Norman Rockwell painting sends rare White House message on race

[kpete]

Norman Rockwell painting sends rare White House message on race


by JOSH GERSTEIN | 8/24/11 4:40 AM EDT

President Barack Obama has taken a decidedly low-key approach to racial issues since he became America’s first black president two years ago. But in a hallway outside the Oval Office, he has placed a head-turning painting depicting one of the ugliest racial episodes in U.S. history.

Norman Rockwell’s “The Problem We All Live With,” installed in the White House last month, shows U.S. marshals escorting Ruby Bridges, a 6-year-old African-American girl, into a New Orleans elementary school in 1960 as court-ordered integration met with an angry and defiant response from the white community.

The thrust of the painting is not subtle. America’s vilest racial epithet appears in letters several inches high at the top of the canvas. To the left side, the letters “KKK” are plainly visible. The crowds, mostly women who gathered daily to taunt Bridges as she went to a largely empty school, are not shown in the picture. But the racist graffiti and a splattered tomato convey the hostile atmosphere.



Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0811/61677.html#ixzz1VzuDewT1

[sufrommich]

1. I've aways loved this painting.Great to see it hanging in the White

House.

[Sherman A1]

3. I have loved many of his works

including freedom of speech.

[sufrommich]

4. Oh, I love that one too. Yes, he painted America,love him.nt

[fascisthunter]

2. One of My Favorites

I hope one day to paint until I die... I have so much to tell.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

5. I applaud President Obama for placing this painting where it is.

It is a great message for all to see.....

It clearly states where he is on matters like this one.

[lunatica]

6. I remember this happening.

Those were very ugly times. I went to high school in Fayetteville Senior High School in North Carolina during the time when lone black children were being bused into white schools. Fortunately many of teens who went to that high school were army offspring from Fort Bragg. They happen to be white, black and Puerto Rican. We were fully integrated without a single racial problem. Not one in all the time I was there.

[Arctic Dave]

7. K&R but with an asterisk.

I believe painting is a little outdated. Racism is not dead but is no where near what this picture is.

Today's bigotry is far more subtle and institutional. A picture of a boardroom with a contract being inked to dump hazardous waste in a poor neighborhood would be more up to date.

[baldguy]

10. "Those who forget their past are condemned to repeat it."

and

"History does not repeat itself, but it often rhymes."

[toddwv]

12. I disagree somewhat.

Racism is still very much alive. It has definitely changed but it is always there just below the surface. I know this from participating in various debate sites frequented by racists. Normal debate forum rules generally keep them in check but not by much.

I would also like to remind everyone that the greatest tool in the ongoing race war is not just still in effect but receives ALOT of funding. The "War on Drugs" has become nothing more than a thinly veiled attack on minorities and has got to go.

[Arctic Dave]

13. I agree, thanks for expanding.

WODs is a great example. That is why I say this is a bit outdated in it's blatant crude hostility. Todays racism comes in the form of "laws".

[toddwv]

16. It also comes in the form of memes.

For instance, I get to hear ALL the time about how President Obama got to the position he is in through "affirmative action".

Bring up the fact that George W. Bush got into his position in life because his daddy knew a bunch of people who got him to the front of the National Guard line to avoid the draft, got him into Harvard where he scraped along as a c student, then got him a company that he ran into the ground, got elected governor of Texas with his daddy's help and got elected President of the United States with his daddy's name recognition and contacts.

I see ALOT worse than this on forums though.

[Merlot]

25. Maybe outdated in the way racism is being depicted but still a good reminder

Racism is more hidden and covert, but still there. This paining is good to show how it was, and how it could be again if certain people get their way.

It's a reminder AND a warning.

Oh, and a great painting.

[Arctic Dave]

29. I seriously doubt racism would go back to that.

Sure, some people may do it (KKK) but I hardly think Joe six pack is going to start dropping the N word and hanging people.

That would be like the military fighting in trenches. We must fight racism in it's form today, not fifty years ago.

[Merlot]

35. You're aware the koch bros are funding programs to segregate schools?

[struggle4progress]

8. Is that Ruby standing beside the President?

[Riley18]

11. Yes it is her. She looks great too.

[MannyGoldstein]

15. My brush with greatness: I drove Ruby to an event a few years ago

She was booked to talk at my son's elementary school in Newton MA, my son and I had the honor of driving her from her hotel to the school. It was shortly before the 2008 Democratic primaries finished up. Cruising down 128 I said to her "Ms. Bridges, you must be amazed that as a black child you were so hated by some that you needed an armed guard to attend school, yet in just a few weeks it looks like we'll have a black Democratic nominee for President." She responded: "Yes, but I was pulling for Hillary." (Full disclosure: I was a strong Obama backer at the time.)

Life is full of surprises.

[DirkGently]

20. Ouch.

:D

[Odin2005]

9. One of Rockwell's greatest works. K&R

[pokerfan]

18. Higher resolution version here

http://www.rockwell-center.org/image-gallery/image-gallery

(3,000px × 1,876px)

[WillyT]

14. Another, Less Known But Powerful One...

Mississippi Burning...



:shrug:

[DirkGently]

19. Wow. I was never aware of that one. Looked it up, though ...

This site says Rockwell used a photo of a priest giving a dying soldier last rites in the middle of a firefight as model for "Murder in Mississippi." It's pretty powerful, too:


http://blog.beliefnet.com/deaconsbench/2009/08/molded-into-the-likeness-of-christ.html

[WillyT]

21. Wow... Thank You For That

:hi:

[cally]

17. I saw this when it first appeared on Life when I was

about 5. I think this picture changed my whole outlook on race because I was about the same age and I could see myself in the picture. A year or two later, my school was integrated and I think this one picture changed how our school reacted. I can imagine the President remembers seeing this picture the first time. It is and was very powerful.

[personman]

22. Wow, a very powerful painting.

Especially given the context.

[gauguin57]

23. I'm fond of "Freedom of Speech," too.

[WillyT]

24. Classic !!! - And This... 'The Golden Rule'

:hi:

[indurancevile]

27. and...

[pnorman]

26. "The Problem We All Live With"

http://kenlairdstudios.hubpages.com/hub/The-Problem-We-All-Live-With---Norman-Rockwell-the-truth-about-his-famous-painting

[struggle4progress]

28. Thanks for that!

[eridani]

30. The quiet social consciousness of Rockwell's 50s paintings is underappreciated, IMO

He took racial injustice very seriously.

[Hosnon]

31. The performance of federal officials increasingly is something to be proud of.

Particularly U.S. Marshals.

I don't know how pure the thoughts of those men were, but I know today that in a similar situation, a U.S. Marshal would view getting that young girl to school as his or her highest duty to our nation.

Kudos to our President for displaying this.

[Karenina]

32. . .

[malaise]

33. Bravo President Obama

Let them bawl

[TBF]

34. I've not agreed with much of what Mr. Obama has done as president -

but he got this one right. Good job Mr. President!