Letter to the editor

Afterimage, May-June, 2005

To the Editor:

I was happy to see the review of Black Panthers: Photography by Ruth-Marion Baruch and Pirkle Jones in the September/October 2004 issue of Afterimage [Volume 32, no. 2]. Because there are so few voices expressing dissent in mainstream media about the exploding prison industry and its racist foundations, the Black Panthers are unlikely to receive sympathetic coverage, particularly during a time when the forces of repression in the U.S. are enjoying such wide support. During the late 1960s and early 1970s the Panther organization was subject to extensive illegal repression by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, a topic masterfully discussed in print by Ward Churchill, the University of Colorado, Boulder professor of Native American blood who is currently under pressure to resign his faculty position for his writing about 9-11.

The only reservation I have about the review of the exhibition and book is that the reviewer, Thomas McGovern, seems so removed from the urgent struggles that continue to characterize the black experience in the U.S. McGovern is struck by the absence of unattractive Panthers and notes that "each Afro is coifed to perfection." He says it is "hard to imagine a radical group today allowing a total outsider into the inner sanctum," suggesting that he has little experience with radical politics today. He seems suspicious that the low camera angles reveal "a desire to portray the group as average Americans, pursuing their rightful place," and remarks on the faces that show the Panthers' intelligence. "Each child is portrayed as a would-be angel," he says darkly. All of this gives the strong impression that McGovern's conception of the organization is pretty close to that of the mainstream media, which he rightly criticizes.

It seems to me that representing a vilified group requires enlisting the pens of participants and intimate sympathizers. While commendable in intention, McGovern's delivery of the Panthers into the hands of readers leaves me feeling Afterimage could do more. I applaud your intentions, expressed in your editorial in the March/April 2005 issue [Volume 32, no. 5], to place greater emphasis in the journal on questions about media education and the artist as activist.

Bernie Roddy Denton, Texas

Thomas McGovern responds:

As Mr. Roddy correctly points out, I am indeed removed from the urgent struggles of African Americans today--I am white. This was also true for Ruth-Marion Baruch and Pirkle Jones, who were never more than sympathetic outsiders to the Panthers' struggle, photographing them only for a brief period of time. But I take issue with Mr. Roddy's position that anyone must be enmeshed in another's struggle to critique images of them--or by extension, to make images of them.

As a photographer I understand and have first-hand experience with the power of images as propaganda, and only a truly naive person or child does not at least partially understand this. An aesthetic distance and intellectual skepticism is a necessary tool for any critic to analyze and interpret social documentary photography. Baruch and Jones' pictures are deeply romantic and to take them at face value without that stance diminishes their power as art and document. What those pictures show us is a profound vision, humanistic compassion and loving, collaborative relationship. These elements transcend the Panther project and are evident in the photographers' other works as well.

On a related note, I photographed and interviewed people with HIV/AIDS for over 10 years. I am HIV-negative and though I have lost many friends and acquaintances to AIDS, I was and still am, an outsider to the issue. I witnessed profound love between people, horrible, slow deaths and saw treacherous betrayal and true evil. I made photographs of what I saw and freely accepted my bias, using it to make heroic portraits of people with AIDS and critical images of their political and social abusers. As an artist and writer I do not believe in objectivity, but in persuasiveness. I know my AIDS photographs persuaded a few people and so have the beautiful Panther photographs made by Baruch and Jones.

San Bernardino, California