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Book Review: Soledad Brother

I remember years ago when I was a member of ACT-UP, a woman who joined the group reviewed our direct action plans and said something along the lines of, “All this militant stuff must make you feel manly, and I guess that feels good since you’re hated partly because people think gay men are like women. But, um, how’s that supposed to make me feel?”

I got the message, though I still struggle to live up to it. It made me look askance at the texts of the 1960s and 70s that, indirectly but nonetheless effectively, led me to the … Read more “Book Review: Soledad Brother”

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Can We See Through Race?

The book Seeing Through Race: A Reinterpretation of Civil Rights Photography, by Martin A. Berger explores the dual role of Civil Rights Movement photojournalism in promoting and limiting the possibility of civil rights reform in the 1960s.

Berger argues that photos of civil rights protest – the unforgettable images of Bull Connor using attack dogs and fire hoses on peaceful demonstrators in Birmingham, for instance – too often told the story of the movement in terms that reduced black Southerners to one-dimensional victims.

Photos of white-on-black violence shamed Northern whites. But, those photos didn’t make them feel guilty, … Read more “Can We See Through Race?”