Not Always Black or White
The first photograph I chose was Pat Ward Williams’ Accused/Blowtorch/Padlock 1986. There is a lot to look at in this image. The artist places four photos of what looks to be a black man tied to a tree in the center with her random thoughts surrounding the photographs. The subject of the photographs seems to be suffering a great deal with the way his body is twisted. You cannot see the subject’s face to determine how he is feeling or reacting to what is being done to him. There are a lot of unanswered questions and the author seems to be spilling out all her thoughts on the area surrounding the photos. Some words are large, some small, and some are in cursive. You can follow the artist’s thoughts about the photos by her words. Looking at this image, I felt frustrated because I had too many questions and no answers. There is no focus or setting, just disorganization. I think this was the artist’s intention. I think she wanted you to feel uneasy because the photos were of a black man being lynched. She did not want you to feel comfortable looking at these photos. She wants you to ask questions and have them be unanswered. She wants you to feel disturbed and unsettled, which is how you should feel when you look at someone being lynched. Many whites did not think twice when they saw a photo of a lynching. They collected these photographs like one would collect baseball cards and that is the truly disturbing part. This was their way of “keeping blacks in their place.” Benshoff and Griffith define lynching as the “mob torture and murder of an individual, often by hanging; historically used by white people to terrorize non-white communities.” (p. 421) I believe Williams is trying to tell us that being so nonchalant about lynching is twisted and is trying to make us feel anything but content with Accused/Blowtorch/Padlock.
The second image I chose was Vivian Cherry’s Untitled from “The Game of Lynching, Yorkville, East Harlem” 1947. The image is of a young African American boy standing up against a wall covered in graffiti. There is a line painted on the wall and the boy is standing under it and posing as if he were being lynched. This photograph was taken around the time that lynching images were being circulated around the United States. It is strange to think that a young Northern male would know what lynching was. It is stranger to think that he would want to act it out. The boy probably does not understand the meaning behind lynching but saw a photograph of a black person being lynched. As the title suggests, maybe the boy thought it was a game because he saw the circulated photographs so much. Whites saw lynching as sort of a game and form of entertainment, not as cruel and unusual punishment. African Americans were seen as the “others” and were treated as such. They were seen as inferior and lynching photographs were circulated to “put them in their place” and to show them where they belonged in American society. Cherry’s image, to me, represents a young African American finding his “place” in society. He has been shown and possibly told that if he steps out of that place there will be consequences. This image represents him trying to possibly fit into the niche made for him by whites in America. He seems like he has given in to this idea and is saying “you do not have to lynch me, I will do it myself.” It is a really depressing idea, but African Americans probably thought there was no hope for them during this time, especially when lynching images were circulated throughout America. They thought it would be easier for them to play this “game” that white Americans were playing and “staying in their place.”
