When I think of guns and violence, children almost never come to mind. When I think of the problems facing Baltimore, children almost never come to mind. The photographs by Ellis Marsalis (t.p. Luce) changed my perspective. You cannot only look at the sugar coated realities of Baltimore, but you must look deeper, until you can see all of it's truths.
In his collection, Marsalis attempts to portray what it is like in his community in Eastern Baltimore. The first picture that caught my attention was “In the shadow of the trees”. In this photograph, a boy looking to be around 14 years old is standing tall starring directly into the camera. He is on the far right side of the frame, and only half of his body is visible in the shot. The top of his head is also cut off by the frame. The black and white picture is extremely striking and I found myself looking into the child’s eyes. His head is tilted, and his eyes are filled with sadness and exhaustion. My eyes slowly moved down the picture and there seemed to be a park in the background. As I followed the line of a fence at the boy’s side, I finally noticed something in the boy’s hand. There, barely visible on the far right side of the photo, gripped tightly by the boy’s hand, was a gun.
I moved to the next photograph and once again saw a boy, but this time the boy was sitting on steps. The boy sits on the far right of the frame, with one of his elbow’s resting upon his knee. He is looking down to his side, where a gun is sitting. After looking at the photograph I noticed that the boy was sucking his thumb. I was overwhelmed by the irony and contrast of the picture. The boy’s side of the picture is filled with emotion, and texture. You can see the shadows on his body, the detail in his face, the texture of his jeans. On the other side of the photograph, there is merely a white space, and an emptied gun. Seeing the boy staring into this emptiness, while sucking his thumb was an extremely powerful image. They are just children, children being forced into a world that children should never be exposed to. The title of the photograph is “manchild eyes on the prize”.
This collection of photographs added a new perspective to my view of Baltimore. While I was always aware of the troubles facing the adult community of Baltimore, and how poverty affected children, I never really thought of the affects violence had on the youth. So what is to blame? Is it the location, is it the government, is it the parents, is it drugs, are guns to easily accessible, does today’s culture advocate and glorify violence too much? I honestly don’t know the answer, but I do believe that asking the question is almost as important as finding the answer. Yes, I do think it is important to better help the adult population, but it is the children that are the future, and if these pictures are any indication of even a small majority of the youth population, something needs to be done. Had I not seen these photographs, I do not think I would have been aware of the violence problem in Baltimore’s youth. While some of the images were hard to look at, and hard to accept, Loyola’s Year of the City is about raising awareness. Baltimore is an extremely diversified community. With areas of extreme wealth, and extreme poverty, very little crime, and overpowering crime, it is important to be aware of all aspects of the community to better be a part of the community.
The photographs also reminded me of the poems Walt Whitman, “One's-Self I Sing,” and “I Sing the Body Electric”. “One’s Self I Sing” is a poem that discusses segregation, and the realities of democracy. “One's-self I sing, a simple separate person,/Yet utter the word Democratic, the word En-Masse.” (Lines 1-2). The words “single separate person” tell the reader that while the speaker is only one man, he is separated from other men. He “utter(s) the word democracy” to show that while we live in a supposed democracy, the ideals do not always apply to everyone. This reminds me that perhaps the pictures of the boys and their circumstances were in fact caused by a lack of governmental help. Perhaps democracy did not help these boys and their neighborhoods. “I Sing the Body Electric” discusses what makes up a person. The speaker goes through every body part and shows that an appreciation for all parts of the body, attractive or unattractive, you can better appreciate the soul. “O I say these are not the parts and poems of the body only, but of the soul,/ O I say now these are the soul.” (lines 35-36) The photographs remind us that you cannot only look at one part of Baltimore, we must look at all parts, the good and the bad to appreciate the heart and soul of Baltimore. The photographs by Ellis Marsalis remind us that problems, and bad things do exist. Although we may not like to think of ourselves as part of the problem, by not working for a solution, we are. Although we may not live in these communities, or know these faces, as residents of Baltimore, and residents in this country, in this world, we are connected. It IS our problem. After all, as Edmund Burke said “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
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