“worshipping their god, hate”
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“Here, kids, I have some candy for you. But you both have to come with me…”, suggestion of blood libel
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Tag Archives: images
Sexism, A Collection of Images (5)
women clean the house, and stay slim at the same time
women make breakfast
women work in the kitchen
women do the dishes
women are responsible for educating their children
in China, beautiful women serve coffee on international women’s day
women look old rather quickly
women smell
some women can project their equipment
International Intervention, A Collection of Images
Unsurprisingly, representations of international intervention often include a world map or a globe. And since these representations are almost always dismissive of intervention (even though in theory intervention can be a good thing), you’ll also see some awful creature with tentacles grasping the globe. It used to be common to depict the communist threat in this way:
Even post-communist Russia sometimes gets the same treatment, deservedly or not:
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The image of the globe-spanning octopus was also used to condemn the so-called global Jewish conspiracy:
Jewish imperialism, Danish version
(more here)
Amazingly, this red herring is still in use today:
Israeli intervention in US politics
Images condemning international intervention were common during the era of colonialism:
If it’s not the globe that’s carved up by the imperialists, it’s some kind of pizza/cake thing:
China is well-known for its desire to intervene in Taiwan in order to undo the intervention of someone else:
“We must liberate Taiwan”, 1958
The US as the “policeman of the world” is another famous anti-interventionist metaphor:
Feminism, A Collection of Images
Some remarkable images by photographer Liora K:
(source, source)
More on contraception, rape, abortion and wage discrimination.
Work, A Collection of Images
The images below are fun but they’re really just an excuse to link to my latest book about the importance of work in our lives and about the ways in which bad work ruins everything (some excerpts are here and here).
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Gender Equality, A Collection of Images
Betty Boop in a traditional gender role
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gender roles in a scene from the movie “Up”
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reversed gender roles in a video for “Army of Me” by Björk
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reversed gender roles in a cartoon by Angel Boligan
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cartoon mocking both western and muslim views on women
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who wants to be a man’s equal when you can just be a woman?
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a career or a rich husband?
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Capital Punishment, A Collection of Images
Mansur al-Hallaj (858 -922 AD) was a Persian mystic, revolutionary writer and pious teacher of Sufism most famous for his poetry, accusation of heresy and for his execution at the orders of the Abbasid Caliph Al-Muqtadir after a long, drawn-out investigation.
(source, where you can read the full story)
The precise story about this picture is unknown, to me at least. I couldn’t find any reliable references. It’s assumed that this is an image of a public execution in China.
(source unknown, more on capital punishment in China is here)
“Pieta”, Jesus in the electric chair, by British artist Paul Fryer, in the private collection of François Pinault in France
(source, no doubt inspired by Lenny Bruce)
Francisco Goya, The Shootings of May 3, 1808. Goya sought to commemorate Spanish resistance to Napoleon’s armies during the occupation of 1808 in the Peninsular War.
(source unknown)
Cook County kept a gallows around until 1977 in case “Terrible Tommy” O’Connor, who escaped on the eve of his execution in 1921, was ever apprehended
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More images of capital punishment are here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here. More on capital punishment in general here. Some data are here. And other collections of human rights images are here.
Sexism, A Collection of Images (4)
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(I have no information about the sources of these images. If you can help, add a comment).
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Animalization, A Collection of Images
Depicting the enemy as some kind of animal is a time-honored method of dehumanization. And once the enemy is no longer human, a lot of our usual moral inhibitions fall to the wayside. Here are some examples:
this anti-immigrant ad from Hong Kong reads: “Do you want Hong Kong to pay 1 million HKD per 18 minute raising illegitimate child from mainland? Hong Kong people have had enough of it! We understand that you suffer from contaminated milk powder, so we tolerate your raid upon our milk powder; we understand that you don’t have freedom, so we receive you over here through “free pass”; we understand that your education is poor, so we share our educational resource with you; we understand that you don’t read traditional Chinese, so we use “cripple” Chinese character (simplified Chinese) in the following: “Please respect our local culture when you are here, without Hong Kong you are all doomed.” Strongly demand the government to amend the 24th clause of Basic Laws! Stop the massive invasion of double negative pregnant women from mainland. (double negative = none of the woman’s parents are from HK)”
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American World War Two propaganda poster depicting the Japanese as rats
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Anti-German image from World War One depicting Germans as … some kind of animal
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Nazi cross kills a jewish rat
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Nazi propaganda depicting Jews as bacteria and disease carriers (“Krankheitserreger”)
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It seems Charles Darwin descended from monkeys, hahaha
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the more common objects of monkeyfication are of course Africans and African Americans
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The Obamas in the Planet of the Apes
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and in the interest of objectivity, Bush as a loving monkey
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More on animalization here.
Homelessness, A Collection of Images (2)
Lee Jeffries’ wonderful portraits of homeless people:
(source, source, source)
Another collection of images about homelessness is here. More on homelessness here. More collections of human rights images here.
Female Objectification, A Collection of Images (2)
(A previous collection is here).
Apparently, Durex thinks women are tunnels
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And just to show that it’s mostly but not always women who suffer this treatment:
Racism, A Collection of Images (2)
the black servant stereotype (in case you're wondering why there's a mannequin at the table: it's Cynthia, a major 1930s celebrity, fixture of the trendy dinner parties and gossip columns of the day; read more about her at the source link below)
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the black servant stereotype seems to be very much alive
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and of course there's also a black male servant stereotype
(source unknown)
Turkish news anchor appears in blackface in the coverage of President Obama’s trip to Turkey
(source, more on blackface here)
macabre and racist valentine card with lynching theme
(source unknown)
African Americans aren't the only victims of stereotyping
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Mexicans it seems are sombrero wearing, violent, fat, moustachioed goofs (re: silly laugh) fond of conspicuous wealth (aka golden tooth)
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1882, Strong anti-Chinese sentiment in California leads to the federal Chinese Exclusion Act, which suspends immigration from the East. The political cartoon above, titled "The Only One Barred Out," mocks the legislation.
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Child Soldiers, A Collection of Images (2)
Child soldiers in the Congo
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A former abductee of the Lord's Resistance Army
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Probably not a child soldier, just a studio portrait of a child dressed in military uniform, possibly the son of Private Eldershire, from the Australian War Memorial's collection (1915)
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This Chinese soldier, age 10, with heavy pack, is a member of an army division boarding a plane returning them to China, following the capture of Myitkyina airfield, Burma, under the allied command of US Major General Frank Merrill, May 1944. Chinese and allied troops had earlier crossed through the treacherous jungle of the Kumon Bum Mountains before attacking Japanese troops to the south. Exhaustion and disease led to the early evacuation of many Chinese and allied troops before the coming assault on Myitkyina town.
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A "son of the regiment" wearing the Red Star for bravery, surrounded by his admirers. "Sons of the regiment" were orphans adopted by Soviet regiments, and were looked after like the soldiers' own sons. They lived with the soldiers and fought alongside them in front-line actions.
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Child soldier in the US Civil War
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Child soldiers of the Finnish Red guards in Kymi
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Warsaw Uprising: Soldiers from the "Radosław Regiment" after several hours marching through sewers from Krasiński Square to Warecka Street in the Śródmieście district, early morning on September 2, 1944. The boy wearing a helmet is Tadeusz "Maszynka" Rajszczak from the Miotła Battalion.
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More images of child soldiers here.
Antisemitism, A Collection of Images (5)
Blood libel is an old and prominent theme in anti-semitism, and still in use today.
Blood libels typically allege that Jews require human blood for the baking of matzos for Passover, although this element was absent in the earliest cases that claimed (the contemporary) Jews reenacted the crucifixion. The accusations often assert that the blood of Christian children is especially coveted, and, historically, blood libel claims have been made to account for otherwise unexplained deaths of children. (source)
Here are some historical and contemporary images invoking blood libel explicitly or implicitly:
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"the only democracy in the Middle East"
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More images here.
Iconic Images of Human Rights Violations (67): The Killing Fields
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The Killing Fields are a number of sites in Cambodia where large numbers of people were killed and buried by the Khmer Rouge regime, during its rule of the country from 1975 to 1979. … Analysis of 20,000 mass grave sites by … indicate at least 1,386,734 victims. Estimates of the total number of deaths resulting from Khmer Rouge policies, including disease and starvation, range from 1.7 to 2.5 million out of a population of around 8 million. (source)
More on genocide here and here. More iconic images of human rights violations are here.
Iconic Images of Human Rights Violations (66): Hans Conrad Schumann’s Leap for Freedom
(source, photo by Peter Leibing)
On 15th August 1961, Hans Conrad Schumann, a 19-year-old soldier in East Germany’s Bereitschaftspolizei became world famous when he defected across the newly installed Berlin Wall.
At that time, the wall was only a low barbed wire fence. From the other side, West Germans shouted to him, “Komm rüber!” (“Come over!”), and a police car pulled up to wait for him. Schumann jumped over the barbed wire fence and was promptly driven away from the scene by the West Berlin police. West German photographer Peter Leibing photographed Schumann’s escape, and this picture has since become an iconic image of the Cold War era. (source)
The iconic moment has been commemorated by way of this statue:
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More iconic images of human rights violations are here.
Iconic Images of Human Rights Violations (65): The Lynching of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith
(source, photo by Lawrence Beitler)
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This infamous lynching took place in Marion, Indiana on August 7, 1930.
[Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith] had been arrested the night before, charged with robbing and murdering a white factory worker, Claude Deeter, and raping his white girlfriend, Mary Ball. A large crowd broke into the jail with sledgehammers, beat the two men, and hanged them. When Abram Smith tried to free himself from the noose as his body was hauled up by the rope, he was lowered and then his arms broken to prevent him from trying to free himself again. Police officers in the crowd cooperated in the lynching. A third person, 16 year old James Cameron, narrowly escaped lynching thanks to an unidentified participant who announced that he had nothing to do with the rape or murder. (source)
The photograph was the inspiration for a poem by Abel Meeropol, called “Strange Fruit”, immortalized in the song of the same name, performed by Billie Holiday:
More iconic images of human rights violations in general are here, and another iconic image of lynching is here. More on lynching here (some data here, here and here).
Iconic Images of Human Rights Violations (64): Heads Claimed by the Guillotine
heads claimed by the guillotine
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Some of the heads claimed by the guillotine over the years (left to right, top to bottom):
- Abel Pollet (1909)
- Canute Vromant (1909)
- Albert Fournier (1920)
- Jean Van de Bogaert (1905)
- Théophile Deroo (1909)
- Joseph Vacher (1898)
- Charles Swartewagher (1905)
- Auguste Pollet (1909)
- Lénard, Oillic, Thépaut and Carbucci (1866)
- Louis Lefevre (1915) – Lefevre’s head underwent a brain autopsy after the execution, which explains the incision across the forehead (not a botched execution as claimed by a French newspaper).
More iconic images of human rights violations in general are here, and more images on capital punishment specifically are here, here and here. More on capital punishment here.
Inequality, A Collection of Images (2)
(A older collection of images on inequality is here. Similar collections: sexism, segregation, antisemitism, discrimination, caste, and racism).
by Clay Bennett, Chattanooga Times Free Press
(source, more on income inequality)
Muslim veil cartoon by Olle Johansson
(source, more on the Muslim veil here, more on gender equality here)
segregation cartoon by Nate Beeler
(source, more on segregation, Jim Crow and Rand Paul’s objections to the Civil Rights Act)
by Clay Bennett, Chattanooga Times Free Press
(source, more on same-sex marriage rights here)
More collections of human rights images are here.
- The Causes of Wealth Inequality (12): Immigration (filipspagnoli.wordpress.com)
- The inequality that matters (marginalrevolution.com)
- Human Rights Facts (211): U.S. Public Opinion on Income Inequality (filipspagnoli.wordpress.com)
Asylum Seekers, A Collection of Images
More here on political asylum and why this is a human rights issue. More on asylum in general is here. Some statistics are here. Other collections of human rights images are here.
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Female Animalization, A Collection of Images
Female animalization is the depiction of women as animals, or as hybrid human-animals. It’s in fact a subgenre of female objectification, which is itself a subgenre of dehumanization (see also here). Depicting a woman as an animal means taking away her human characteristics and can lead to gender discrimination. It’s easier to deny the rights of an animal than the rights of an individual human being.
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snake woman
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frog woman
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pig woman
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Hillary Clinton as a pig
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dog woman
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And of course there’s this infamous example of Michelle Obama’s face turned into a monkey face:
Michelle Obama monkey face
(source, examples of Bush and Osama bin Laden as monkeys are here)
Some time ago, this image was the first to appear when people googled for images of Michelle Obama. Because of this Google issued this statement:
Sometimes Google search results from the Internet can include disturbing content, even from innocuous queries. We assure you that the views expressed by such sites are not in any way endorsed by Google.
Search engines are a reflection of the content and information that is available on the Internet. A site’s ranking in Google’s search results relies heavily on computer algorithms using thousands of factors to calculate a page’s relevance to a given query.
The beliefs and preferences of those who work at Google, as well as the opinions of the general public, do not determine or impact our search results. Individual citizens and public interest groups do periodically urge us to remove particular links or otherwise adjust search results. Although Google reserves the right to address such requests individually, Google views the integrity of our search results as an extremely important priority. Accordingly, we do not remove a page from our search results simply because its content is unpopular or because we receive complaints concerning it. We will, however, remove pages from our results if we believe the page (or its site) violates our Webmaster Guidelines, if we believe we are required to do so by law, or at the request of the webmaster who is responsible for the page.
We apologize if you’ve had an upsetting experience using Google. We hope you understand our position regarding offensive results.
Sincerely,
The Google Team
At this point, I should probably mention that men as well can be animalized, and have been to great political effect throughout history. Here’s one example:
More examples featuring hated outgroups here.
More on advertising.
The Indian Caste System, A Collection of Images
More information on the Indian Caste system is here. Other collections of human rights images here.
Dalit or "Untouchable"
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Brahmin, member of the priest caste
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Indian caste system
Homelessness, A Collection of Images
In the U.S., approximately 1.6 million persons experience homelessness and per year. This number only includes persons who used shelters or transitional housing programs at least once during a year). Almost 20% of those are chronically homeless (source). Almost half of the homeless population is African-American.
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Homeless people live on a street corner, Monday, May 9, 2005 in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa (Karel Prinsloo/AP Photo)
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A homeless man, like many in Xinjiang, Hotan China
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Homeless man, Amman, Jordan
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More on homelessness. More collections of human rights images.
