Luminous Landscape Forum
The Art of Photography => The Coffee Corner => Topic started by: tom b on August 06, 2015, 10:08:07 pm
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Guardian article here (http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/gallery/2015/aug/06/portrait-ferguson-one-year-michael-brown-death).
Cheers,
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That is quite poignant. Thank you for posting the link.
It is a real mash of despair at the system and what seems a pride in how their community has grown stronger because of it.
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Some background about education and segregation:
http://www.propublica.org/article/ferguson-school-segregation
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It seems to show a rather one-sided view point. There seems to be a gap in understanding by these people that it was the community that destroyed the businesses these people complain are no longer around. There are no pictures or comments from the business owners that were forced out of business. Where are the pictures and comments from the people in the community that no longer have jobs because these stores were burned down? Where are the pictures and comments from regular people who lost private property and saw the value of the homes disintegrate? Did the photographer select which pictures where to be shown or was it the paper? Regardless, it presented an incomplete and biased story.
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It seems to show a rather one-sided view point. There seems to be a gap in understanding by these people that it was the community that destroyed the businesses these people complain are no longer around. There are no pictures or comments from the business owners that were forced out of business. Where are the pictures and comments from the people in the community that no longer have jobs because these stores were burned down? Where are the pictures and comments from regular people who lost private property and saw the value of the homes disintegrate? Did the photographer select which pictures where to be shown or was it the paper? Regardless, it presented an incomplete and biased story.
I don't think the article ever intended to be an analysis of the socioeconomy of the area but was looking at it on a more personal level and how people view the world as a result of the shooting rather than the riots themselves and the socioeconomy of the area. The header explains "He photographed the residents, canvassing their views on how Brown’s death had affected them and the changes they’d seen in their community".
Having said that you must have missed two comments:
I felt bad what my community and what the city went through. The chaos disrupted and is still causing disruption [in the community].
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It has been a major inconvenience because the restaurants and businesses we used to frequent were destroyed and we have to go to other communities
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Chaos caused by whom? Major incomveniences caused by whom? The flavor of the article was that these things were caused by others (the police?) (outsiders?) and the damages were inflicted on them, the people the photographer selected. Yet, you don't see photos or comments from many in the community who lost property directly, like the mom and pop shops that were destroyed and the community members that lost their jobs. The OP and the article presents this thread as a "Portrait of Ferguson....." It's distorted photojournalism and a one-sided view of history.
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Trying to reduce these sorts of events to specific causes is a fallacy.
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btw, did Michael Brown steal cigars from a shop or did he not ? and how does unjustified (even unrelated to the theft) shooting of a thief make that thief into a symbol... can't they find somebody else to put on the banners ?
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When you start idolizing petty thugs and villainizing police, this is what happens as an easily foreseeable result: http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/13/us/alabama-birmingham-police-detective-pistol-whipped/index.html
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Just one instance of many of the underlying complexities.
- We have a police force that expects certain classes of citizens to be extremely problematic, and so they are on edge, easily angered, and prone to making errors of judgement (especially after 2 or 3 back to back shifts).
- We have a citizenry that expects cops to be on edge, easily angered, and error-prone, and who are accordingly defensive and problematic in their interactions with police.
Until one or the other side can manage to stand down, this problem isn't going anywhere. Police can be, and are, trained to (essentially) stand down. The term we're using these days is "de-escalation", but there's pretty broad understanding on all sides that they're not trained very much in this.
(and, of course, we have a media that delights in whipping up the problems and making them seem as bad as possible which, given that the problems are largely problems of perception, actually worsens the situation - police successfully arrest poor petty criminals every day without shooting them or beating them to death, and citizens, even poor ones, have pleasant well-mannered and productive interactions with police every day, but you certainly wouldn't know it.)
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...Police can be, and are, trained to (essentially) stand down. The term we're using these days is "de-escalation", but there's pretty broad understanding on all sides that they're not trained very much in this...
Train them all you want, when the other side is trained to escalate.
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- We have a citizenry that expects cops to be on edge, easily angered, and error-prone, and who are accordingly defensive and problematic in their interactions with police.
if I expect a policeman to shoot me - why'd I be trying to provoke ?
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Chaos caused by whom? Major incomveniences caused by whom? The flavor of the article was that these things were caused by others (the police?) (outsiders?)
I never got that impression.
Yet, you don't see photos or comments from many in the community who lost property directly, like the mom and pop shops that were destroyed and the community members that lost their jobs. The OP and the article presents this thread as a "Portrait of Ferguson....." It's distorted photojournalism and a one-sided view of history.
Again, the preamble was explaining how Brown's death affected them; and this would lead into how it changed their views on the world and particularly the police. Obviously parts of it would touch on the aftermath of the riots but the preamble sets the scene for the article. I would say it is more about your expectations of what you wanted the article to be about.
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Technically, it only takes one side to stand down to break the feedback loop.
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Technically, it only takes one side to stand down to break the feedback loop.
Exactly! So that a honest criminal can go about his business unimpeded by the pesky police.
Tried and tested in Baltimore. Crime rate and murders skyrocketed.
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de-escalation is not a method for ceasing policing, it is a set of techniques applied specifically to volatile situations
A simple example is simply being relentless about calling the chap who's not a cop "sir" in a firm but not angry tone. Which is insanely hard to do, but you can learn to do it. As soon as you start shrieking "ON THE GROUND, PUNK" you've lost control of the situation and are actively making things worse.
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And, obviously, it would be awesome if the young men in these poor communities would ALSO stand down, but the government doesn't actually get to directly control them the way they do their employees. Welcome to America, where you are in fact legally allowed to be quite abusive to the police. It's kind of baked in to law, here.
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So, while one one side is asked to fight insanely human impulses, the other side is encouraged to actively resist, question, argue, and/or attack?
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I'm sorry, where was the part about encouraging? It's part of being American, and has been from before 1776, but I'm not sure that counts as anyone specifically encouraging it.
ETA: But yes, the United States was founded by people quite distrustful of Authority and who therefore baked a certain amount of asymmetry into the foundations, favoring the populace. This is because they realized, I think, that the Authorities already have an advantage, and they don't always do good things with it. Therefore, starting the rabble out with some built in advantage is a pretty good idea.
Authority always seeks to balance things the other way, and end game there can get a little ugly.
If you, as a cop, don't like the fact that the poor are allowed to yell at you and be rude, well, I suggest that you go be a cop somewhere else. It's pretty much part of the gig. It's not a fun part, but nobody ever said that being a cop was all fun and games. It's a hard, crappy job.
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I'm sorry, where was the part about encouraging?
From the President, to Mayor Cop-Killer de Blasio, to media.
P.S. Sorry, forgot to add PC nuts
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Gosh, there's a bit of FOX and not much on-the-ground real reporting being spread.
I live in St. Louis about 5 miles from Ferguson. I know people that have lived in Ferguson for some time. Guess what? It is a diverse community of home owners and renters, of employed and unemployed, of young and old, of black and white and mixed-race people. The Guardian photo-essay at least shows some of the diversity. It makes no sense to blame every Ferguson resident for the torching or smash-and-grab stealing at various businesses. It also makes no sense to believe that every vandalism or theft involved a Ferguson resident. If nothing else, having the police concentrated on the crowd means that the small-time criminals can steal and wreck without much risk of immediate arrest - this is an "opportunity" not lost on criminals living across the city line in St. Louis or other communities.
As for Michael Brown being "glorified" or not, to me that isn't the point. He was a stupid 18 year old kid, of which there are many, including many who straighten out and become perfectly ordinary law-abiding citizens once they grow out of the stupid years. In the ideal world, Brown would have suffered the same fate as a white 18 year old boy - land in jail, alive, go on trial, go back to jail. We don't execute people for robbery.We do have laws.
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... As for Michael Brown being "glorified" or not, to me that isn't the point. He was a stupid 18 year old kid, of which there are many, including many who straighten out and become perfectly ordinary law-abiding citizens once they grow out of the stupid years. In the ideal world, Brown would have suffered the same fate as a white 18 year old boy - land in jail, alive, go on trial, go back to jail. We don't execute people for robbery.We do have laws.
You see, Nancy, such twisted narrative is exactly the type of the tacit encouragement I was talking about. The straw-man, the narrative that he was "executed for robbery," or because he was black, not because he attacked a police officer and died in the struggle.
As for "the same fate as a white boy"... you are talking about the following fate, right:
- Zachary Hammond, South Carolina, killed by "no-race" policeman
- Gilbert Collar, Alabama, killed by a black policeman
- Dillon Taylor, Utah, killed by a black policeman
- etc., etc.(easy to google)
In all cases, these were unarmed white boys killed by police for "stupid," minor offenses (prior to allegedly attacking police officers that killed them). There was no national coverage, let alone outrage, and nobody burned cities down.