What is our responsibility when it comes to images?
Specifically, I'm referring to images that may be valuable, but which need loads of context – and how we should treat them at featured pictures, picture of the day, and other places where that context might end up getting stripped. And I should warn: This might get pretty uncomfortable. The examples I've chosen largely relate to racism and racial violence, and, while I haven't shown the worst image discussed, there are dead people on this page.
Let's start with the least disturbing examples (at least visually), because I would rather that people reading this know what's coming before the worst images are on their screen.
"If international finance Jewry inside and outside Europe should succeed in plunging the nations once more into a world war, the result will be not the victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe." This is Hitler's prophecy in a poster from 1941 that was displayed at Nazi Party offices. Given the claims the German populace didn't know about the Holocaust, this is actually rather good evidence to counter falsehoods. But it's also a literal quotation from Hitler, in a visually attractive form. This one was actually up for featured picture, but was rejected. I'm not sure if we made the right choice or not, because since then it's found a use – countering propaganda in various other articles.
This is Jefferson Shields, who's described as the "personal servant" – which may well be a euphemism for "slave" – of Colonel James Kerr Edmondson of the 27th Virginia Infantry Regiment. He did nothing wrong. However, let's look at our article, Military history of African Americans in the American Civil War:
| “ | Shields attended many reunions and was voted in as a member of the Stonewall Brigade at a reunion in Staunton, Virginia. He was buried with a military grave marker that reads "Jefferson Shields, Pvt. Co. H 27th Va. Inf., Stonewall Brigade, Confederate States Army" at Evergeen Cemetery, Lexington, Virginia.
Jefferson Shields was not enlisted in the Confederate Army. The Sons of Confederate Veterans awarded him the honorary rank of Private decades after his death. The Confederate Army did not allow slaves to enlist. His image, along with other "black Confederates", helped to reinforce the stereotype of the "happy slave" narrative, according to historian Kevin M. Levin. |
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So, if I were to restore this image and get it to the main page, would this help open a conversation about how, in the 1970s, as the Civil Rights Movement was fighting for African American rights, groups in the South tried to make the case that everything was fine before the American Civil War, and were rewriting the past to do so? Or would it just give a nice image to racists who can strip out all this context and use it to promote their views?