[Tricia Dutton]

The image I chose for this week’s photo share demonstrates some of the ideas discussed in DiAngelo’s piece, “White Fragility.” DiAngelo explains how language is coded for whiteness, i.e. “I want a good school” is nearly synonymous with “I want an all-white school.” On that note, I would like to point out the poster held by the young boy on the far right which reads, “All I want for Christmas is a clean white school.” In this historical instance of a protest against integration in the 1960s, these anti-integration protestors clearly associate whiteness with purity, cleanliness, and qualities of good. Even more, as this is a protest against integration, particularly of schools, these white protestors exhibit white fragility in that they will not feel ‘safe’ if African Americans attend their schools, where in reality they will feel, as DiAngelo explains, racially uncomfortable for the first time. Another important thing to note about this image is that it repeats history. The poster encouraging support for states’ rights harkens back to the arguments of the Civil War in which southern, pro-slavery states used states’ rights as a political argument to mask their immoral claim to defending slavery. Overall, these white protestors demonstrate the reactionary mechanisms commonly acted out by individuals whose white fragility is threatened.

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Date: 1960

Caption: Women protest against integration outside William Franz Elementary School in Louisiana in 1960.

Link: https://psmag.com/social-justice/segregations-constant-gardeners

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[Tricia Dutton]

The image I picked shows a 2017 protest against the Dakota Access Pipeline. I chose this specific image because of the sign in focus that declares “Water is Life” and how this ties into Wolfe’s emphasis on the different ways in which land is life to different communities. He writes, “Land is life—or, at least, land is necessary for life. Thus contests for land can be— indeed, often are—contests for life” (87). Therefore, one of the rhetorics for the #NoDAPL movement is that this is a battle for life. Beyond that, however, this is a battle for a healthy, safe life guaranteed to us by the Declaration of Independence in which “all men are created equal” and they “are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” The idea that protestors against the DAPL, specifically Indigenous communities, believe that land is life, or water is life, is undeniable. The real question, for me at least, is how politicians and those in power can refuse to value that same belief for all communities and human beings.

Photographer: Jim Watson

Credit: AFP/Getty Images

Date: December 2017

Source: https://insideclimatenews.org/news/05122017/dakota-access-pipeline-ruling-standing-rock-emergency-spill-response-plan-keystone

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[Tricia Dutton]

The image I chose for Week 7 shines light on the idea of racial capitalism. Specifically, this image shows the quote, “You can’t have capitalism without racism” by Malcom X on a cardboard sign at a “Mike Brown solidarity vigil/demo.” I chose this image because although the term racial capitalism is new to me, this idea is not. Discussing this concept and real world examples of it in action in our society made me consider the basic fact that our country is founded on racial capitalism. Really, this idea goes hand in hand with our previous discussions on settler colonialism and our most recent talk on the disposability of POC in our society. From the conception of the white America (Christopher Columbus “discovering” North America) to the present day, our government and institutions have deeply embedded racial capitalism in our functioning as a society. Thinking about this history is troubling, but coming up with modern day examples is sincerely disconcerting and I would be interested in having a discussion regarding how racial capitalism impacts police brutality and other forms of discrimination.

“Marxist students from LSE and Goldsmith’s at the Mike Brown solidarity vigil/demo”

Date: 2014

Source: http://marxiststudent.com/you-cant-have-capitalism-without-racism-solidarity-with-michael-brown-and-eric-garner/

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[Tricia Dutton]

The image I chose for this week’s photo share is an illustration depicting one facet of environmental justice. The POC illustrated are standing in front of a home, and one figure had their hand up to the wave about to swallow them up in a way of saying “No. No more of this environmental injustice.” What stands out to me about this image is that POC of all ages are drawn for viewers to visualize the wide impact that disasters have on communities. Even more, the text, “Environmental justice is our cry of defiance against the onslaught of oppressive toxins and toxic oppressions that threaten to submerge our homes,” uses a play on words to express the intersectionality between the environment, particularly natural disasters, and environmental racism. This intersection is further illustrated by the oil drums in the wave.

This image therefore ties into our discussions on Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Maria because those who were most impacted are lower-class POC who are victims at the expense of corporate America. The details incorporated into the illustration depict what we discussed this week from one of the readings: <span style=”font-weight: 400;”>“Environmental justice is also a useful framework for understanding Katrina because it is an integrative approach that refuses a divide between the natural/environmental and the social/racial. </span><span style=”font-weight: 400;”>Environmental justice expands the concept of environment to include public and human health concerns, in addition to natural resources such as air, land and water” (Sze, 2006). </span>

Link: http://www.socialist.ca/node/2332

Year: 2014

Contributor/Source: Anton Cu Unjieng

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[Tricia Dutton]

The image I chose for this week’s theme “Segregation and Its Hazards,” shows young students protesting at a climate rally in San Francisco earlier this year. I chose this image because one thing that stood out to me from the three articles we read for Friday was the fact that children are being unfairly trapped in hazardous environments at the hands of politicians. Another piece of frustration for me was the fact that the articles failed to mention sufficient information regarding the activism on behalf of the victims – the students – in addressing the matter that directly impacts them.

I felt as if the articles underestimated the power and voices of the students, perhaps because they focused on kids in elementary school. Yet, as we see in this image, younger generations are politically engaged in this debate and are not ignorant of the hazards they are forcefully exposed to by attending schools in highly polluted areas.

Source: AP

Article: https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/us-government-can-be-sued-by-children-over-climate-change-court-20180308-p4z3cj.html

Author: Jonathan Stempel

Date: March 2018

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[Tricia Dutton]

I chose this political cartoon by Walt Handelsman (2000) because it ties into our conversation in class regarding reparations, the Confederate flag, and the rewriting of history. One of the biggest arguments regarding preserving the Confederate flag is the sense of pride tied to it in Southern history. Yet, as my peer mentioned in class, this argument is antithetical because the South was fighting against the U.S. Even more, Southerners were fighting to maintain the system of slavery.

These facts are the historical context in which this political cartoon is embedded. The sense of ‘pride’ associated with the flag, as expressed by the pot-belly man wearing the Confederate flag on his shirt, is nevertheless still discriminatory towards African Americans because it erases the detriment and horrid torment they faced as a result of this flag.

Therefore, one way the country can make reparations is to discard this flag from public spaces. Even more, the country should acknowledge the true sentiments associated with this flag: discrimination, racism, and false pride.

Source: http://politicaltheatre.tumblr.com/post/122342784618/dj-elevated-poet-confederate-flag-in

Illustrator: Walt Handelsman

Date: 2000

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[Tricia Dutton]

*Warning — nature of language in photo is vulgar and racist*

The photo I chose for the Week 3 photo share is a picture of a racist letter sent anonymously to an Asian American realtor, Winnie Wu, in Vancouver.

The letter reads:

“Open letter to [redacted] and all other asian realtors in our cities.

Ch**ks and g**ks are not welcome or wanted in our neighborhood. You are a singularly ugly race…your appearance, culture, language, your unbridled greed. You have invaded, infested and defaced vancouver with your presence, systematically spreading uninvited into it’s neighboring cities, including Coquitlam and beyond, like a sea of marauding ants. The citizens who belong here, who were here long before you people pushed your way in, have no use for you. There is hatred beneath the surface. Believe it.. We are merely being ‘politically correct.’ This letter reflects the real opinion of the majority.

We don’t want ’empty’ houses in our neighborhood such as the one on [redacted]. Some offshore ch***k probably bought it and has no intention of living in it. You should tell your client that letting a house sit vacant leaves it open to vandalism.”

I chose this image because not only is it a very recent example of tactics used to reinforce segregation as discussed in American Apartheid but it is also an example which reflects the extreme realities of racism persisting in the perceptions of the relationship between race and space. Specifically, when the anonymous writer says, “The citizens who belong here, who were here long before you people pushed your way in, have no use for you,” he/she is contributing to the tendency of associating land with ownership and power, as well as contributing to this belief that not only is space a source of capital, but so are communities of color (i.e. “…The citizens who belong here…have no use for you.”).

Furthermore, the writer of this hate letter suggests that he/she or the community will vandalize the abandoned house he/she presumes is owned by an Asian American. Again, this is a more violent example of the tactics discussed in American Apartheid that socially and politically dominant communities use to perpetuate the color line in American neighborhoods.

Photographer: Winnie Wu
Date of photograph: 2018

Author/Contributor: Colleen

Date article of source: September 26, 2018

Source: https://mixsociety.com/the-mix-now/racist-hate-mail-sent-to-vancouver-realtor/

 

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[Tricia Dutton]

I chose this image for this week’s theme because it is an explicit example of the racialization of space. Although the image does not capture the ways in which this sign has societal, cultural, and historical impacts, it does portray the brute determination of whites during the time period of segregation to purify their communities and living spaces. Even with systems in place to segregate communities, and even though those systems benefit the white population, whites still felt entitled to voice their opinions in ways that POC are not able to do so because of those very same systems. Adding onto what Lipsitz offers in regards to the racialization of space and the spatialization of race, Wolfe contributes this idea that land is something to be taken over and owned. The white population, in this photo, shows that they are the colonizers taking over land which is not theirs to take and demand ownership of in the first place.

Image Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housing_segregation_in_the_United_States

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