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Untitled (Durag 1)John Edmonds

Untitled (Durag 1) John Edmonds

When photographer John Edmonds first started taking portraits, he worked from a tried-and-true script. Pose your subject, frame the face or body, and attempt to capture their unique individual essence. Then he started to envision a different way to approach portraiture. Edmonds wanted to use the art form to challenge peoples preconceptions about race and cultural identity.

In many of Edmonds more recent portraits, the subject is often covered or obscured. Men are seen from behind, wearing Do-rags or hooded sweatshirts. The only distinguishing features (if any) are a tiny tuft of hair or the outline of a shoulder.

In my work, the black body is a sight for contemplation, instead of the individual representing specifically who they are, he tells TIME. I talk about the work in terms of symbolismmy Hoods work and Do-ragsand looking at both of these articles of clothing as symbols.

While some might see the Hoods series as a blatant play on the narrative of Trayvon Martin, the 17-year-old shot by George Zimmerman, Edmonds says that the pictures arent so much about that event in particular, but about the preconceptions people have surrounding hooded sweatshirts and what they indicate about the wearer. A subject may fit a certain description, but there are all these other elements that pull you out of that description which are related to racial profiling. I experimented with how a photograph could probe those questions.

In another series titled, All Eyes On Me, a man with a covered nose and mouth gazes at the camera or slightly to the left or right. The series is presented as a succession of 40 almost identical near-frames. As the viewer walks around the gallery space, the mans gaze seems to follow. This intense eye contact might cause some to feel uncomfortable. Edmonds says that this interaction between subject and viewer is where the true reflection starts. He has such a piercing gaze that you have to look closely at this individual," he says. "Your imagination starts to roam. This is a recurring theme in all of my workthe gaze being flipped back onto the viewer.

For Edmonds, some level of anonymity is paramount. A lot of people that I photograph are strangers to me, he says. I dont have an immediate relationship to them. They are often people that I encounter when Im riding on a bus or walking down the street. I have an interest in protecting the individual. I want to veil the identity or specificity of the person, mostly implicating the viewer in the work, so that when they are looking at the figure its more about who theyre projecting the figure to be.

In a day and age where brash, action-filled imagery is often prized, Edmonds says he believes that subtlety can be a much more effective way to communicate. Visual art has an interesting way of becoming part of public discourse. People do see my Hoods images and immediately think of Trayvon Martin. I think the power of the work is its quietness. The photos are nuanced. They have a greater impact because of how they sit in your mind.

John Edmonds is an artist and photographer based in Brooklyn.

Myles Little, who edited this photo essay, is a senior photo editor at TIME.

Janna Dotschkal is a freelance writer based in Washington.

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How One Photographer Is Challenging Our Perceptions of Black Men - TIME

Post Date:June 4, 2017

By HENRY FREDERICK

Headline Surfer

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- How well do any of us real ever know someone who is in a position of public trust and wieldspoliticalpower.Someone who comes across as engaging and above reproach.

Consider foul-mouthed Mike Chitwood, Volusia County Sheriff since January and ex-Daytona Beach PD chief,who, in the past10 1/2 years, has had more face time in the Central Florida media spotlight than any othernewsmaker alongthe I-4 corridor -- from Disney and the Attractions to the rollingocean surfand hard sands of the World's Most Famous Beach.

Chitwood has hogged the spotlight more thanTiger Woods andShaquille O'Neal. More than Orange County Mayor Teresa Jacobs and Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer.More than Dwight Howard,Grant Hill andVince Carter. And way more than John Morgan of Morgan and Morgan and auto accident negligenceattorney Mark Nejame.

Chitwood has George Zimmerman and Casey Anthony beat. It's not even close, even when they are combined. Chitwood even created his own theatricalOscar moment by coaxing a despondent George Anthony from a seedy beachside motel in favor of a waiting bed in the psych ward at Halifax Hospital just up the road from Daytona International Speedway.

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Award-winning 24/7 Internet news from Daytona Beach, Florida, home of the World's Most Famous Beach & the ... - Headline Surfer

Terri Moravec has been actively involved with neighborhood watch for six years. Moravec is also a block captain in her Wildwood Park neighborhood in downtown Redding. "When neighbors get to know each other, and look out for one another, they become the eyes and ears for law enforcement when there's suspicious activity in the neighborhood."(Photo: Greg BarnetteRecord Searchlight)

Shes going to come up with a word for it.

BecauseRedding neighborhood watch captain Terri Moravec just cant describe the feeling she gets from keeping her downtown street safe at the same time shes fostering relationships with the other people who live there.

Im not sure what you call it; its just something that happens when neighbors unite and youve got a safer little community within a larger community called Redding, said Moravec, whos been involved with the program for decades and also volunteers for the Redding Police Departments office that oversees it.

And when Moravec found out the East Oak subdivision off South Bonnyview Road was hit by vandals last week pushing one resident to speed up her plans to leave Redding neighborhood watch was the first thing that came to mind. She believes the groups are the answer for frustrated longtime Redding residents who arent used to seeing the crime some areas have long been known for and who are tempted to leave because of it.

Related: After woman's truck vandalized, she says she gives up on Redding

There seems to be a groundswell of this thinking. For several years now, we seem to focus on the negatives of Redding because were dealing with things that those of us who have been here a while have maybe never lived with before, she said. Doing things that make your neighborhood safe, actually focusing on behaviors that make your neighborhoods safe, sometimes you just dont feel so alone.

Jennifer Long, the resident whose husbands truck was spray-painted, said she was interested in the idea of a neighborhood watch group, but ultimately, there would have to be one in every pocket of the city for her to want to stay in Redding.

I dont feel safe going into town after dark, she said, and I know a lot of women feel the same way.

Its true that not enough neighborhoods have watch groups, Moravec said. There are at least a few dozen groups, according to the Redding Police Departments map. But getting them spread throughout town would create a critical mass of safety, she said.

I believe that there are things that every average citizen can do to not only make their own home safer but their neighborhood as well, which ultimately translates into a safer city, really, Moravec said. Weve got a great network going, but not every neighborhood is represented with neighborhood watch groups. Thats our goal.

Moravec said its empowering to learn what to do to keep your neighborhood safe the Police Department educates watch captains on important phone numbers for reporting different problems, for example. But she said theres also a social component. And both pieces form a cycle the relationships people make through the watch could end up making them safer, Moravec said.

You become invested in their safety and hopefully, she said, the reciprocal is true of that.

Neighborhood watch-type groups dont come without their share of infamy.

Florida resident George Zimmerman was acquitted of shooting and killing 17-year-old Trayvon Martin as a neighborhood watchman, though the verdict shocked many since Martin was unarmed and Zimmerman had been following him.

Locally, a Cottonwood father and son were arrested this month for allegedly beating up a family delivering newspapers while patrolling as part of a self-styled neighborhood vigilante group. Then there was the Redding man who served jail time for pepper-spraying a neighbor while voluntarilypatrolling the neighborhood.

Moravec said those types of incidents dont represent what neighborhood watch groups are really about preventing crimes by keeping a watchful eye, not vigilante justice.

A neighborhood watch group never, ever, ever puts the neighbors in an unsafe situation or takes the law into their own hands, she said. The neighborhood watch group simply exists to work as the eyes and ears of law enforcement and to report suspicious activity.

Anyone interested in starting a group can call the Redding Police Departments neighborhood watch program at 225-4209 or email nwu@reddingpolice.org.

Moravec said training helps volunteers learn how to report various problems, and each watch group can customize what their main focus is for example, educating people about deterring car thefts by always locking doors and rolling up windows, or about discouraging mail thieves by spreading word about the importance of daily mailbox checks to their would-be victims.

You feel better after you said, Hey, I was able to effect a positive change that way, she said. There are an awful lot of things that you can do in your neighborhood to actually be safer not only feel safer, but become safer.

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Neighborhood watch captain says program is the answer to quality-of-life woes in Redding - Redding Record Searchlight

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. Looking out over a sea of people in Harvard Yard last week, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebooks chief executive and one of Harvards most famous dropouts, told this years graduating class that it was living in an unstable time, when the defining struggle was against the forces of authoritarianism, isolationism and nationalism.

Two days earlier, another end-of-year ceremony had taken place, just a short walk away on a field outside the law school library. It was Harvards first commencement for black graduate students, and many of the speakers talked about a different, more personal kind of struggle, the struggle to be black at Harvard.

We have endured the constant questioning of our legitimacy and our capacity, and yet here we are, Duwain Pinder, a masters degree candidate in business and public policy, told the cheering crowd of several hundred people in a keynote speech.

From events once cobbled together on shoestring budgets and hidden in backrooms, alternative commencements like the one held at Harvard have become more mainstream, more openly embraced by universities and more common than ever before.

This spring, tiny Emory and Henry College in Virginia held its first Inclusion and Diversity Year-End Ceremonies. The University of Delaware joined a growing list of colleges with Lavender graduations for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students. At Columbia, students who were the first in their families to graduate from college attended the inaugural First-Generation Graduation, with inspirational speeches, a procession and the awarding of torch pins.

Some of the ceremonies have also taken on a sharper edge, with speakers adding an activist overlay to the more traditional sentiments about proud families and bright futures.

After Columbias ceremony, Lizzette Delgadillo said she spoke about the pain of impostor syndrome feeling alone when it feels like everybody else on campus just knows what to do and you dont, and of how important it was to have the support of other first-generation students.

Delgadillo, who graduated with a bachelors degree in biomedical engineering, had lobbied for the event for three years, as a member of a group called the First-Generation Low-Income Partnership.

The current political climate definitely pushed this initiative to come to fruition, said Delgadillo, the daughter of Mexican immigrants living in Los Angeles.

Participants say the ceremonies are a way of celebrating their shared experience as a group, and not a rejection of official college graduations, which they also attend. Depending on ones point of view, the ceremonies may also be reinforcing an image of the 21st-century campus as an incubator for identity politics.

Its not easy being a student, being a student anywhere, but especially at a place like Harvard, Ward Connerly, president of the American Civil Rights Institute and a former University of California regent who campaigned against racial preference in admissions, said sympathetically.

But events like black commencements, he continued, serve only to amplify racial differences. College is the place where we should be teaching and preaching the view that youre an individual, and choose your associates to be based on other factors rather than skin color, he said.

Think about it, Connerly added. These kids went to Harvard, and they less than anyone in our society should worry about feeling welcome and finding comfort zones. They dont need that.

The alternative ceremonies at Harvard had printed programs, and incorporated the pageantry, ritual and solemnity of traditional commencements, though without the diplomas, which were reserved for the official university commencement.

A few hours after the new Harvard University Black Commencement for the graduate schools, including the prestigious law, divinity, business, government and medical schools, about 120 students attended the third annual Latinx commencement. In the cavernous basement of a science building, where an animal skeleton dangled overhead and Latin music played, students received stoles with the words Clase Del 2017 woven into them, while siblings devoured chocolate cupcakes.

Black undergraduates held a separate event that night amid the polished pews and Greek columns of Memorial Church, Harvards spiritual center and the backdrop for Zuckerbergs address.

While Zuckerbergs speech was broadcast live and received thousands of complimentary comments on Facebook, the black ceremony was relatively small and more intimate, and seemed invisible to scores of classmates noshing on sliders and beer at a white tent nearby, part of the broader commencement week revelry.

The ceremony was open to all students, though virtually everyone who attended was black, and not all black students attended.

About 80 black graduates formed a procession to organ music, received kente-cloth stoles, listened to a classmate play Bach on cello and sang Lift Every Voice and Sing.

For me, the black community is a home away from home, Olivia Castor, a student speaker from Spring Valley, New York, who earned a bachelors degree in social studies and African-American studies, said exuberantly.

Its where I spent most of my time, where I found my closest friends and, more importantly, where Ive learned the most important lessons during my time here, she went on. So thank you, thank you for being beautiful, brilliant and blackety-black-black.

Brandon M. Terry, the faculty speaker, joked that Harvard Colleges black graduation had become more mainstream since he graduated in 2005.

This setup already has us beat, he said. We were in one of the old Harvard buildings across campus. We had no air-conditioning, and some folding chairs on the stage.

Terry suggested that the mood was different as well.

You began college just weeks after George Zimmerman was acquitted in the callous killing of Trayvon Martin, Terry, an assistant professor of African and African-American studies and social studies, said in his address.

You were teenagers, like Michael Brown when he was subjected to the Sophoclean indignity of being shot dead and left in the blazing sun. Your world was shaped in indelible ways by these deaths and others like them, and many of you courageously took to join one of the largest protest movements in decades to try to wrest some semblance of justice from these tragedies.

But like all the speakers, he spoke reverently of Harvard as an institution, saying: The dramatic privileges that you have and will continue to benefit from in virtue of your association with this university are only worth the social cost if they are to benefit people worse off than you.

Bhekinkosi Sibanda, a first-generation Harvard student from Zimbabwe, said he had been ambivalent at first about participating in the black graduation.

In an attempt at inclusivity, we dont want to end up introducing exclusivity, he said. You dont want to end up where this black commencement overshadows the entire commencement of the school. You dont want to blow away the glory.

Then Sibanda remembered how a professor had asked if he wanted to drop a class, when all he wanted was help. Its good to be able to take this time for solidarity and identity, he said, to celebrate what weve achieved.

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Susan C. Beachy contributed research.

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Colleges celebrate diversity with separate commencements - Boston.com

LeBron James wearing an "I can't breathe" shirt in December 2014. LeBron James wearing an "I can't breathe" shirt in December 2014. Related content

(CNN) - After a racial slur was found spray-painted at LeBron James' Los Angeles home, the NBA's most prominent player sat down before a roomful of reporters and let out a sigh.

"Hate in America, especially for African Americans, is living every day," he said Wednesday on the eve of Game 1 of the NBA Finals. "It's alive every single day."

It marked just the latest time James has spoken out on hot-button racial issues. Unlike Michael Jordan, the NBA superstar who avoided politics publicly throughout his career, James has repeatedly offered his thoughts on racism, unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, Colin Kaepernick's national anthem protest and other related topics.

Here's a look at some of LeBron's statements over the years, from his tribute to Trayvon Martin to his comments this week about the vandalism at his home.

After Trayvon Martin was shot and killed by neighborhood watch captain George Zimmerman in February 2012, James joined his Miami Heat teammates in wearing hoodies in solidarity with the unarmed Florida teen.

"#WeAreTrayvonMartin #Hoodies #Stereotyped #WeWantJustice" James wrote then in a tweet.

In a follow-up tweet, he said he was "proud of my teammates" for their stance and signed a petition calling for the prosecution of Zimmerman.

James also took the floor for a game against the Detroit Pistons wearing sneakers with "RIP Trayvon Martin" written on them.

In April 2014 TMZ released an audio clip of Donald Sterling, then the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers, telling a woman that he didn't want her to bring any black people to Clippers games.

The comments caused an uproar in the predominantly black NBA. James was unequivocally clear on his stance.

"There is no room for Donald Sterling in our league," he told ESPN. "There is no room for him."

James said he would consider sitting out a playoff game in protest if his owner ever made comments like that.

"I've wavered back and forth if I would actually sit out, if our owner came out and said the things that [Sterling] said," James said. "I would really have to sit down with my teammates, talk to my family, because at the end of the day, our family and our teammates are way more important than that."

Days later, the NBA banned Sterling for life and forced him to sell the team.

In an interview with CNN's Rachel Nichols in September 2014, James was asked about his emerging role as a sports figure who speaks out on issues of racism and social justice.

"If I feel passionate about it and I feel something needs to be said or something needs to be done I'll voice my opinion," he said. "And I don't speak without knowledge. I educate myself first before I dive into a situation."

He also said the shootings in Ferguson and other related issues were personal for him because he has two sons, and he said he would continue to speak out as a role model.

"We know racism is still alive and the only thing I can do as a role model, I feel like I'm a leader in society, is to my kids and teach the people that follow me what the right way is," he said.

In November 2014, a grand jury declined to indict a Ferguson, Missouri, police officer who fatally shot Michael Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old. James took to Instagram and posted an image of Brown and Trayvon Martin with arms around each other walking into the light.

"As a society how do we do better and stop things like this happening time after time!! I'm so sorry to these families. Violence is not the answer people. Retaliation isn't the solution as well," he wrote. "#PrayersUpToTheFamilies #WeHaveToDoBetter"

In December 2014, James and other NBA players wore "I can't breathe" shirts during pre-game warmups. The phrase was a reference to the final words of Eric Garner, an African American man who died when a New York police officer threw him to the ground using a department-banned chokehold, an incident caught on camera.

A grand jury in New York declined to indict any officers in Garner's death, sparking widespread criticism -- including from James.

President Barack Obama told People magazine that James "did the right thing" by raising awareness about the issue.

"We went through a long stretch there where [with] well-paid athletes the notion was, just be quiet and get your endorsements and don't make waves," Obama said. "LeBron is an example of a young man who has, in his own way and in a respectful way, tried to say, 'I'm part of this society, too' and focus attention.

"I'd like to see more athletes do that," Obama added. "Not just around this issue, but around a range of issues."

James, possibly the most influential person in the swing state of Ohio, endorsed Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election, saying in an op-ed that "she will build on the legacy of my good friend, President Barack Obama."

"Only one person running truly understands the struggles of an Akron child born into poverty," James wrote. "And when I think about the kinds of policies and ideas the kids in my foundation need from our government, the choice is clear."

At the ESPY Awards in July 2016, James joined fellow NBA stars Chris Paul, Dwyane Wade, and Carmelo Anthony in delivering a call to action on racial issues.

"Tonight we're honoring Muhammad Ali, the GOAT," James said, referring to the acronym for Greatest of All Time. "But to do his legacy any justice, let's use this moment as a call to action for all professional athletes to educate ourselves, explore these issues, speak up, use our influence and renounce all violence and, most importantly, go back to our communities, invest our time, our resources, help rebuild them, help strengthen them, help change them."

Kaepernick, an NFL quarterback most recently with the San Francisco 49ers, decided last year to kneel during pre-game national anthems as part of a personal protest over police brutality and racism in America.

In an interview before the NBA season began, James said he would personally stand for the national anthem but added that he respected Kaepernick's position.

"I'm all in favor of anyone, athlete or non-athlete, being able to express what they believe in in a peaceful manner," he said. "That's exactly what Colin Kaepernick is doing, and I respect that. I think you guys know when I'm passionate about something, I speak up on it.

"Me standing for the national anthem is something I will do. That's who I am. That's what I believe in, but that doesn't mean I don't respect and don't agree with what Colin Kaepernick is doing. You have the right to voice your opinion, stand for your opinion, and he's doing it in the most peaceful way I've ever seen someone do something."

Los Angeles police on Wednesday said a racist slur was found spray-painted on the front gate of James' home. The day before facing the Golden State Warriors in the first game of the NBA Finals, the star forward put the incident in historical context.

"I think back to Emmett Till's mom, actually," James said, referring to the black teen who was lynched in Mississippi in 1955. "That's one of the first things I thought of. The reason she had an open casket was that she wanted to show the world what her son went through as far as a hate crime, and being black in America.

"No matter how much money you have, no matter how famous you are, no matter how many people admire you, being black in America is tough," he said. "We got a long way to go for us as a society and for us as African Americans until we feel equal in America."

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9 times LeBron James has spoken out on race - NBC Montana