The Problem We Turn to Face

In the face of seemingly insurmountable evil, who must I side with? David or Goliath? As easy as it may appear--at least for me--this is not an easy question to answer. Take a minute, read this entry, then come back to the question.
The world has changed. It’s bigger, badder and scarier. Or is it? Sometimes I remind myself that in the scope of world history, life has been worse. Plague, famine, and wars have always raged somewhere, somehow and we didn’t all know about it. Yet now, with the speed of telecommunications, what’s happening at the far end of the world can be touched by our fingertips. For those of us who live in the United States it’s so easy to be outraged, horrified and shocked by events occurring far beyond our doorstep. That’s a shame, because at the current moment, our blind eyes are paving the way to the destruction of a most unique nation. One so filled with contradictions since its inception, that it’s shocking to believe actual strides forward have been made. There’s something terrifically exhausting about American history and its ability to consistently harm itself in its journey to being that magical city on a hill. And now, this year, this month, today, I fear the United States of America has lived its ninth and final life. But why? Why oh God why, did it waste those previous eight? Because it chose not to face the problem all U.S. citizens encounter the moment they step foot out of their homes.
On Monday November 4, 1960, a young black girl boldly and innocently charged these United States to face itself. On January 14, 1964, Norman Rockwell challenged the States to face itself again with a politely subversive artistic statement. The Problem We All Live With is an excellent piece of protest art. Four headless white grown men, escort a little black girl. If you didn’t know the context you’d think they were simply taking her for a walk down the street. The only clue you have to where she might be headed are the pencils, notebooks, and ruler she clutches in her hand. It’s a shocking painting, one where you wonder how this little girl in pure white can be so calm, in the presence of shouts, jeers and hurled foodstuffs. Just because the racial epithet is written on the wall next to her, doesn’t mean that you as the viewer cannot hear the hate. You can and it leaves you speechless.
The U.S. history behind the creation of this painting should hopefully be known to most, though I doubt the story of how this painting came to be seen is. After years of illustrating for the Saturday Evening Post, Rockwell was becoming restless. There he was, living through an extraordinary time of national upheaval and he was stuck with drawing cutesy pictures of little white boys getting into mischievous trouble. For someone who believed in progress, Rockwell saw the real mischief elsewhere and in 1963 after countless iconic covers, he left the Saturday Evening Post for Look magazine. It’s at the bi-weekly Iowa based magazine that Rockwell’s extraordinary talent for depicting kitschy Americana merged with his political activism, allowing him to accurately depict the real United States of America.
There comes a time when we’re fed up. When we’re mad as hell and won’t take it anymore. When we’ve been shaken so hard, that the rose coloured spectacles fall to the ground and shatter. Our creative brothers and sisters are being threatened and defunded, told that if they won’t toe the line, they’ll be silenced forever. Well, that’s the kisser isn’t it? You can’t really silence an artist; you can only make life so incredibly difficult that they reach a breaking point and make more violent art. To be political is a brave act. It’s frightening, stupid and honourable. It pits you against institutions and mindsets that are so ingrained, that a tiny chip at the statue can seem like nought. But that tiny swing must be taken, because sometimes in saying we’ve had enough we’re allowing others to see and do the same. We can paint the pretty pictures forever, but at some point they become macabre and dishonest.
In the face of seemingly insurmountable evil, who must I side with? David or Goliath? Allow me to answer this question with a question: would David have been capable of taking Goliath down, if he hadn’t used the tremendous force with which the giant attacked, against him?

Image credit: Wikipedia via Norman Rockwell Museum