Your So Called Heritage...

I have carried folded in my photographic imagination an image that I have planned on making for several years. It is a large slice of reddest watermelon ensconced with little brown babies, like the tiny prizes in New Orleans King Kakes. On my last visit to Wal Mart I had managed to find the tiny plastic new borns, five to a package in the crafts section. All that was left was to give them a brown patina and wait for watermelon season. The image, I have always believed was a good one in a sly and unfeeling intellectual way, but I've hesitated to actually produce the image given its "political incorrectness". Funny how an idea can land closer to home than first conceived. Many of my students sport tee shirts emblazoned with the "stars and bars" and inscribed with platitudes of "southern heritage". I've tried to discuss the irony of these notions, but it leads nowhere. This image, so named "Your So Called Heritage...” above is my reaction to all that show and tell.