Susan Sontag

It was in Ferguson, Missouri August 19th 2014. Two teenagers by the names Dorian Johnson and Michael Brown jaywalk across a street in St. Louis a policeman encounters them, Dorian started running as an altercation ensues between Michael Brown and the police officer. BANG. Gunshot goes off and Michael is hit. Eleven more shots ring out of the officer’s gun as a bullet traveled through Michael's right eye, at least six shots fired at him total with the last two shots entering his head as he lay dead in the middle of the street with a pool of blood surrounding, then Darren hover over Michaels' lifeless body to witness what he had done Michael Brown lays in the street in a pool of blood for four hours before being loaded into a suburban and taken
away. At last it is time to speak the truth about civil rights in present day America and what we are doing to ensure there is civil rights and liberties that can still be expressed with due diligence. Depending on your view this could be self-gratifying or pretty terrifying. What is the need for civil rights? And in what ways do we battle injustices in our country. You could also argue and say that there is no need for civil rights; America no longer suffers from racism or discrimination and that our founding fathers cleaned up that mess years ago. After going over some facts it might just open your eyes to what justices and injustices are being administered in America, in what I assume could change some bias opinions.

After the shooting of Michael Brown by officer Darren Wilson protest in Ferguson, Missouri. They signified what some eyewitness' said they saw during the shooting of Michael Brown and that was him putting his hands up, in an effort to surrender before being murdered. In the photograph by Whitney Curtis you can see from what we could assume unarmed African American male with his hands up( international sign of surrender), on the other side you can see police in military gear backing down who what seems like helpless person with there guns drawn and gas masks on. Some troops that were disrespectful as they called the demonstrators enemy forces. This photograph was taken by New York Times photographer Whitney Curtis, however it more widely seen in the Time Magazine April 17th, 2015. I find it interesting that she has hostile environment as well as first aid training, and sort of ironic but Whitney Curtis was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri, so essentially this was right in her back yard, because her photography ranges around the world. Whitney Curtis is a devoted photo journalist who is an alumna of the Eddie Adams Workshop, Missouri Photo Workshop and NPPA's Multimedia Immersion Workshop and best know for her work telling stories to editorial, commercial, and nonprofit clients. She graduated from University of Missouri-Columbia with a degree in photojournalism. Whitney is known for her work being recognized by associated press for NPPA best of photojournalism and when in photojournalist. Some of her main topics of shooting have to do with civil rights whether it be gay marriages or situations such as Ferguson her profiles portfolio consists of Women's work, Gateway Mercy, stories of help, Travel, In America, Build and Grow, Portraits, Education, Published and Ferguson. She has also been a credited editor for The New York Times, Getty Images, Reuters, The Washington Post, European Pressphoto Agency, Bloomberg News, Chicago Tribune, USA TODAY, The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, FT Magazine, Der Spiegel, St. Louis Magazine, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Chronicle of Philanthropy, NPR and ProPublica as well as being credited with non profit work from Nestlé Purina, Anheuser-Busch InBev, Monsanto, AARP, Fireman's Fund Insurance Company, Catalyst, Edelman, Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide, Washington University in St. Louis, ACLU, The Humane Society of the United States and Society of St. Vincent de Paul all of these attributes accumulate into the image as well as the photograph itself.

Photographs; like the one taken by Whitney Curtis tell can tell a whole story in a simple image.
Susan Sontag an author Regarding The Pain of Others and of four novels, and seven non-fiction books. States that "Photographs tend to transform, whatever their subject; and as an image something may be beautiful - or terrifying, or unbearable, or quite bearable - as it is not real life." These words spoken by Susan Sontag explain almost every aspect that goes into evaluating a photograph. For instance a picture can be horrific in nature as to what is actually going on in the photograph. But depending on the setting; time of day, background, or the sky, it can intensify or transform the picture into something much more beautiful than the actual event, and vice versa a photograph such as this essay photograph can look tense, and horrifying due to the setting, time of day, and the obvious police approaching a man with his hands up before they arrest him while the officers guns are aimed in on the man. Two of the best quotes of best text from Sontag in her book to me was "harrowing photographs do not inevitably lose their power to shock. But they are not much help if the task is to understand. Narratives can make us understand. Photographs do something else: they haunt us." and "it seems that the appetite for pictures showing bodies in pain is as keen, almost as the desire for ones that show bodies naked. For many centuries in Christian art, depictions of hell offered both of these elemental satisfaction. On occasion, the pretext might be a biblical decapitation anecdote, or massacre yarn,or some such with the status of a real historical event and of an impeccable fate." One could ask what importance or reasoning does this photograph have, well besides the ongoing stories we continue to hear daily of whit cops killing African Americans, Susan Sontag stated in Regarding The Pain of Others " it's impossible to glance through any newspaper, no matter what the day, the month
or the year, without finding on every line the most frightful traces of human perversity. . . . Every newspaper, from the first line to the last, is nothing but a tissue of horrors. Wars, crimes, thefts, lecheries, tortures, the evil deeds of princes, of nations, of private individuals; an orgy of universal atrocity. And it is with this loathsome appetizer that civilized mans daily washes down his morning repast." Also Susan Sontag had a good text about photo journalist and what they bring to us such as Whitney Curtis and her photo. We now know what happens everyday throughout the whole world. . The descriptions given by daily journalists put, as it were, those in agony on fields of battle undertake eyes of the [newspaper] readers and their cries resonate in there ears." And if you actually analyze the photograph one can't tell if he had assaulted an officer in some way, if he had a warrant and police matched his description, or just ran from a previous incident and is now giving up in the photo. Again these are just some potential reasoning that could explain the photograph. But in this situation I don't believe those are the reasoning behind the arrest in the photograph.

When discussing photography after reading John Bergers Appearances article it gave me a better understanding of how in-depth one can take a photograph. For instance a phrase that sticks in my head is his thoughts on photographs having ambiguity. "All photographs are ambiguous. All photographs have been taken out of continuity. If the event is a public event, this continuity is history; if it is personal, the continuity, which has been broken is a life story. Even a pure landscape breaks a continuity: that of the light and the weather. Discontinuity always produces ambiguity. Yet often this ambiguity is not obvious, for as soon as photographs are used with words they produce together a sense of certainty, even of dogmatic assertion." He made some very intriguing facts and thoughts regarding photography.
He claimed that photography is first and for most a means of expression, the question however was what kind of means does the photograph present in itself. In the photo by Whitney there is many variations on how you could look at the photo and speculate if it has any effect or meaning to you. A good quote from John Berger was
"in itself the photograph cannot lie, but by that same token, it cannot tell the truth; rather the truth it does tell, the truth it can by itself defend is a limited one."
He also stated on page 86 and 87 I fully agreed with, that a photograph taken leaves us thinking about the event in the photo, as well as shock of discontinuity. After looking at a photograph you usually think back to the day of the photograph, and then resent the moment or think about how that time and what happened before and after are gone. One of the best quotes out of Berger's article was page 96 " it is because photography has no language of its own, because it quotes rather than translates, that it is said that the camera cannot lie. It cannot lie because it prints directly." Just like the saying the proof is in the pudding if you have photograph of something it's there, and the photograph is not going to lie to you.

This photograph illustrates that the police have have military equipment, some Arsenal in which they really don't need or is excessive for some situations. The Governor made a curfew for midnight to five in the morning which intensified protests and stand offs with police. He was quoted saying "The eyes of the world are watching. We cannot allow the ill will of the few to undermine the good will of the many." The Governor also called for a state of emergency before bringing in national guard. Also it shows already elevated tensions between police and a community that has been neglected by its officials. On February 10th 2016, Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced to the public that the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit in U.S Federal court reason being an alleged violation of the first, fourth and fourteenth amendments of constitution and civil rights laws stemming from poor law enforcement conduct. This conduct wast listed as :
* interferes with the right to free expression in violation of the First Amendment;
* prosecutes and resolves municipal charges in a manner that violates due process and equal protection guaranteed by the 14th Amendment; and
* engages in discriminatory law enforcement conduct against African Americans in violation of the 14th Amendment and federal statutory law.
* conducts stops, searches and arrests without legal justification, and uses excessive force, in violation of the Fourth Amendment;
The justice department also made clear that " The lawsuit follows a comprehensive investigation of Ferguson’s police department and municipal court conducted by the Civil Rights Division. In March 2015, the department detailed its investigative findings in a 104-page report. The department found that Ferguson’s focus on generating revenue over public safety, together with racial bias, has a profound effect on Ferguson’s police and court practices, resulting in conduct that routinely violates the Constitution and federal civil rights laws." I find these numbers astonishing, for one to claim or note that there is racial tension in an area one can make assertions and judgements about what really goes on but for precise numbers and findings like the ones against Ferguson, Missouri are solid proof that racial discrimination still impacts America. Now you have to ask yourself what are the numbers like in other counties and states throughout the U.S.