I discovered something about myself after George Floyd was murdered in Minneapolis.
I'm anti-racist.
I have always been against racism in any of its forms. I have always vouched for equality, dignity, acceptance, and freedom for everyone. I have always been an advocate for social change. I have always been a defender of the REAL history of the United States that was founded by white Protestant men who did not include women, any people of color, any immigrant other than from Europe, or anyone who did not own land in their declaration that all men are created equal tired to exterminate, over the course of 150 years, Native Americans by driving them on a death march from the dignity of their fertile ancestral homes to the squalor of wasteland reservations.
I have been dismissed over time... in a mild way as an "Idealist," or in a velvet-gloved way as a "Pinko," or in a ludicrous way as a "Tree Hugger," all the way down to the nastiness of being a "N-lover," a "America-hater", and a "Communist,"
"Dangerous Crazy Man," and a bastard "Treason-er."
At my age, it doesn't mean anything any more to be called those things.
The truth is that it will always be important that I stand for what I know to BE right despite THE right.
I've learned this year that all of this is not enough. As a cis-gender, white, American, old man who has always enjoyed the white privileges attached to all that, I have the obligation to do something about racism.
I get it now.
So, I'm using my camera to document how some human beings have been forced to adapt to an American urban culture that, for the most part, doesn't want them.
I'm anti-racist.
I have always been against racism in any of its forms. I have always vouched for equality, dignity, acceptance, and freedom for everyone. I have always been an advocate for social change. I have always been a defender of the REAL history of the United States that was founded by white Protestant men who did not include women, any people of color, any immigrant other than from Europe, or anyone who did not own land in their declaration that all men are created equal tired to exterminate, over the course of 150 years, Native Americans by driving them on a death march from the dignity of their fertile ancestral homes to the squalor of wasteland reservations.
I have been dismissed over time... in a mild way as an "Idealist," or in a velvet-gloved way as a "Pinko," or in a ludicrous way as a "Tree Hugger," all the way down to the nastiness of being a "N-lover," a "America-hater", and a "Communist,"
"Dangerous Crazy Man," and a bastard "Treason-er."
At my age, it doesn't mean anything any more to be called those things.
The truth is that it will always be important that I stand for what I know to BE right despite THE right.
I've learned this year that all of this is not enough. As a cis-gender, white, American, old man who has always enjoyed the white privileges attached to all that, I have the obligation to do something about racism.
I get it now.
So, I'm using my camera to document how some human beings have been forced to adapt to an American urban culture that, for the most part, doesn't want them.
