Monday, July 25, 2005

The long, storied American tradition of denial


This week’s PBU (http://www.pbu.blogspot.com) topic is “Bush Administration Files to Block Release of Torture Photos”...so I figured it was as good a time as any for an excerpt from my soon-to-be-released book, “50 American Revolutions You’re Not Supposed to Know: Reclaiming American Patriotism.”:

Dorothea Lange photographs Japanese-American internment camps

“To live a visual life is an enormous undertaking, practically unattainable...But I have only touched it, just touched it.”
-Dorothea Lange (1895-1965)



Through her work with farm families and migrant workers during the Great Depression, photographer Dorothea Lange was familiar with images of displacement. But, when she was hired by the War Relocation Authority to document life in Japanese neighborhoods, processing centers, and camp facilities, the racial and civil rights issues added a new dimension. “What was horrifying was to do this thing completely on the basis of what blood may be coursing through a person’s veins, nothing else. Nothing to do with your affiliations or friendships or associations. Just blood,” Lange said. As the Library of Congress wrote, “Lange quickly found herself at odds with her employer and her subjects’ persecutors, the United States government.”



“Lange’s attempts to use her camera to expose the social impact of the mass incarcerations came into conflict with the authorities,” says journalist, Richard Phillips. “She was regarded with suspicion by the military, and even called before the War Relocation Authority on two occasions for alleged misuse of her photographs. The Wartime Civil Control Agency impounded most of her internment photographs, refusing to release them until after the war.”

To pre-order “50 American Revolutions You’re Not Supposed to Know,” click on the book cover at the top of the right-hand column >>>>>>

For more on Bush’s suppression of photos: http://www.commondreams.org/news2005/0722-06.htm

(This post is presented in solidarity with the Progressive Blogger Union. For more information, please visit: http://www.pbu.blogspot.com.)
Tag: PBU30

Posted on 07/25 at 04:20 AM
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