Defining image of America

[Beebo Brink]

‘Defining image’ of America? Picture of Black woman surrounded by white supremacist group in DC on July 4 goes viral | The Independent

I dropped the question mark from the title. There is no question that this image captured an iconic moment in 2026,

 

[Innula Zenovka]

In England and Wales it's s illegal (Public Order Act 1936) to wear in public or at a public meeting a uniform that signifies membership of a political organisation or to promote a political objective. The measure was introduced to combat the rise of Oswald Moseley's Blackshirts.

I take it there's no similar restriction in the US.

 

[Free]

Meanwhile, their fellow fascists are pretending they don't know who they are.

 

[detrius]

In England and Wales it's s illegal (Public Order Act 1936) to wear in public or at a public meeting a uniform that signifies membership of a political organisation or to promote a political objective. The measure was introduced to combat the rise of Oswald Moseley's Blackshirts.

I take it there's no similar restriction in the US.

Because they have free'uhm.

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

I thought about something like this.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

America Threw Itself a 250th Birthday Party and the Nazis RSVP’d

INCELS in matching khakis marched on the Capitol while Trump’s “Freedom 250” fireworks warmed up — and the administration’s official response was a shrug

deanblundell.substack.com

if you watched the videos — the Confederate flags, the upside-down American flags, the matching Dockers-and-balaclava starter kits — and thought “this looks like an incel scout troop,” congratulations. Your instincts are perfect. Let’s talk about who these guys actually are, who’s paying for the cosplay, and why nobody in the Trump administration could bring themselves to say a single bad word about it

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Reuters has the backstory to this image

Patriot Front members and a solitary woman travel on a DC train A picture and its story

 

[Noodles]

America Threw Itself a 250th Birthday Party and the Nazis RSVP’d

INCELS in matching khakis marched on the Capitol while Trump’s “Freedom 250” fireworks warmed up — and the administration’s official response was a shrug

deanblundell.substack.com

The line

It’s an MLM where the product is racism and the downline does push-ups.

Is so good.

 

[Soen Eber]

I thought about something like this.

Please let that be AI ... please

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

It is AI.

 

[GoblinCampFollower]

Yeah, that image is obviously AI, but I've seen MAGA family pictures that are close to that level of absurdity with the little kids holding guns and tons of extra guns across the floor....

 

[Innula Zenovka]

From what I've seen, some MAGA political folk think it's cute to send family Christmas cards showing the whole family, including young children, brandishing firearms to promote the seasonal idea of peace on earth and goodwill to all.

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

This is no AI generated image.

 

[Noodles]

I was wondering if there was a potential lawsuit from Freedom Oil that could come from this but it looks like they closed up shop last year.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

TRUMP SAID NOTHING ABOUT 400 MASKED MEN. THEN HE UNMASKED THE 5-YEAR-OLDS.

Masked men on a train got his silence. Bare-faced 5-year-olds got his 13 million MAGA followers.

ifloz.substack.com

I want to be very precise now, because precision is what I did for a living.

A hijab covers a child’s hair. Her face, her eyes, her smile, her whole singing face, is completely bare. Those little girls stood on a stage under their school’s name, in front of cameras, in front of the country, and showed us exactly who they are. The men on the train showed us nothing but cloth.

The President of the United States looked at both groups in the same 48 hours. The grown men who hid their faces to intimidate his citizens got his silence. The little girls who showed their faces to sing got his nearly 13 million followers turned loose on them.

You will notice the children’s faces in this piece are blurred. We did that here at IFLA. It took about 60 seconds. The largest Muslim civil rights organization in America has said the President’s post puts those specific children, at that named school, in real danger, and they are right, so we blurred them, because that is what adults do when a photograph has somebody’s baby in it. You protect the child first and you make your argument second, and if your argument cannot survive protecting the child, you did not have an argument.

 

[detrius]

This is no AI generated image.

Is having all that crap hanging in the air still considered normal?

 

[Noodles]

Is having all that crap hanging in the air still considered normal?

Power lines and such? In rural areas it is honestly. Over the pumps is mostly to prptrct drivers from rain while fueling.

 

[Veritable Quandry]

Is having all that crap hanging in the air still considered normal?

Those are called "clouds."

 

[detrius]

Those are called "clouds."

I was talking about the wires.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

The Photo of the Woman on the Metro Was Powerful. Was It Also Exploitative?

There are multiple moral complications inherent in this image. And in photojournalism itself.

www.notus.org

She makes a reasonable point, I think

Dee Dwyer — a D.C.-based visual storyteller who began her work as a photojournalist covering the Black Lives Matter protests in the nation’s capital in 2020 — shared some of my reservations. “When you’re out taking these powerful photographs, what you should do if you’re centering humanity is have a conversation,” she told me, before Silverman published her piece about Bowlding. “Because that woman was just minding her goddamned business and now her life has changed overnight.” True, Dwyer said, the image is “striking and powerful,” and, as a photographer, “sometimes the moment calls for you to tell the story as it is.” Still, Dwyer said she hoped “that a conversation was had with that young woman.”

Evernote Link