- Photo taken by Jason Hoyt
- This photo was taken on January 26, 2012.
- Response written by flickr account user: doing my part to speak
- Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jasonwhoyt/6767893609/
Knowledge of America's long history of Jim Crow apartheid
informs us about the photographer's extra point of having President Obama's
necktie resemble a hanging noose with its knot in a quick death, neck-snapping,
side-of-the-neck position all too familiar to many Negro/Black victims and
their families of white mob lynchings in America throughout its history on into
the 1960's.
Oddly enough, the side-of-the-neck lynching noose knot
position was considered the most humane given that it caused near instantaneous
loss of consciousness and death as spinal nerves were severed and blood flow
cut off.
The alternative was to place the noose's knot at the back of
the neck causing the hanging victim to die a much slower
strangulation-suffocation death as they used their neck muscles to resist their
body's weight pulling their windpipe and blood vessels closed--which of course
it always did.
The situation for the Republican Party in this one
illustration has grown repugnant indeed. Is this what they mean by honoring the
South's heritage?
While a man not afraid to express pleasure through a
respectful smile, President Obama has never made the Sambo[1]/boyish/near
Black-face/minstrel-esque look caricatured here. This photo is very telling of
what Republican Conservatism thinks about our first Black President; And it's
definitely longingly looking back to when Jim Crow and the minstrel circuit
were the prevailing social order and most dominant form of entertainment,
respectively.
____________________________________________________________
Mr. Hoyt,
I'm actually thankful for your posting this picture of these
polymer hand puppets(?). This picture could serve as a poster of a sit-com with
three main characters: Newt Gingrich, the one on the left (their right) being
the serious all-knowing one; Mitt Romney, the one in the middle being a self-doubting
dim-whit; And President Obama, the one on the right (their left) being a
self-deprecating clown. Oddly enough given the temperaments displayed by all
through their actual selves, I don't believe these caricatures accurately
reflect anyone of these for who they are or what they've done mostly in either
their public or private lives.
In earnestness, it would most likely be the caricatured
dim-whit and clown being the clearer of purpose and self-awareness, while the
all-knowing one being not so much of either these traits given his
"baggage" both politically and personally.
Interestingly enough all these men have been effective in
the roles they served in. So in all honesty the imagery created and the message
conveyed through the countenances the artist etched here tell more about the
artist's preferences and "values" than it does about the men
themselves and their predominant predispositions.
The unfortunate thing about the faces is that the one of
President Obama does so much to harken to the second-class status Blacks were
forced to live under in Jim Crow apartheid America, and it does so in such
socially belittling (Sambo smile) and grotesque (lynching noose necktie) ways
that to ignore what it is saying here and now would say more about us, by saying
nothing and acquiescing to its premises, than to point out the obvious, and
actually get past race by out and outright rejecting it.
In all honesty I am working to "get beyond race"
here. If the puppeteer's work had in the first instance not used this medium to
convey what he or she had, then I would not have felt compelled to respond to
it in such a visceral way.
"A
black man with a mulata produce a Sambo", Indian school, 1770.
Description: English: Sambo_1770
Date: 1770
Source:
Photographed at Maison de l'Amerique Latine
Author:
Anonymous Indian, 1770
[1] Sambo
is a racial term for a person with African heritage and, in some countries,
also mixed with Native American heritage. The word "sambo" probably
came into English from the Latin American Spanish word zambo[citation needed],
which in turn may have come from one of three African language sources.
Webster's (Third International Dictionary) holds that it may have come from the
Kongo word nzambu (monkey). Note, though, that the z of (Latin American)
Spanish is pronounced as the English s rather than as the z in the word nzambu.
Another source holds that it is a variant of a Foulah word meaning
"uncle," or a Hausa word for "second son."[citation needed]
The Royal Spanish Academy gives the origin from a Latin word, possibly
"valgus" (adj.)[1] or another modern Spanish term. Both of which
translate to "bow-legged," but still do not explain how this became a
racial term. Zambo is still the Spanish word in Latin America for a person of
mixed African and Native American descent.
OOW
2012
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