WE ARE ONE NATION

Jim McKenzie
Racism during the 1960’s was at an all-around high. The Vietnam War was the perfect ticking bomb for a huge racial dilemma. Not only was racism still apparent in society, but the thought of the draft and having black people fighting next to white people was terrifying. In my mind both of these essays depict thoughts of unity and freedom during the 1960’s.
Muhammad Ali was without a doubt one of the best boxers of all time. He was also a deeply religious person. He was very persistent in letting people know that he did not support the Vietnam War. He was even arrested for refusing to go to Vietnam when he had been drafted. He also frequently spoke about the horrors of racism during the Vietnam War. This piece of art is magnificent. It reminds me of seeing old fights of him on television and whenever he knocked someone down he would stand over them and scream. In this piece Ali is standing over a broken down monkey machine. The fact that he knocked out and completely destroyed a monkey is key. One of the most commonly used terms for racists is monkey. People loved to call blacks in that time period monkeys. I think that Ali is knocking out racism. The artist wants to let his viewers know that racism in no way, shape, or form should be tolerated. The monkey is screaming in agony as he now realizes, just as society realized, that racism can be defeated if you work hard enough. Ali was the perfect candidate for this piece because he was one of the hardest workers that society has ever seen. The monkey machine is huge, almost twice as big as Ali. This lets us know that no madder what size you are you should always stand up and look adversity in the face.
The entire piece is actually done in black and white. In my mind this is screaming to me that his intention in this piece was to show us that this piece is completely about racism. The artist also made a key point in letting us know the characters are both black and white. This makes the piece much more exhilarating since Ali is both black and white and won the fight. This lets us know that we, as a society, can live in a multi ethnical world.
The next piece that caught my attention was a dark picture with a black man’s face at the upper right hand corner. This piece also had a quote on it saying, “STRANGERS ON THIS ROAD WE ARE ON BUT WE ARE NOT TWO. WE ARE ONE”. When I saw this quote it touched me. It let me know from the get go that this piece was about racism in America. As I said in the beginning of the paper, racism was extremely apparent during the sixties and Vietnam War. Some Whites hated the fact that blacks were going to be living and fighting together. Not all but a good majority of Americans thought that blacks did not have the right to die next to a white man. This artist is making a crucial point with his quote. He wants his audience two see that even though many blacks and whites who did not know each other were ultimately going to have to fight a war together, and possibly have to give the ultimate sacrifice together. If they did not stop to realize the fact that they are fighting together, as one nation and as one society and not two different ethnicities living in one society, then they would never be able to win a war. I also believe that one reason America could not win the Vietnam War was because of problems that racism caused. The reason the painting is dark is because the artist wanted his audience to know that this is, in fact, an extremely sad piece. The black man in the picture has his head down with a distraught look on his face because he knows that some people will never be able to except the fact the blacks and white can, in fact, live in a society together.
In my mind I think that both artists were trying to make almost the exact same point. They both illustrated their pieces perfectly to let their audience know that blacks and whites should be able to live in a society together. I love how they both instantly made me think of the difficulties of racism that our nation faced during the time period of the Vietnam War. To me it almost seems like the two artists talked before they made their pieces and discussed how they were going to tell the world about the problems of racism during the era of the Vietnam War.
These two pieces with, a doubt, truly inspired me. I am in fact somewhat of a racist because of experiences that have happened to me in my life. But I do want to point out that my best friend is black and goes to Morehouse, which is a black college in Atlanta. Even though I do have some racist faults these two pieces remind me of the fact that we are one nation. We should in no way be separately just because our skin colors are different. My brother is in the armed forces and he always tells me that if we can fight and die in a war together then we should not have any problem living together in society.
When I first saw the exhibit I thought I was going to be screwed. But when I saw these two pieces I was ecstatic. The fact that I was going to be able to talk about a problem that has haunted our society for centuries and share my views on it was an amazing feeling. I would not recommend the other pieces in the exhibit, I am not saying there bad they just did not touch me in any way, but if you get a chance to go see these two pieces than I would say you would defiantly leave with a different aspect on life.