'Wiggly Chile'

In a minute or two, this girl went from using this check stand separator

for an acrobat's pole to shinnying under a rope chaining off another

check stand next door, she was so full of energy, in contrast

to 'momma' left. 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

This is just a child now.

 

At one time she would have been a 'black child'.

 

Now she's just a child, though maybe mom would disagree.

 

Her momma now can tell her if she's good enough and persistent enough, she can grow up to be President of the United States.

 

Actually it was possible for someone born 47 years, ago, but nobody then believed it.

 

That was a time before I began tutoring children in Harlem -- so isolated and segregated in their ghetto neighborhoods were they, and so full of crime were the neighborhoods in large part because of police neglect ('they're just black people, why should we bother' was the cops' attitude, so they slept in their squad cars in a park under guard -- literally slept - on the job).

 

The black children I tutored in upper Harlem literally scrambled to touch my skin to see if 'white feels different'.

 

Enough said?

 

White does not feel different.

 

Or black.

 

Or any other color.

 

And the blood is always red.

 

Whether spilled on battlefields as it was then in Viet Nam, or now in Iraq.

 

White men once died rather than accept 'Nigra' blood.

 

Those days seem to be past.

 

Forever.

 

The Ku Klux Klan has been bankrupted by lawsuits.

 

Now, with Obama as president, it's up to the blacks (and the laws that help put them there along with social attitudes) to help rid the infectious cycle of despair that glorifies prison life and gang life. (See my photo with the white youth throwing a 'gang sign' -- the West Side gang, now banned at least in San Diego.)

 

This girl's momma now proudly can say 'we have an equal chance'.

 

I fought for that.

 

I checked housing applications with my very white wife, and always got accepted with vacant units that always turned out 'filled' for 'black' applicants of equal credentials who followed us. Landlords got sued and fined.

 

Things changed.

 

We pushed aside impediments, though we never went to Selma or marched across that famous Pettus bridge.

 

There are many ways to skin a cat.

 

Now, daughter can say that there are other battles to win.

 

Like winning a gymnastics championship, for this girl surely has talent and agility.

 

She proved that in just minutes (and a winning way).

 

Godspeed to this girl.

 

America is on the verge of delivering its promise of equal opportunity . . . after all these years.

 

And to the barber my father made me see who said he would refuse to cut black hair . . . .and whose shop was forever filled with patrons' 'Nigger' jokes, your time has passed, long passed and never should have existed, in my view.

 

I knew it then, even as a child.

 

John (Crosley)

Black & white does :-) From the thumbnail I spotted one of your oldies "style" John :-) Real deal :-) A true slice of life.

 

The most famous black person in the 90's selling billion of copies in music said "doesnt matter if your black or white". He turned white ;-)

When I took this, I thought, 'what a fabulous catch', but the raters have set me straight.

 

Still, it's just like you said - my 'oldies style' and I'm proud of it. I'd take a whole portfolio of such photos if I could and never have any shame.

 

And all on a day when I shot nothing and was chiding myself for 'seeing' absolutely nothing -- for being too 'inner driven' to 'look outward', then to see this, (and another with the same child).

 

And about Mr. Jackson, he indeed did 'turn white', all claimed to be a rare ailment, but who knows from the king of kookiness.

 

A problem, I think of too much money from oodles of talent, and not enough personal growth,

 

I like to think I am continually growing; I think others can sense that too.

 

Just look at the variety of things I post and the volume - even its gamut -- from white on white to black on black. (high key to low key and everything in between), with emphasis on 'street' and 'street portraiture'.

 

I like to chronicle my day to day existence through photographs, so a trip to the store, here, becomes a photo expedition. (The unkind clerk was extremely rude to me, not knowing that I had immortalized his customers in a very kind way, and I think not caring anything more than I think that he probably hated his job and maybe hated me because I'm white and I carried a camera.)

 

(Yes, reverse discrimination)

 

We have that to contend with still, too.

 

Sadly.

 

Thanks for the boost, Billy.

 

John (Crosley)

An excellent shot with your words....

 

I'm very impressed...!

 

What can I say... I've no words....

 

Only yet..: with best regards from NL,

 

Ruud.

One good comment from you means far more than five or seven rates from those who have just joined.

 

'Very Impressed' from you is a day I say 'hallelujah!' if I were a believer.

 

I regard this as the epitome of 'street' art -- the 'found' photo just as I experience a one-day drought.

 

Then suddenly, voila, and I'm prepared. Three to four seconds and four captures, and this is the best.

 

Then a string of threes and fours. Alas.

 

Thanks to you (and Billy S. above) for kind words or approbation.

 

Just as I was beginning to feel blue.

 

John (Crosley)

A 7/7?

 

I don't think I've ever received a 7/7 from you.

 

Thanks for viewing and taking the time for rating. That's the highest approval I could hope for (I don't thank for individual rates, as that would be seen as groveling for rates, which you know I don't do. You always are free to rate high or low as you please and from you they always are respected.)

 

John (Crosley)

willing to explain my ratings Will explain mine if asked. I see no reason why this could not have been a good photo. others to their own opinion.