"The 'King' and a 'Subject'"

It's been nearly 40 years since Dr. Martin Luther King was

asassinated, and he has become an 'icon' for Black America. Here his

likeness is shown in South Central Los Angeles with a natural member

of his 'constituency'. Your ratings and critiques are invited and

most welcome. If you rate harshly or very critically, please submit

a helpful and constructive comment. Please share your superior

photographic knowledge to help improve my photography. Thanks!

Enjoy! John

Due to a mixup in uploads, the original had feet slightly cut off, and that has been corrected.

Please refresh your browser if the feet of the man walking appear to be cut off.

I apologize for the error.

John (Crosley)

Copyright Notice: This image is copyright 2007, John Crosley, All Rights Reserved.

Thank you very much.

I have recently spent considerable time in South Central L.A. during 'lax' times while I was in the area -- mostly from my car, but sometimes 'up close' (and personal) out on the street.

I didn't want to add this to the Request for Critique, but one wonders what this young man's chances are of ending up incarcerated (or that he already has been).

High rates of black imprisonment are a sad commentary on our society and of the continual oppression of Blacks in our society.

One radio commentator I listen to routinely says 'slavery ended in the 1860s' and dismisses claims of effects of slavery, but in fact it didn't.

The 13th and 14th Amendments were passed in part because of the need to rid 'colored', Negro or Black people (depending on when you grew up and how you felt about them), of what are called the 'badges and incidents of slavery' -- which is in fact discrimination, expressed after the Civil War was lost by the South as Jim Crow laws, designed to oppress Blacks. Hangings of blacks once were commen, often for imagined ills.

And discrimination is what held the South in the Democratic Party, with Dixiecrats (southern Democratic segregationists) having a big say in the party until Lyndon Baynes Johnson pushed through the Civil Rights Act . . . at which time he said he had 'lost the South' for his party, the Democrats.

And he was right.

A 'badge and incident of slavery' (Jim Crow laws, included and official segregation) was official state and US policy until after World War II, and even since Brown vs. Board of Education (and related cases decided by the Supreme Court at the same time until recently), Blacks have labored under efforts to forestall their social, work and political progress.

Much of open discriminatin has disappeared because of the Civil Rights Act and related laws, but many white people (and Koreans, Chinese, Japanese and even some Mexicans) still regard Black people as somehow to be treated as inferiors.

Yet the dominant Black youth culture fosters a bad concept of Black Americans by glorifying imprisonment, thuggery and in general 'bad behavior' with many youths now seeing imprisonment and law breaking as a 'badge of honor' -- something to be glorified.

So, is this guy the class valeditorian, or has he been or is he headed to incarceration -- which afflicts a huge and disproporationate number of black youths and young adult males, especially?

I was stopped the other day for 'speeding' but really the cop wanted to get a look at me, then he waved me on, without ticket.

Would he have treated a Black youth or young adult with the same deference. I doubt it, although the (white) cop ultimately would have denied it. Blacks get stopped disproporationately, but their bad behavior, demeanor, and glorification of illegal things (and participation in them), means they will keep the statistics against them.

It's a vicious cycle. In the times of segregation, interestingly, Black culture was more cohesive (and more conservative) (before World War II), and now with their newer independence and (on paper) equality, many youths glorify what the elders should be forbidding.

It's a very sad commentary, and means our prisons will continue to be filled disproportionately with young black males (as they enter prison, then continuing as prison populations 'gray'); and the white cop who stopped me and 'let me go' without even a warning, after looking me over, I can bet he wouldn't have given the same break to a Black man.

Discrimination lives in this time of paper equality, but the majority of Black youths are not on the ascendancy.

It's a time when Barack Obama, (who was not a slave descendant) can run for President of the United States and be seen by many as a role model, but if many think 'Black youth' they tend to think 'thug culture'.

Oh what a dilemma . . . .

No one is winning either, (except certain record labels and music promotors) . . .

(Yes, there is substance to this photo -- it inspires thoughts along this line for me and I think for many people).

(By the way, I used to tutor in Harlem during university days. Things were pretty awful in the Black ghetto then, and somewhat improving now, at least in Harlem.)

John (Crosley)

This image speaks volumes all on it's own.

Not that your commentary isn't of interest John, but it does distract from the image.

And unless you were pulled over and not ticketed while making this photograph, the incident is entirely irrelevant to the image.

Cheers.

I'm glad you liked the image (or at least so it appears).

My response was in reply to the comment next above, which suggested that this photo was thought provoking -- those were my thoughts.

Whether or not it detracts from the image (for you) is of course personal to you; many times I am congratulated when I put down my thoughts, whether or not they 'add' to the image or not -- people often tell me they find them quite interesting.

And, of course, one does not have to read them or can stop anytime one finds them 'distracting'. It isn't required reading and there will be no 'pop quiz' and it's not part of required reading material for which mastery is required.

It doees explain the context in which this photo was taken, and the experience of the photographer -- including the political/sociological leanings, which possibly you differ with.

But, I agree, it's quite discursive, and certainly NOT required reading, but still I get so many who are interested in my commentaries, I am loathe to stop doing them because of one objection, however well taken from your point of view.

(You pays your money and takes your chances in life -- and in doing anything . . . and certainly not everyone will like everything. I have found that in photos featuring 'Black' people, they tend to score quite a bit lower than photos of others who are not decidedly Black and part of the Black culture to the point where in another photo my comment was that rascism blocked good scoring. You might look at that photo (portrait of a Black guy lighting a cigar stub which I thought was quite good, but raters severely downrated, but for my money one of my best portraits. And, in other countries, rascism is sometimes not 'hidden' -- like for instance in Russia and Ukraine where there is little semblance of 'political correctness' about what one 'should' and 'shouldn't say' about race, so rascism is quite open -- especially in Russia)

I respect your view . . . and will be guided, but for now I'm not going to change my practice. (and whether discretionary police stops are tilted against black people goes to the heart of the Civil Rights struggle . . . in my view.

This photo was motivated in part by my trips to a semi-urban ghetto famous for its riots (Watts -- South Central), and to form my own fresh views of it and its great expanses.

In essence, this photo was an attempt at distillation of the entire subject of continuing Black separateness in a time of seeming Civil Rights equality, and in that regard does indeed 'speak volumes' as you have written. I am glad it touched you. (Others, in foreign lands, may not have your personal lifetime experience with such things, and for them a little background does not hurt their understanding of this image.)

John (Crosley)