Just realized that I never responded here! Haha!
Anyhoo, after reading the two assignments, I felt myself particularly moved. I think that both should be responded to here.
First of all, “Slave Site for a Symbol of Freedom”. This article successfully attacks America’s problem of burying the more unsavory history of our nation and glossing it over with the positive that resulted from such activites. Smith speaks of a Liberty Bell memorial at the site of George Washington’s former home. The thing is, this memorial is placed over the site of his slave quarters. The arguement is that the society in charge of the memorial is not providing adequate information about the site to memorial-goers. She talks about “perpetuating historical amnesia”, and I’d have to agree that this is a serious epidemic in our country.
The second article, The Image as Memorial, speaks of the particular power of seemingly harmless images in a tragic context. There’s not much I can say here except for the fact that this article really got me thinking about where the pictures on the sides of milk cartons and in protests come from. The fact that they were taken for innocent reasons only to end up being used to commemorate death or to find a lost child is indescribably heart-breaking. So is the power of an image, I suppose.
Filed under: assignments
