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October 27, 2005
In our glory
In our glory was a fascinating piece in many aspects. Firstly, I was compelled by the facts of black history. Though I am familiar with our nation's history, I never recieved it from an african-american perspective.
The author started by touching on how cameras take photos that can be interpreted differently depending on actual positions in the family and beleived positions in a family, especially a large family. She then moved on to say that black folks used images because of their unfair position in society. Contradictarily, these images were used to be concrete facts to unwind the lies white people told or believed of black people. I thought the strongest part of the article was when she talked about photography "empowering themselves through representation." They "resisted misinterpretation through photos" and even used them as "political instruments." These images were their voices in a time when their voices couldnt be heard.
Two other things the author touched on were how families (in her case black famililes, but I know white families, such as my own, also did this) took pictures of those in caskets. Furthermore off that subject, they built shrines to those lost or absent that were loved. When these people were finally gone, pictoral geneaologies were created to keep the past. This reminds me of my grandmother because as she is getting older, she is pushing to have a "Yeich Family Photo" in order for the rest of her family to remember the older ones as they pass away. Pictures are a way to make certain that we remain alive, in a way, to family forever.
Posted by lcisyeich at October 27, 2005 11:08 PM
Comments
I really loved "In our glory", I thought that it talked about the African-American culture and how remembering what occurred in the past was important to them. A lot of black people recieved unfair representation in the past and photographs was a way of basically documenting the "truth" about what happened. It was also a way of keeping track of family members who may have been lost. The author not only shows how important photography was to her family, but also how important it was to blacks in general.
Posted by: Yasmin at October 29, 2005 03:17 PM