Friends, I was taken aback by the caricatures of Booker T. Washington, Marcus Garvey and Harriet Jacobs in the article "A Fresh Look at Black Thinkers," highlighting the scholarship of Desmond Jagmohan. These representations give a visual message that trivializes these important figures. Jagmohan's thesis is the opposite -- that these thinkers and leaders were active and sophisticated negotiators of what can only be called state-supported terror. How hard would it have been to find archival photographs of these figures or naturalistic drawings?
Friends, I was taken aback by the caricatures of Booker T. Washington, Marcus Garvey and Harriet Jacobs in the article "A Fresh Look at Black Thinkers," highlighting the scholarship of Desmond Jagmohan. These representations give a visual message that trivializes these important figures. Jagmohan's thesis is the opposite -- that these thinkers and leaders were active and sophisticated negotiators of what can only be called state-supported terror. How hard would it have been to find archival photographs of these figures or naturalistic drawings?