Response to my gleaning on Family Photography and Eugenics

Articles: bell hooks, In Our Glory. Shawn Michelle Smith, Baby’s Picture is Always Treasured 

I find both hooks’ and Smith’s theories about the role of photography in asserting racial identity intriguing and historically ironic when placed side by side. . As hooks points out the accessibility of the camera allowed African Americans to produce their own images and tell their own history and narratives. Conversely, the white middle of the late 19^th/early 20^th century tried to preserve their racial strength through use of eugenics, baby books and photographic documentation. What I wonder is how conscious modern, especially young, communities are of the meaning of photographs within their family and racial contexts? One could say that because of double-consciousness African Americans, or any American racial minority, would inherently be aware of the power that claiming photography gives their community because they are aware of their position in America. But then are whites too conscious of the historic use of photography and the baby book that Smith explores? Smith suggests we have lost the eugenics meaning of baby documenting from the early 20^th century, and made it into something sentimental, but the hidden racial meaning could still remain.

Can “sentiment, then, fully account for the nature of our desire for baby’s picture?” Surely we don’t want to acknowledge or see some supremacist racial desire underlying our family photos but by denying it aren’t we just saying this practice is normal and natural? And thereby letting whiteness remain invisible? But is this really the case? Don’t we all to some extent have connection to old family photograph and our heritage what ever it may be? I think these types of photos invoke nostalgia, pride and curiosity about our pasts in many people. Can we accept hooks’ and Smith’s analyses as applicable to all modern Americans, black or white respectively? But still, something rings true in their writing, revealing hegemonic meanings and promoting counter hegemonic practices. I think part of the reason I have such a strong connection to my own family photographs, overwhelmingly those of my mother’s side, is not only because I have fond memories of them, but because I attempt to reclaim my culture history; like hooks writes, “(re-member) evokes the coming together of severed parts, fragments becoming a whole…using these images, we connect to a recuperative, redemptive memory that enables us to construct radical identities, images of ourselves that transcend the limits of the colonizing eye”

I found these essays so intriguing, that I hope to some time do an interview/photographic survey project of the images and recounts of biracial/multiracial individuals in relation to their own family photos. My own family being a part of this group, I think these people would have a unique perspective to offer in reference to these two contrasting historically informed uses of photography. Too often we are made to choose one or the other, but these histories have been blended within our own bodies and can be seen through our photographic memories.

framed photo of anthony his mother gave me, looking rather a lot like those white middle class babies of the eugenics era. nice work anthony! ;)

picture of my brother and I that he decided to post on his facebook account, for whatever reason. still has the same regard for  me and probably still wishes I would kiss up.