color. If someone of a different background ever dared to try to access these same amenities, they were seen as trespassers. This image shows a once public pool in Cairo, Illinois being switched into a “private pool” in order to keep the space white. Until our discussion regarding the stigma around black individuals and swimming pools, I never really understood how such laws still had such a lasting impact on those who access these same amenities today.

Date: June 18, 1964

Source: Danny Lyon/Library of Congress

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[ARIANA HABIBI]

The image that I chose shows the burning of the Oceti Sakowin camp in response to the pipeline near Cannon Ball and the following eviction of the people of the camp. I first stumbled upon this photo on Tumblr blog that was that was devoted to informing the public about what is actually going on in the Standing Rock camps. They described the burning of property in this photo to be was a sign of respect for the sacredness of the land. It was explained that by lighting their own land on fire, it was their way of making it so that these structures would die in dignity. However, another site, the one listed below, describes this same photo however with a different description, “Protesters calling themselves ‘water protectors’ have rallied against plans to route the Dakota Access Pipeline…”. Same photo, different authors, very different connotations. In this article, the water protectors are being shown as outlaws and those who are inticing violence. However, the true perpetrators of violence upon the people and the land are truly those who are associated with/responsible for the construction of the pipeline.

Date: February 22, 2017

Source: Terray Sylvester

https://thewire.in/world/dakota-pipeline-protest-camp-empty

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[ARIANA HABIBI]

I found this cartoon that I stumbled on while looking into prison labor. The cartoon shows a prisoner with a shirt that prints “slave labor”. This relates to what we discussed in class about how prisoners are being paid only a dollar a day to fight these deadly fires. Some of these prisoners are not even responsible for committing serious crimes either. However, these people with power determine whose lives are deemed to be important and whose are not. But what determines power? Money? Race? This image summarizes the many different ways capitalism has benefited from the exploitation of individuals

Christopher Zoukis

June 2018

Source: http://www.citizensforcriminaljustice.net/prison-labor-positive-programming-or-modern-day-slavery-the-answer-is-plain-slavery-kra/

 

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[ARIANA HABIBI]

A fire is occurring near my friend’s school, so classes were canceled until after Thanksgiving break. I decided to look up the status on the fire and stumbled across this photo. This image, which was just taken yesterday, shows cars that seem as they were abandoned by their drivers as they were trying to escape the fire in Butte County. The first thing that came to my mind was what we discussed in class, the ability for one to escape a natural disaster. Many individuals do not have a means of transportation to escape. When looking at the ruins of the cars and homes in these photographs, I thought, “What happened to those who did not have a car or someone that could help them escape?”. Like any other natural disaster this fire, and many others that are occurring in California at this time, have displaced so many from their homes.

Source: https://abc11.com/weather/photos-camp-fire-burns-through-northern-california/4654029/#gallery-3

Photographer: Rich Pedroncelli

Date: November 9, 2018

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[ARIANA HABIBI]

This is an image taken at the New Orleans Public Housing Protest. The protest was incited after many families were displaced out of their homes by large corporate developers. This relates to our recent discourse on zoning. The kind of zoning that these individuals were protesting against was exclusionary zoning. In order to limit minority housing options, racially restrictive zoning has changed shapes into exclusionary zoning. The argument of what is deemed to be “proper land use” by people in power, as protested in this photograph, is what left these families without a home.

 

Photographer: Culture: Subculture Photography

Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/culturesubculture/325861311

Date: June 17, 2006

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[ARIANA HABIBI]

This image shows a group of Caucasian students reaction to the integration of their high school in Alabama. They are described to be cursing at the new students, instead of welcoming them. This was taken on the first day that their school was desegregated. This correlates with what we were discussing in class that even though racial segregation was ended on a federal scale over sixty years ago, it is still a dominant feature in our society today. Whether it is subliminal or plain outright like the photo here, the segregation and hatred has never seemed to vanish. As mentioned in class, communities are still segregated, maybe not through direct federal rules, but indirect tactics that are used to create a gap rather than bridging that gap.

Source: https://www.vintag.es/2015/01/white-high-school-students-cursing.html

Photographer: Flip Schulke

Date: 1963

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[ARIANA HABIBI]

This image shows a community along a river bank in Jakarta, Indonesia. Above this community towers the skyscrapers of the city, but the area itself is composed of scraps of metals and cloths.  The president of Indonesia once promised to end the gap of wealth in his country, yet this image is just another example of the wealth disparity in the world we live in. This community is no different than the ones we discussed in class this week such as the South Bronx, both in the past and current day. The government has neglected the needs of these poverty-stricken areas and instead, continued to improve the areas that are not in any need.

Photographer: Bay Ismoyo

Date: 2014

Source: https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/01/17/510271789/gulf-between-richest-and-poorest-is-wider-than-previously-thought-oxfam-says?utm_source=tumblr.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=20170118?utm_source=tumblr.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=20170118

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