© Jody Walker, 2007 19 Even in contemporary times, we need to question our assumptions. Who decides...

© Jody Walker, 20071

Even in contemporary times, we need to question our assumptions. Who decides what we may view, and who is permitted to be the viewer?

In the UK a database was published on the web with photographs and information on criminal in 19th century England.

Who determined that roughly 100 years is long enough for family members to not resent global accessibility to the behavior of their ancestors within the past 2-4 generations?


The following account is drawn from James Cameron's book, A Time of Terror:

“Thousands of Indianans carrying picks, bats, ax handles, crowbars, torches, and firearms attacked the Grant County Courthouse, determined to ‘get those goddamn Niggers.’”…A barrage of rocks shattered the jailhouse windows, sending dozens of frantic inmates in search of cover. A sixteen-year-old boy, James Cameron, one of the three intended victims, paralyzed by fear and incomprehension, recognized familiar faces in the crowd-schoolmates, and customers whose lawns he had mowed and whose shoes he had polished-as they tried to break down the jailhouse door with sledgehammers. Many police officers milled outside with the crowd, joking. Inside, fifty guards with guns waited downstairs.

The lynching of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith, a large gathering of lynchers. August 7, 1930, Marion, Indiana. Gelatin silver print. Copy photo. Frame, 11 x 9", photo, 3 7/8 x 2 3/4" inscribed in pencil on the inner, gray matte: "Bo pointn to his niga." On the yellowed outer matte: "klan 4th Joplin, Mo. 33." Flattened between the glass and double mattes are locks of the victim's hair.”

James Allen. (2000) Without Sanctuary: Photographs and Postcards of Lynching in America. Santa Fe : Twin Palms

Lynching as public entertainment, souvenir opportunity


“For 20 years, Sophie Ristelhueber has been obsessed with recording the scars and wounds of war, not as a photo-journalist, but as an artist…her topics (include): modern office buildings blown to bits by explosives, aerial views of tanks strewn like toys in the desert, close-ups of landmines, half-buried in sand, a line of surgical sutures snaking the length of a nude woman's spine…”

Sophie Ristelhueber at the MFA, Boston http://www.mfa.org/exhibitions/Ristelhueber.html

What do we prefer NOT to see?

http://www.nmsu.edu/techprof/backgrnd/vrhet.html






Even when you think you’re using neutral images, make sure that you really look at them. This isn’t supposed to scare you away from using images. It should help you select images that are most appropriate for your purposes.

Viewers, especially children, imagine themselves in roles when they can identify icons that look like them.


Even today, educational sites for children continue to use biased visual information.

These icons unintentionally reinforce/promote ethnic and gender stereotypes. The person who selected these icons probably did not truly look at these images with a complete understanding of visual communication.

Notice that the people in the icons are all Caucasian, and that females are used to represent retelling, design and consensus building tasks. They remain seated and inactive. Males gesture and move. They represent compilation, journalistic, scientific, judgment, analytical, persuasion tasks and share consensus building.

http://projects.edtech.sandi.net/staffdev/tpss99/tasksimap/

Make sure your image is not unintentionally biased…







Whom does your image leave out?

Do you know what your image means?

Visual Humor:Does it translate into another culture?


Whether you use an image, an icon, a graphic depiction of data, don’t forget to describe it adequately for screen readers!

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© Jody Walker, 2007 19 Even in contemporary times, we need to question our assumptions. Who decides...

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