“I claim my birthright! A lone man talking to myself, no house in the brown vastness to hear
imagining the throng of Selves
that makes this nation one body of Prophecy.”
-Allen Ginsburg, Wichita Vortex Sutra
"A politics of solidarity…must inevitably run up against the hard facts of political economy…As we’ve seen, black America isn’t just as fissured as white America; it is more so…As economic differences increase, the need to maintain the appearance of cultural and ideological conformity also increases. But it is these fake masks of conformity that disguise how very vast black class differentials really are…Black America needs a politics whose first mission isn’t the reinforcement of the idea of black America; and a discourse of race that isn’t centrally concerned with preserving the idea of race and racial unanimity. We need something we don’t yet have: a way of speaking about black poverty that doesn’t falsify the reality of black advancement, a way of speaking about black advancement that doesn’t distort the enduring realities of black poverty. "
- Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Parable of the Talents from The Future of the Race.
Larry took the image of Obama parting the crowd on the 2008 campaign trail. This picture fulfills Allen Ginburg's quote. Raised from a long lineage of civil rights activists, Obama is speaking a language of hope. During his campaign, he transformed into an icon for America to reach towards or reject.
He is forcefully parting the crowd to offer us a path to follow, a path that affirms change.
-M.C Newton & Dani Bogenhagen
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