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| Photo: © Oliver Clasper |
A while back on PetaPixel (before I was officially banned from the site), there was a considerable controversy about a photograph that alluded to lynching being used to advertise something or other. A lot of the commenters said, so what if it did- after all, lynching was an equal opportunity killer in the good ol' US of A. Now, PetaPixel is not always known for its insightfully intellectual banter- and it was on just such an occasion that I found myself compelled to comment just to try and set some semblance of the record straight. No, Whites and Blacks were not lynched in equal numbers, they were not even lynched in equal manner! And yet, despite the long trail of undeniable fact and history- they left the conversation with... whatever they wanted to believe (ie- in denial). Which not only explains why they remain ignorant (and racist), but also why we now have he who personifies both ignorance, and arrogance, currently occupying The West Wing.
Not unlike Eva Leitolf's Looking For Evidence, Oliver Clasper's The Spaces We Inherit brings that history home to present day America; it's rather banal photographic presentations of horrific racial crime sites is a thoughtful, reflective follow up to the haunting Without Sanctuary, the collected photographic history of an America so vigorously denied, buried and revised.
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