American Graffiti: The Social Life Of Segregation Signs

Haleigh Mrs. Berlekamp Honors English Language Arts 1 Mar 1, 2024. “Then he turns back to the guys playing stickball, and wonders if his dad ever played here. If his dad ever stood on the exact section of the Cul-De-Sac he's standing on right now.” (5) In the book, it is apparent that Danny is very attached to those he's around, or the people in his life.

The rioters’ faces are not fully represented; rather, they appear twisted and animal-like. In a similar vein, the only parts of the beaten figure recognizable as human are the bound feet. This combination of features in the main composition serves to emphasize the brutal savagery brought on by war, a goal similar to that of many other Disasters prints. The central subject matter in Uprising is also rioting peasants, but unlike in The Mob, the protagonists seem to have stern intention and an apparent guiding force. The former of these two qualities is visible thanks to Kollwitz’s realistic representation of the group’s dour facial expressions and the use of thick lines to represent forceful waving of objects in the air, while the latter is synthesized by the inclusion of the Liberty-esque figure and her relationship to the men below. The intention of this work, constructed through these elements, is to provoke feelings of solidarity and to act as a call to action of sorts. This pointed objective clearly shows Kollwitz’s political standing and heavily contrasts Goya’s preferred method of allowing significance and emotion to flow out of more unbiased depictions of events, in

Sontag’s essay “Regarding the Pain of Others” expresses humanities’ obsessive nature to images of pain and suffering. The TV screen turns on. We see footage of Syrian refugees suffering by the hands of chemical warfare. They are helpless. The viewer, knowing he cannot do anything in his power to help, continues to watch as the chemicals are released into the air causing the deaths of thousands of civilians. This “appetite for sights of degradation and pain and mutilation” (97) is caused by the “love of mischief” (98) humans feel when they watch atrocities take place. These gruesome images are watched to create a sense of numbness in the viewer. Today, “mayhem is entertaining” (101) to the eyes of modern culture. Sontag pinpoints that people only care about themselves with a misguided view of “how is this affecting me” rather than the ordeals of others to whom it would easily affect. Generally, we are less responsive or sensible to horrors that we constantly see often such as images of war or chaos. Sontag tells us that an “unwillingness to engage with these premonitory images of nearby war was an expression of helplessness and fear” (100) which results in a “bored, cynical, apathetic” (101) perspective of the situation. There is no hope to end suffering and pain unless the viewer takes action to help change the situation for those facing atrocities on the other side of the TV. We can either stay content in our mass culture of violence through “films, television, comics, and computer games” (100) or we can rise up and use compassion to overcome the hardships of atrocities we see.

In this Time Magazine article, writer Fred Ritchen debates the merit of violent photos in media. He begins with the events that prompted him to write this essay. He lists “A recent slew of situations resulting in catastrophic violence and death” (Ritchen, p1). This grouping of events, ranging from disease to plane crashes, has brought to light again the question of what a journalist’s duty is in reference of how much of a horror to show and how much to keep from the public. Ritchen’s argument culminates to the fact that the space taken up by showing these horrors of war and similar atrocities could be better used to prevent further events.

Equality was once a repulsive concept within America, today it seems to be a foregone conclusion. Indeed, we have made so many strides in the way that we view race that it seems a gross misstep every time that it needs to be addressed. Even our President, an African American who overcame tremendous odds to rise to the highest office does not have the answers to our issues with race, rather he calls on us all to “ask some tough questions about how we can permit so many of our children to languish in poverty, or attend dilapidated schools, or grow up without prospects for a job or for a career.” For most, these questions point to sources outside of themselves, but perhaps there a bit of introspection is the answer. Systematic segregation can

Chicago, the third-most populous city in the United States, has had a busy and diverse image since the start and the city has played a key location throughout American history. Throughout history, Chicago has always to attract people to the city by it’s charming, fascinating and exciting spirit and ___. Chicago has always been home to people from all over the world and different backgrounds. Race, has play a key factor in Chicago and last year CNN reported that Chicago remains among most segregated U.S cities. Chicago’s portrayal in the media has *** changed over time and in the case of race it has gotten worse, with the residential segregation and the increase of crime in the South.

William and his father had to wait to get water because they ran into two racist white men who grabbed William’s father. William was young when this happened; for he was only a child. The races were combined; black and white, at this popular spring William and his father liked to go to get water. The two had been waiting in the line for about thirty minutes already. The two white men forced them to wait to get water to show their racial superiority over blacks and told them to wait until everyone was gone to get their water. William’s father tried to leave, but they commanded them to remain. The reason that the white men caused them to wait was that the two white men who grabbed William’s dad were in no doubt, discriminating against people

In the text, “A Tale of Segregation”, we follow the story of a boy named William and his father stopped at a spring to get water. It was a very popular place for both Whites and Blacks. They waited 30 minutes until their turn came, but two White men who told them that they had to wait until the White Folk were done getting their water, then they were allowed to do whatever they wanted. Williams father said that this is what a real act of Hatred and Prejudice looks like, He promised William that these ways of racial violence would all be over soon. The reason White people were so judgemental about Blacks was because of the history of slavery. Most people from the South weren’t pleased with the end of slavery. So throughout the generations, the

By definition, graffiti is illegal. It is also considered vandalism because public or private property is intentionally destroyed, but in Alex Boyd’s blog “In Defense of Graffiti”, he clearly conveys his argument about how graffiti shows qualities of value and shouldn’t be criticized on impulse. Even though many people have seen graffiti as something to be condoned, punishable, and terrorizing, it is actually just another form of expression, communication, art, and point of view.

As stated by Taki, an influential graffiti artist when addressing the concern authorities held about his graffiti writing, “Why they go after the little guy? Why not campaign organizations that put stickers all over the subways at election time?” (Chronopoulos 2011, pg. 81). Though, graffiti is deemed as legitimate when it is used to generate profit, which is seen through the recent increased demand for graffiti with the purpose of beautification and gentrification. Evidently, the growing concern over graffiti in public spaces is driven by the conflict graffiti creates when obstructing advertisements, which generate increased consumption and profit. It also demonstrates the lack of tolerance the dominant class has for the promotion of dominance by the lower class. Moreover, constant “public proclamations” which urged people to see graffiti writing as a social safety issue, has certainly influenced the demand for anti-graffiti efforts and the attitudes upper and middle class whites had towards Blacks and Latinos (Chronopoulos 2011, pg. 87)

I decided that while this was something common and had backing maybe I should do more digging before bringing it up with anyone else. So, I decided to try a different approach, I copied all the patient files, then ran them through a program that sorted them by race. Now I didn’t think this would go anywhere as the country is now much more integrated than it was during the time period any of the articles or books I found were written in. Imagine my surprise when I find that the repeat visits from minority races all have issues such as insecurity in their job and social life, many of them seem to have a dislike for how they look or act at times and they let this control them but then they dislike themselves even more and some of them have inferiority

Just fifty years ago, America was a society of segregation and racism. The dictionary defines racism as “the belief that a particular race is superior to another.” Although it is clear times have changed, racism is still seen in modern american society. It’s also clear that relationships between African Americans and whites are generally better than they were in the forties and fifties. Today, it is rare to witness a black man walk down the street and step off the sidewalk to let a white man walk by, or to see a black man sitting on a different section of the bus or train because a white man told him he has too. But superiority of races is still happening. A lot of this has the do with the ignorance of others. Passed down generation to

Non-Place is a group exhibition of four artists based in different countries, bringing together the works of Andreas Gursky, Thomas Demand, Carla Klein and Xizi Liu. Those artists continued on traditional art forms: paintings and photographs, but their works that exist between distinct classifications. All of the artists search for a new type of space that resists the certainly of a conclusive ideology. The works in Non-place interrogates existent structures, and establishes new dialogues. The idea of non-places drives from the French historian Michel de Certeau 's Invention of everyday. Volume One (1974), but it is from the short but powerful text by the French anthropologist Marc Ange’s Non-Places: Introduce to an Anthropology of Supermodernit:

“It’s been photographs that moved the minds and hearts of human beings in ways [the] written word can’t.” (Source B) Although violent images can be corrupt, twisted and cause depression and sadness, it is something the world needs to see. We need to see pictures of war and families who are starving in third world countries. Graphic images pull on human emotions and provide a feeling that written word does not.

We have seen multiple images where war and catastrophic scenarios become a trend in the social media, news and more. Depending on media’s coverage and trends, people is impacted to a point that they feel touched and sensible to such chaos and then, there is a better incentive to contribute to certain problematic. However, it saddens me that most of us are getting used to seen tragedies in Syria and some other Middle Eastern regions, and, due to misconceptions and uninformed people, society somehow has accepted the poor conditions and hazards that they have been experiencing over the years.