The Migrant Madonna

Hola mi gente...
When an unelected group of vulture capitalists take control of the government, that's called fascism anywhere else in the world. Here in the US, it's a congressional bill with a catchy name -- “Promesa.” Welcome to the reality of Puerto Rico, a colony of the United States, “land of the free.”

Essentially, Congress has empowered a “… Financial Control Board that will be the governor, banker, judge, jury, and prosecutor of Puerto Rico. It will manage the entire Puerto Rican economy, and be accountable to no one on the island. It will tell the entire Puerto Rican government what to do, when to jump, and how high. It will issue debt, spend the money in any manner it sees fit, and leave Puerto Rico to pay the bill.” Read more here.

Today, it’s all about art… 

A Madonna for a Bitter Time

Dorothea Lange's Migrant Mother

Dorothea Lange and the photography of poverty

When suffering knocks at your door and you say there is no seat for him, he tells you not to worry because he has brought his own stool.
-- Chinua Achebe

The woman... her name is Florence Thompson; she is 32 years-old, married, with no permanent address and seven children to feed. Even in the best of times, keeping it together would’ve been herculean, but the Great Depression now threatens to bring the family to the brink of disaster. Florence Thompson is one of the many migrant workers who traveled the land seeking any work they could find. It turns out that in March 1936, the pea harvest is once again poor, and that means no work -- and no form of income -- for the pickers. Florence Thompson has managed to find temporary lodging at a camp for pea pickers in Nipomo, California. As the photographer, Dorothea Lange noted, “Of the 2,500 people in the camp, most of them were destitute.”

The portrait of the young Florence Thompson -- worn, tight-lipped, and gazing blankly into the distance -- is one of the most famous of photographic icons. Since its appearance

in the Family of Man exhibit (1955) the photograph has become

part of the American collective consciousness. Originally titled in 1955 as “U.S.A.: Dorothea Lange Farm Security Adm.,” the photograph is now known as Migrant Mother, correctly situating the work in its proper historical context. Many interpretations have been attempted: from comparisons to the Mother of God with the Christ Child, to the attribution of the success of the picture through its balanced composition. One critic referred to the “dignity and essential decency of the woman facing poverty.” Another pointed out its “simplicity of means, its restrained pathos, and its mute autonomy of language.”

Whatever the reasons for its success, it is certain that Dorothea Lange basically ignored all such theoretical perspectives when she took the photograph. She described her approach to her work in different language: “Whatever I

photograph, I do not molest or tamper with or arrange... I try to [make a] picture as part of its surroundings, as having roots... Third -- a sense of time... I try to show [it] as having its position in the past or in the present... ”

What I find fascinating with photography is the relationship between the photographer and the subject. There are at least three (often subconscious) dynamics at work in a photograph. There is the subject, the artist, the relationship between the subject and the artist, and finally there is the observer (you). All this works to create the aural power of the work. It is known that Lange approached the family slowly, taking pictures all the while, giving the family members a chance to pose themselves (in contrast to her stated approach to photography). In the initial photographs,

for example, the children are looking into the camera; only in the final photo of the sequence do they turn away, in the process emphasizing their position as social outsiders that Lange strived to capture.

To be sure, Lange was seeking to do more than provide evidence, her understanding of documentary work included using persuasion. She wanted to do more than simply register reality; she wanted to move the observer. In making human suffering an object of art, Lange discovered a way of eliciting sympathy, attention, and interest in a world already saturated with images. She took the concept of documentary photography beyond merely recording events.

When Lange took the picture in 1936, she was forty years old, and had been a committed photographer for some time. She had been married to her second husband, a sociologist, and was herself a mother of two. The market crash of 1929

eventually led to dissolution of her moderately successful portrait studio. The ensuing economic calamity, however, forced many agricultural workers into the street, and this was what Dorothea Lange had tried to capture with her camera. Her perspective in the photograph, the Angel Breadline, a shot of the down and out waiting in front of a soup kitchen set up by Lois Jordan (the “white angel”) a working-class widow of limited resources who relied only on unsolicited donations to run the breadline, marked a turning point in her work. Increasingly, it was the social realities of a post-agricultural America that she wished to capture.

It was the end of long hard winter, and several weeks of working with the camera under harsh conditions. It was raining and she was on her way back home in her car. A sign announced the camp of the pea harvesters. She drove past, but could not put it out of her mind. Suddenly, following her instinct, she drove back to the rain-soaked camp, parked her car, and got out. She immediately saw the woman in the distance, a “hungry and desperate mother.” According to Lange she doesn’t remember how she convinced the woman, or explained her presence. She told her name and age and she said she was living on frozen vegetables from the surrounding fields, and birds that the children had killed. She had just sold the tires from her car to buy food. There she sat in that makeshift tent with her children huddled around her, and she seemed to know that the pictures would help her... so she helped the photographer.

Not discussed in this post is how the narrative of poverty has changed over time. Today, the quietly suffering, noble, white “migrant Madonna” has been racialized into an amoral black or brown single mother mooching off the system. I hope to pursue this thread in more detail at a later time.

For more of Ms. Lange's work go to this Library of Congress link here. Alternatively, check out the slide show below (music by Bobby McFerrin):

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization… 

Punishing the Poor

Hola mi Gente,

Just recently, President Obama and congress cut funding for food stamps… Think about that for a minute.

Punishing the Poor

Government has to start living within its means, just like families do. We have to cut the spending we can't afford so we can put the economy on sounder footing...

 -- President Obama, weekly radio address, July 2, 2011

To put the above quote in context, consider that since the Great Recession in 2008, 95% of the total increase in income went to the top 1% of the population. On another related note, one Christmas morning, I once posted the following Facebook status update:

Before you post about all your gifts, consider that today one third -- ONE THIRD -- of children in the US are homeless.

A contact correctly pointed out that my figure -- that one-third of all children in the US are homeless -- was wrong and he posted a link to a credible source. I gotta respect that. In fact, if we go by official estimates, my figure grossly overestimates child homelessness.

I’m usually more careful about my statistics, so no excuses. What I should have posted was that child homelessness has risen and represent one-third of the homeless population. If we take the “official” homeless figure for children at 1.6 million children each year. To put it in perspective that equates to more than 30,000 homeless children each week and over 4,400 each day.

There are two things I want to explore a little further. One is that there is no concrete way to count the homeless. So the correct homeless figures vary widely, most will say that the figure stands at anywhere between 600,000-1.5 million. That’s a huge margin of error.

The National Coalition for the Homeless points out:

Many people call or write the National Coalition for the Homeless to ask about the number of homeless people in the United States. There is no easy answer to this question and, in fact, the question itself is misleading. In most cases, homelessness is a temporary circumstance -- not a permanent condition. A more appropriate measure of the magnitude of homelessness is the number of people who experience homelessness over time, not the number of “homeless people.”

Studies of homelessness are complicated by problems of definitions and methodology. (here)

Of particular interest to me, and to those who actually study homelessness, are the children of families who are living doubled up with friends and families because they have no place to stay. These aren’t counted as “homeless” and don’t qualify for homeless services. Furthermore, there are the families who have dropped off the grid entirely, living on the precarious margins of society with no hope. These the families who have no way of being contacted, therefore studies, many of which rely in part on telephone surveys, never count them.

Therefore, if we expand the definition of homelessness in order to better understand and explore it, my one-third figure, while admittedly still an overestimation, is not as much of an exaggeration as one would think.

In the interest of better articulating my point, let me use a related issue, poverty. If we use the accepted norm for measuring poverty, we find that nearly 15 million children in the United States -- 21% of all children -- live in families with incomes below the federal poverty level -- $22,050 a year for a family of four. However, the way we measure poverty is distressingly inadequate and obsolete. For example, research shows that, on average, families need an income of about twice that level to cover basic expenses. Using this standard, 42% of children live in low-income families (here). Notice that using a more rigorous measure of poverty causes the poverty rate to double. It doesn’t take a social scientist to understand the relationship between poverty and homelessness, so I have to wonder just how much of an exaggeration is my one-third figure.

Among the 21 most affluent nations, the United States has the highest percentage of poor children. In fact, our rate is twice that of the country next in line. And contrary to the demonizing and racializing of the poor by neoliberal idiots, most of these children have parents who work, but low wages and unstable employment leave their families struggling to make ends meet. Poverty sentences children to live on the margins of society as it impedes the ability to learn and contributes to social, emotional, and behavioral problems. Poverty is a major factor in poor health and is correlated to mental health. Risks are greatest for those who experience poverty when they are young and/ or experience deep and persistent poverty.

What to do? What’s needed is the exact opposite of the austerity budgets favored by Obama and conservative politicians in the US and Europe. More government spending and tax cuts targeted at the working class, beyond what President Obama has proposed, will surely make the deficit larger and drive up debt. But the post-World War II ratio of GDP to debt in 1946 was at 109% -- a record. This was followed by two of the strongest decades of economic growth in U.S. history.

FDR, who reneged on his initial promise to balance the budget and initiated the New Deal instead once declared, “To balance the budget in 1933, or 1934, or 1935 would be a crime against the American people.” Unfortunately, the biggest obstacle today is that poverty in America has been racialized. The color of poverty is black and brown and it’s far easier to demonize, as neoliberals do, the shiftless black and brown hordes of poor who multiply like rats and who have taken “our” country away from “us.”

This is what is meant when neoconservatives mewl about “taking our country back,” or “making America great again.” But this isn’t just a neoconservative stance, since corporate (neoliberal) democrats aren’t too much better than the idiots on the extreme right.

Never mind that this perception is false and there are multitudes of poor, hungry, and homeless children who happen to be white, as long as the mainstream political narrative can paint the issue in stark racial tones, Americans in the US won't identify with the plight of the poor. When the right cries “class warfare” their argument is little more than a thinly veiled racial slur. It’s how they get the white working class and the culture warriors on their side. Because this strategy is itself so deeply irrational, it’s inevitable that conservatism would become poisoned by it. Essentially, American conservatism is little more than a primal scream about its own demons and imaginary hells. Who benefits? The 1% percent benefit and reap the largest rewards as they pick our pockets while those on the right whine about fetuses and sex.

Without a champion or the political will to brand balancing the government budget as a “crime against the American people,” today’s crisis will likely drag on as economic hardship mounts for more and more of us -- especially our children.

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization…

Monday Myths [Hunger Games]

Hola mi Gente...

Over the years, my “Myth Buster Mondays” posts have taught me one thing: regardless of the strength and validity of the evidence to the contrary, most people will throw away the facts and cling to the belief. I would submit that today will be no different... 

* * *

 Hunger Myths

They must find it difficult...those who have taken authority as the truth, rather than truth as the authority.

-- Gerald Massey

This one is a pet peeve of mine because I’ve heard countless people, even some who consider themselves intelligent, repeat fallacies about world hunger. The best way I’ve seen it put is that while “hunger is not a myth... myths keep us from ending hunger.” At least 700 million people do not have enough to eat, or are “food insecure.” Additionally, every year, at least 12 million children die of hunger. 

If you’re like many people, you’re most likely inclined to think that if only those promiscuous third world people would stop fucking like rabbits and stop having so many babies, they would have enough food to eat (C’mon, we all know black and brown women have low morals and will drop litters of future American-hating, cop-killing, terrorist sociopaths!) Okay, you might think I overstate the issue, but I think not. However, the population explanation has the advantage of easing our collective guilt because the implication is that starving people have only themselves to blame for their predicament (cue chants of: “John Galt! John Galt!... ”).

However, the reality says otherwise. For example, the evidence from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization shows that there is no relationship between hunger and population density. Yes, Virginia, there are countries where people are both crowded and malnourished. But there are also countries where people are starving despite a relatively low ratio of people to farmable land. Nigeria, Brazil, and Bolivia, where abundant food resources coexist with hunger, come to mind. For every Bangladesh, a densely populated and hungry country, we find a Costa Rica, with only half of Honduras’ cropped acres per person, boasts a life expectancy11 years longer than that of Honduras and close to that of developed countries. Rapid population growth is not the root cause of hunger. Then there are countries with far higher population density but much less hunger, such as Japan and other advanced nations.

As so often happens when we look at commonly held beliefs, we find that an apparent cause-and-effect relationship doesn’t stand up to critical scrutiny. The most likely explanation, according to the empirical work of Francis Moore Lappé and her associates at the Institute for Food and Development Policy, is that when hunger and population growth do go together it is because they are both consequences of the same dynamic: powerlessness.

Let’s take a look at some basic facts. The world’s food supply is most realistically described as abundant, not scarce. For example, there is enough wheat, rice and other grains produced to provide every human being with 3,500 calories a day. That doesn’t even count many other staples such as vegetables, beans, nuts, root crops, fruits, grass-fed meats, and fish. Enough food is available to provide at least 4.3 pounds of food per person a day worldwide -- enough to make most people fat! The problem is that many people are too poor to buy readily available food. Even most “hungry countries” have enough food for all their people right now. However, if a minority of rich people or multinational corporations controls most of the land -- as is true in countries previously mentioned -- then neither the size of the population nor the number arable acres is the cause of the problem. Even relatively few people can be kept poor and hungry if they’re working for someone else. And even plentiful cropland isn’t going to alleviate the problem if it’s being used to raise feed for cows that will end up under a Mickey Dee’s heat lamp as a hamburger.

In fact, having many children (potential breadwinners) could be viewed as a rationale strategy for survival when people live from hand to mouth. At the same time, well-meaning birth control programs can’t by themselves improve people’s lives. The available evidence suggests that starvation is less a function of people having too many mouths to feed than of having too little control over their bodies, their land, their time, and their future.

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization...

Resources

Lappé, F. M., Collins, J., Rosset, P., & Esparza, L. (1998). World hunger: 12 myths. New York: Grove Press 

Ahn, C. (Ed.). (2003). Shafted: Free trade and America's working poor. New York: Food First Books.

Food First/ Institute for Food & Development Policy (click here)

Labels: Myths, World Hunger, Sustainability, Inequality, Child Hunger, Food Insecurity, Poverty, Inequality