Page 42 - Flaunt 171 - Summer of Our Discontent - PS

In 1957, gordon parks, an african-american professional photographers are no longer the only ones
photographer from Kansas, took an assignment from
LIFE magazine: explore crime across America. The photos Parks took in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles turned into an eight-page spread published by the popular magazine, and have now been transformed into a book by the Gordon Parks Foundation. Gordon Parks: The Atmosphere of Crime, 1957 arrives at a time of reflection and change for Americans who, 63 years after Parks’ spread, are still examining their relationship with the police.
This past May, and into June, protests and riots broke out across all 50 states, and internationally, following the death of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man in Minneapolis who was murdered by officer Derek Chauvin as his fellow police officers
at the scene looked on and did nothing. The death of Floyd, and many other black men, women, and children, at the hands of law enforcement has drawn increased attention to the systemic causes of crime, and failure of the police to properly protect and serve.
Sarah Meister, the book’s editor, spoke to the timeliness of the project saying, “Our current reckoning with police brutality, mass incarceration, and the disproportionate impact on Black communities lends an air of urgency to this project, but it’s worth remembering that there is nothing new about these deeply rooted issues and that Parks’ work has been relevant to our thinking about them for decades.”
One remarkable difference between the period in which Parks worked and the one we’re living through now, is that
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recording history through a camera lens. Nearly every citizen walking the streets has a cell phone ready to capture the day-to- day reality of living alongside police officers.
“Like many, I’m shattered by the racism, cruelty,
and indifference to human life that these photos and
videos force us to confront,” says Meister. “At the same
time, it would be difficult to argue that the increased documentation of police violence is having anything
other than a positive and, I hope, lasting impact on the conversation. Parks’ example remains notable and relevant for the way in which he was able to address complex issues of injustice and inequality with an awareness of what makes an image memorable. It’s why the photographs he made more than six decades ago remain a central touchstone as we grapple with where to go from here.”
The blurry line between aggressor and protector is present throughout Parks’ photos of late-night city streets. One might ask whether citizens need to be shielded from the men on corners and in back alleys, or from the police, with their fingers on their triggers, and feet poised to kick down front doors. When police shoot a Black woman eight times
in her bed during an investigation she was not involved
in, and no one is charged, as was recently the case with Louisville’s Breonna Taylor, the question is again asked: Is law enforcement protecting the people, or the institutions that empower them to commit such acts of violence?
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