Hi, my name is Hermene Hartman and this is N'digo Studio.

We're going to talk about images.

You know, images are important because they tell us who we are.

They give us our definition and description.

And black images?

Well, in this society they've been all over the place; from degrading to daring.

And today we see white mainstream magazines adding black faces to their covers.

But, what are those images saying?

How do we look?

Is it degrading, is it complementary, or is it a new stereotype?

There's different perceptions of how black folks see themselves and how white folk depict black images.

And today, in The Black Lives Matter moment, we see a new image, we see changing images of black people.

And Jemima well she's no longer on the "pancake box".

Was that a stereotypical image of a woman cook?

And uncle Ben.

He's been a fixture on the "rice box".

Is that a hold-over from slavery, as an image as Butler?

The New York times July 3rd, 2020, just decided to capitalize the Be In Black and their editorial content.

Now, how has the image changed?

We're gonna talk about, today... about images of black folks in this changing world.

And we're going to talk to: Angela Ford, she's the founder of Obsidian, a photo-archival collection on black life, Dorothy Leavell, she's the publisher of the Chicago Crusader.

And Darryl Dimare broadcast journalist from iHeart media in Chicago.

We're gonna have a real relevant conversation.

Hope we're going to talk about it.

-Cozy conversations Drop the knowledge That's for real.... Funding for this program was provided by the Chicago Community Trust, Commonwealth Edison, Blue Cross Blue Shield, the MacArthur Foundation and Illinois State Lottery.

So, today we're gonna be talking about black images and we're gonna be talking to some experts.

I got some of my best friends here.

Dorothy Leavell, let me ask you this.

Black media, white media.

Is Black Media and the day of inclusion and diversity still necessary.

- Absolutely.

It started in 1827.

Believe me, the times are very similar - How so?

- The Black Press was founded to give a voice to African Americans.

Our blacks, men and women, were denigrated and call foul names, so to speak.

Even in 1827.

And it was because of the need to give a portrayal of how we really were, for us to have freedom's journal in 1827.

Here we are and we are seeing many of our people killed.

Not-- Unlike 1827, our men just not called by any other name, but criminal and lowlife.

And we had the same thing for women.

So, that's why there was Freedom's Journal and the Black Press in 1827.

- Darryl, you do such a great job every week in recapping the news.

It's hard to recap the news in that kind of time.

But, how about your recap of the news versus white media?

What's the difference?

- I think that, you know you have to, first of all, set the platform straight and stop delivering false narratives.

So if it's the white news media that's objective, I don't think you find too much of a difference there, other than we come from a black perspective.

The second piece is truth.

- [Hermene] Hm.

- If you're not telling the truth then there's no way I can compete with you, because you're saying one thing and I'm saying another.

And in the process of that, what happens is that there is no balance.

There's no level playing field.

So, when it comes to objective true news gathering, there's not too much of a difference between the black press and the white press, because both had the objective of telling the truth.

Telling the.. You know, it's like the New York Times, you know, all the news that's fit to print.

From a black perspective, working for a black publications, whether it was Johnson publishing company or whether it was a black enterprise.

We also carry that same caveat with regard to telling the story.

Nowadays, there's this false narrative with regard to what is true and what isn't, and it's, you know, very Orwellian and its particular purpose.

The reality is you can come up and say, "Oh, that's blue".

And then somebody else says, "No, it isn't.

It's yellow".

And then, you say that it's yellow, even though you know that it's blue.

After a while you start scratching your head and go, "You know, I got, I can see somebody yellow it's in there".

- And then somebody from Facebook could say it's really red.

(laughing) Angela, you are doing something that is going to...

It's up to date, but it's also going to be revolutionary.

Tell us about the Obsidian collection and what you're doing with your archive black images.

- Thank you.

I am committed to digitizing our history to make it available to the Millennials, the Zoomers, the generations coming forward to see all of the great journalism that has happened in America that represents us.

But, the younger people usually expect to go to their smartphone and kind of Google what the history is.

And we haven't digitized it the way we should.

Those images help tell the truth, so that these young people can see who we really were, because these modern narratives, like you said, aren't favorable at all.

But we were beautiful, glamorous, did amazing, wonderful things.

And it was through my son.

I was telling him a story about Bronzeville-- Historic Bronzeville in Chicago.

And he immediately went to his phone to start Googling more of the story because that's what young people do.

And he said, "It's not in here," as if I was-- I said, "Well, I was there.

So I know what happened".

And he said, "Yo, are you spelling it right?"

(chuckle) And I said, "Okay, okay, what are you doing?"

And so the younger people expect all of this history to be in their smartphones.

So we're digitizing all of the black legacy newspapers, all of as many photo journalists as we can, and getting millions of images on a portal, so that the youth can see who we really are is.

In the collection, will be online.

The collection will be online.

And it's available.

When, when, when do you launch?

It'll be available.

We're launching this fall, but we should have a substantial amount of images up in the winter.

And it'll be ongoing.

Ongoing.

And it's a stock photo page.

That's just one of the things we're doing.

But that makes sense for this conversation.

The stock photo page.

So that as we tell our stories, as we research, as as the journalists pull images from today, they'll be able to pull images of us the way we see ourselves.

So you launch in in the fall and how many images do you think you will have will.

Launch with a few thousand just to get the site up.

But we spent over a year building a very complex site at don't ask me about coding because I know a lot now I know enough to clear a cocktail party.

Right?

But we spent a great deal of capital to build a very complex, robust site that will allow black photojournalists to upload personally.

So we'll scale really significantly I saw the Jackie Robinson movie that we that we all saw that was.

42 one to.

42.

Sure.

And I noticed how the people dressed, black folks when they went to the game and I came home talking to my mother about it.

She's she's Jackie Robinson.

That couldn't say anything when Jackie was playing Da da da da da.

And of course, that's her day.

She remembers that day.

But I said to her, Did you all really dress up like that and go to the ballpark?

And she said, Girl, yes.

And I said, Well, why did you?

She said, We were representing Jackie.

And if he won that meant, good time in Harlem, good times on South Side of Chicago.

She said, But if we didn't win, we had to walk out of there with our pride, dignity.

And so to your point, and I had never seen that before, but that was captured in that movie.

Men wore suits.

Yes.

And women wore like we were going to church and you just couldn't tell the ballgame from church.

Well, that's one of the things, as we have gone as we have gone through a lot of the Chicago black archives here, when you look at the pictures from the forties, fifties, and sixties.

- (Hermene) Mn.

- And I talked to some of our elders in the community.

You would work a hard day, wherever you work but you'd come home shower, - Change - Put on your best outfit and go out.

And what would be in social media describe now, but we would get together.

And this was where courtships happen.

This is where relationships happen.

- Going to the club.

- Going to the clubs or going on 47th street in Chicago - Mm-hm - Club DeLisa.

The club DeLisa, the Jones Brothers had a department store where we did all of our shopping, but, women would make those dresses.

And so at that point, you could really be O couture.

You could design your own fashions and go out and get a good husband.

- But a different, a g... What's that?

- A good husband.

(laughs) - But listen-- - I pay several (laughs) (Hermene claps) - Good ones, - But everybody was gorgeous and everybody would make their outfits to go out over the weekends, over the evenings to see and be seen.

And we need those images to be part of our story.

- Well, here's a point.

We have to see our pictures-- - Yes.

- Our photographers, our newspapers, - Yes.

- Our magazines, to see that glad energy.

- Exactly.

- If we look white press-- - Why - You're not gonna see it.

- You're not going to see it.

- Well take the lead in that day .

So we have the history, - Exactly.

- Yes.

Exactly.

What I want to do now is I want to is I want to look at some of these images that we've been talking about, and bring it right on up to date, to modern day.

So, there's an image there of how our images were used to sell product.

And Jemima was on Pancake Box for a long time.

Uncle Ben was on the Rice Box for a long time.

Both of those images have changed, but those are longstanding images that were branding, actually for Quaker wrote.

Dorothy, what's your thoughts on that?

- Well, first of all, that's the new Ann Jemima and Uncle Benny - Not the originally.

- They are not the original ones.

However, you know, it has a rich history that it was a part of the World's Fair that was held right here in Chicago.

They use those images and they try to update them years later, - Mm-hm.

- Because, before that we was truly service of others, in there capacity.

And so we were not quite as glamorized.

Our hairstyles were not quite as well.

- Mm-hm.

- Now, maybe the Butler looked more like uncle Ben, but I tell you, Ann Jemima didn't look like that.

(Darryl chuckles) And then Darryl, now here's an image that you remember.

- Mm-hm.

- And that was OJ Simpson.

And what they did with OJ, that was just very, very interesting, is they darkened him, and that became very controversial at the time.

- What were your thoughts?

- What they did-- It becomes-- You know, it falls under the aegis of propaganda, because what you're able to do, especially during the Photoshop day and age, is that, I'm going to take an image of OJ, and time, which was much more conservative in its bent.

The Newsweek was-- What they were able to do is that they were able to say, "Hey.

You know, he's a menace.

So what we're going to do is we're going to create a more menacing photo of him.

We're going to darken it, increased the contrast, make sure that there's heavy heavy, five o'clock shadow on his face."

Whereas Newsweek actually presented the photo probably the way it actually was initially captured.

And so what it does is that it shows you just how easy images can be manipulated to try to sell whatever slant you're trying to promote.

- So, and the perception of the time of-- - [Dorothy] He is a criminal.

- He's, okay, the criminal - Yeah.

- Mm-hm - All right.

And then, here we are today.

Now, this is a current copy of Elle magazine, Tracee Ross Oh, oh, y'all got quiet.

(chuckle) And what... What's that image say?

It says that non-black person is controlling the narrative and maintaining, even as they see us as modern, it's a nod back to stereotypical tropes of the past.

I don't think if you had black people in authority making those decisions, we would not migrate toward the stereotypical tropes, even in a form of art.

- So it's important to be on the cover, but it's important who takes that photo?

- [] Absolutely.

- [Dorothy] Well.

Yeah.

- Behind the scenes.

Darryl.

- Well, I think that it's also indicative of the fact of taking once with things or images that were once taboo and saying that I'm going to claim ownership of this particular image.

I'm not going to claim it based on your buffoonery story type of template, that you're using, but I'm going to make what you consider to be a buffoon...

I'm going to make it beautiful.

And I think that there is part of that...

It, you know, it also hearkens back to we as black folks, taking the N word and destigmatizing it in our community.

- Mm-hm.

- You know, you meant it as harmful, but we turned it around and said, "No, what you meant for bad, we can mean for good".

Not that I'm, you know, espousing the use, or, you know, trying to uplift the use of the word, but I think that's the mentality there, is that these images that you perceived before as being negative, we're going to the script on you.

- Here's vanity fair.

This is September issue vanity fair and you see something very different.

- Yeah.

- It's a painting.

- [] It is.

- Okay.

And it's of... - Breonna Taylor.

- Breonna Taylor, the young lady who was-- - Yes.

- Who was shot in her home.

And this is a portrait by Amy Shell.

- (Darryl) Who's the same person that did.. - Michelle Obama's portrait.

- (Darryl) Portrait.

- Portrait.

Right.

What do you think of that?

What's that say to you?

- I think it's more of a deliberate attempt to be respectful and forward thinking, in terms of presenting the crises.

- [Hermene] You like it?

- I think it's fine.

- [Darry] It's okay.

- [] Yeah.

Yeah.

- Dorothy, is that purse mustard for you?

- Not for me.

- Me.

- And the one before that.

I didn't like that.

- Mm-hm.

- With those pigtails out there, but I'm from a different era.

And so, I think you have to think in terms of the age the group and how they would perceive some of these images as well, because, I don't like the pigtails out there.

(chuckling) You know, I like the clean cut look.

- Mm-hm.

- I'm fussing right now with my grandson (chuckles) about his hairstyle.

- Leave him alone Dorothy.

- And that's what everybody tells me.

And I've got to leave him alone.

There's no doubt about it.

But when I looked at the NBA and all of those men out there on the court and those hairstyles they just really turned me totally off.

I think you can be modern, I think you can be different, but it could be looked like as well kept.

- So, now, this is a trend.

I just showed you L, now look at Vogue, and it's the same thing.

It's a painting on the cover, as opposed to a photo, glam photo, on the cover, and, this-- They contracted these artists and said, "Just do your thing.

We don't know who's going to be on the cover?"

But here it is.

So here's another painting on the cover of the magazine.

- Oh, this too is Vogue.

This they did two covers.

That's Vogue and that's by Marshall, who's a Chicago artist-- - Right.

- Whose paintings Kerry Marshall.

- Cargo is Kerry Marshall.

- Who's painting also selling upwards of $20 million.

- Like, or not like.

Dorothy] Like.

Carol could you-- - I like it.

And the fact that, you know, you're bringing attention to artists that the world may not be aware of.

And the reality here is that they can use black models, which is great, but creating an artist to give an interpretation of an individual of significance.

Likewise, if you look at old magazine, the first cover that she wasn't appearing on, her namesake magazine, she actually had a photograph of Breonna Taylor - For the first time in the history of-- - And so what, what I think is happening is that there is a new movement of foo to be more inclusive of the spectrum arts and artistic participation and creation.

Now, Jarrod Nyro, we read, we read as women, we read fashion magazines.

Sure.

Unusual for Portrait, a painting to be on a fashion magazine.

Do you think?

Yes.

And the only thing that really stands out to me is is hope at the bottom.

And then often we are not looked upon as being hopeful or having a hope and that we can bring hope to others.

Right.

And so I think in that vein is very good, but it would not have been certainly my choice for it is different.

But again, the hope is what saves it for me.

So will you let me paint a picture for the Crusader?

I don't think too well.

It's like, Oh, - We're looking at white media trying to be inclusive of black people, which is nice, which is nice to be inclusive.

But I think what's more important is that black narratives be driven by black people and also included in other narratives, because we include a lot of cultures in our conversations as well.

But I had the luxury of growing up with the essence magazine, and--- - And Ebony - [Angela] And Ebony and Jet.

- And jet.

- [Darryl] Yes.

- And jet.

And so every home in Chicago in the seventies-- - You had the Ebony and the Jet you had the Ebony and Jet.

But when I saw essence I thought I was beautiful on every single page.

- [Hermene] You identify.

- No, so, immediately I identified.

So it's nice to be included in these narratives, but once you surrender the authority of what black is, outside of the community, then you have to deal with the negative, as well as the positive.

- So let's look at the runway.

- See - So here's the picture on the runway.

- See.

- And this is, "complimentary black".

If you will.

- Really.

- This is trending.

This is a student in New York.

And his pictures were his his his His artistic format was assessories.

So he creates lips So, he created lips and ears for his assessory.

and ears for his accessory.

Take a look and tell me what you think.

Now, a black model-- - (Angel) Now Let me say this.

A black model, she refused to put that stuff on, and she left.

- Am with her.

- She quit.

- Yes.

- Now, look at that.

- What's in there.

- Rightfully so.

Rightfully so.

- Is that a mockery?

What is it?

- Yes.

What is that?

- Well it's buffoonery.

- Yeah.

What is that?

- It's buffoonery.

- It's buffoonery.

- It's offensive.

- It is offensive.

- Yes.

- And we have so many beautiful people, naturally beautiful.

- The models are white, but.

(chuckles) - Let me say...

So why are we putting those lips and all of that on a white model.

Is that inclusion?

- Because this is supposed to be, it's not inclusion.

It's, once again, trying to create something that actually is more than 120 years old.

Matter of fact, closer to 140, 150 years old, Matter of fact, closer to 140, 150 years old, when you look at black face.

- [Hermene] Why?

- So you engage in exaggeration of the lips and the ears, and the pickaninny type of movements.

The reality is that they will trying to say that this happened and now we're past that.

If you, actually, probably, would talk to the creator of that, he was saying, "I'm doing this to show that we're beyond that."

- [Hermene] Right.

- But the reality is that we don't live in a day and age of being beyond that.

When we find ourselves in the grips of a battle for the heart of this nation right now, - [Hermene] Mm-hm.

- In terms of white separatists and white nationalists, trying to say that black lives don't matter, when they don't even understand the essence of what "black lives matter" means.

- So that really kind of becomes a new black face.

- It becomes and rightfully criticized.

- It's offensive.

- It's offensive, and as somebody who's trying to overcompensate for their racism, or write an adequate opinion about black people-- - You still have a lot of non-black people WHITE That's Bo Derek.

That's old.

That's old.

Oh, well, that's that's just on the runway.

Yeah, it's there's I think it's just like Larry Flynt with pornography.

We we know cultural appropriation when we see it and we know respect and acknowledgment of our culture when we see it, too.

You still have a lot of non-black people making decisions about what black is.

making decisions about what black is.

- [Dorothy] Yes.

- Here's another runway.

And this is complementary of a takeoff on black lives matter.

And she's got her dreads - Yeah, You know, there's always going to be a desire to culturally appropriate and then say that's not what we're doing.

Like that's the sole ongoing.

- So what's sole...

So what is the proper cultural appropriation?

- You know, I find that there are some cultures that are really respectful of the African American experience.

And I don't wanna blanketly generalized, but I found that you can-- Some people actually will-- They will imitate our culture and our style while maintaining their own presence.

Once you start in the manipulation of things that would never naturally happen for you, I think it becomes a little bit offensive.

- So when Beyonce was asked to be on the cover of Vogue, she consented.

However, it was conditional.

And the condition was-- - Blackness that I have to bring my crew.

That meant makeup artists, and that meant hairstylists, and that meant photographers.

She wanted a wonderful photographer, was 25 years old and they did it.

And it was like, we will give you these pictures and you accept them.

- Right.

- And this is how I want to look on forward.

- Right.

- So she did her hair in a very extravagant kind of way.

She did white.

And then, as the photographer did some of the interior of pictures, she was at a clothing line, and it was kind of a depiction of women of the South, the kind of the Southern woman going through her daily activity.

She's done some terrific things with her imagery, to be positive, but also to be real.

- Right.

- To be real.

You liked that cover?

- I love that cover.

- [Hermene] You like that-- - I loved everything about it and-- - [Dorothy] That's better.

- Young photographer that has a new job.

- [Hermene] New career.

New job.

- Yes.

Because of that-- That's the kinds of things I would love to see happen, besides just the virtue signaling of a non-black crew making decisions about representing our own.

- So, what about the video that-- For Disney, that Beyonce did.

- [Angela] Oh, Black is King.

- Black is King.

- [Angela] Yes.

- So it is imagery, imagery, imagery, - Right.

- Imagery, and, it's such a mix and it's on the horse, and it's in Africa.

- Right.

- And it's in the rolls Royce, and everybody's got on the leopard suit.

- And I thought that was a African-American nod of respect to African culture.

- We have always been trendsetters.

We have always been creators of what is unique and what is desirable.

I'm reminded right on 35th and King drive, there's a billboard there.

And there was a billboard.

And the billboard said-- I think it was for a natural black-owned hair care products company.

And the billboard said, "Why do you love everything about black culture, but hate black people?"

- Mm-hm.

I've seen that.

- And that's the way it is.

Everybody who wants to be black in a sense.

- We're definitively a creative people.

Right?

- Absolutely.

- Because Chicago alone-- I mean, the elevation of jazz here, and even-- - And blue - In my... And then, the creation of house music, which is also global.

- Yeah.

- So when we get together, we do amazing things.

And I think, instinctively, just like we hear the beat of the music, and we can all understand, our culture is so much more than these picked apart, stereotypical tropes.

whether they try to do it with respect or not respect, we understand each other.

And I think that just with that same energy, we can tell when we're being insulted or when we're being respected.

We can all look at the same picture.

And to your point about, some of it is just art, and then some of it is art with the intent of being insulting.

The wrong idea.

Some of it is just an attention getter.

Exactly.

You know, in our family, we had He's about maybe 19 years old.

And he had it.

It wasn't only the knee, it was the thigh.

- Yes.

- It was cut out.

And he was set for the evening.

He was going to the club.

- Why?

- And my mother said, "Where are you going?

You got in holes clothes."

And he said, I'm going to the club on auntie.

And she was like, "Baby, you can't go out like that."

- No.

- And he told her-- She said, "you bought those?"

"Yes."

(Angela laughs) "How much did you pay?"

"$150".

She said, "Well, tomorrow I want you to go get your money back."

(laughs) "And I'ma give you another 150.

So you can buy you some real pants."

- Right.

- And he was like, Whoa, Whoa, ha ha.

And he was going for the door.

I do not know, to this moment, where the cane came from.

(laughing) But the cane came and said, "You didn't hear me good.

I told you, you're not going."

And she interpreted that as poverty, she interpreted that as we have been-- We worked too hard not to have these holes all closed.

- Those are the actual conversations we should be having in our own media-- - [Dorothy] Just like we've done now.

- About our own generations.

- [Dorothy] Yes.

- Instead of having to take all of our narrative through a white lens, and we're still talking about Andrew Mama - And that's why the images are so important - But.

Exactly.. - What you're doing is important.

I thank you all, for being with us today and having this important discussion-- - All right.

That's fine - On images and on black images, and what we look like.

And it's important that we do the defining and the discussing, and not just be on the cover, but we gotta take that picture also.

This is Hermene Hartman with the N'digo.

Thank you so much for watching.

But more information about the show.

Follow us on Facebook or Twitter.

Funding for this program was provided by the Chicago Community Trust, Commonwealth Edison, Blue Cross, Blue Shield, the MacArthur Foundation and Illinois State Lottery.

(MUSIC).

N'digo Studio.