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Gordon Parks’s compelling photograph of Bessie Fontenelle and her youngest son Richard, Jr., was published by Life magazine on March 8, 1968, as part of a special feature on blacks and poverty called A Harlem Family (or At the Poverty Board). Parks’s essay and twenty-five photographs vividly depict the hardships of a Harlem family living under deplorable conditions. Taken shortly after Bessie violently retaliated against her husband’s abuse, this image, which appears on the opening spread, captures both her love for her son and her deep frustration and exhaustion—the dichotomy of a life torn between hope and despair. Her sadness is tempered by her child’s wide-eyed innocence. The article begins with this admonition: “What I want/What I am/What you force me to be/is what you are,” suggesting that we are all part of one global family. Sadly, only young Richard survived the family’s hardships and grew up to escape poverty.

Link to a NY times article detailing the outcome of the Fontenelle Family.

Could it be really, really the case that any hate you feel is only ever about you?..And you too, you have to see what the mirror shows you: a woman who, despite what she knows, what she’s been privileged to experience, dumbs herself down, sets her own self up for so much of the hurt she lives. A woman who is not living the theory she believes.

Something Like Beautiful: One Single Mother’s Story by asha bandele 
Because in the end, what is triumph? Where does the bar get set for Black girls and their babies? If we manage to have our children circumvent prison, does it make us winners? If we show up to church most Sundays even if we show up carrying two hundred extra pounds, diabetes and heart disease? Are we winners then? If we shine as employee of the month, even if that shine is fueled by alcohol or drugs? What’s the goddamn bar of triumph for Black girls and their babies?
Something Like Beautiful: One Single Mother’s Story by asha bandele

So I decided to take a 6-week break from FB, Instagram and all other forms of social media (except Tumblr, of course). Only 2 days in and I’m already working rapidly on a new story. Guess I had to clear all the clutter and voices from my brain in order to hear my own. If it came down to a choice between creative clarity and FB, I chose art all day. Bye-bye social media!

To Tumblr, Love Pixel Union