Photo of the Month, June 2013

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I guess summer is officially here. Kids are out of school, and parents are trying to find things for them to do.


But just bear with me for a moment, I gotta pull out my soapbox.


Isn’t the heat and humidity of summer enough without having another dark-skin light-skin trial like the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman trial? Didn’t they have the Rodney King trial during the summer? And I think they had the OJ Simpson trial over the summer, and the Michael Jackson trial. They even had the Lindbergh kidnapping trial over the summer...though that wasn’t a dark-skin light-skin trial, that was more of a Germany-America conflict at the time.


My grandfather taught me something about prejudice. He said that if you can look at a situation, and look at the people, and then change the people involved in it and your opinions change about the situation, you might be a little prejudiced about it.


What I’m going to do about this trial is this - the same thing I did about the OJ trial. When people walk up to me and ask “What is your opinion?”, I always say, “I’m not following it.”


There are a lot of problems and conflicts in this country I would love to debate with anyone who may or may not agree with me. But I just cannot add to the stirring of racial venom that trials like this bring up. In the news coverage of it, we have to admit that if it were two dark-skinned kids, we wouldn’t even hear about it, and if it were two light-skinned kids, we’d be hearing all about how one of the kids should have had counseling, and why did he have a gun if he had mental health issues.


Light-skin dark-skin -- someone died, and that is a tragedy for anybody.


Okay, I’m putting the soapbox back in the corner of my studio.


So, enjoy summer! Get the barbecue going, head to the shore. Eat a funnel cake. Don’t worry about your diet. Just remember when you’re in all that traffic on the way to the shore, about a month ago you could have shot down there with no trouble at all.


I remember as a young kid in the summertime, I would just be out riding my bike, out running, playing basketball, doing a summer job, all kinds of things. Now, as an adult, I’m just glad I can get to work without being held up by a school bus anymore.


Everybody have a Happy 4th of July, talk to you next month, and thank you for all the comments, online and in person!


- Kevin S. Nash



Photo details: Personal Project, Atlantic City, NJ, Iron Pier.

 

June, 2013

 

The Excitement of Summer!