Abandoned - Part 2
Jim Crow Laws
Redlining
White Flight
Food Deserts
These are all terms and phrases I’d never heard before, until I moved to Memphis, Tennessee in December 2018. I’ve heard them infinitely more these past few weeks as the national conversation has turned from COVID to Black Lives Matter (BLM), which has also led me to procrastinate on writing this post. All of a sudden, there is more of a spotlight on what one (ie white folk) has to say about BLM – or more importantly, what one doesn’t say, and instead listens and learns, as this New York Times article writes, and many others I’ve read:
‘As a new generation steps up, activists and historians believe there’s important work to be done for white people: Listening to black voices and following rather than trying to lead, for one, and undertaking the deep introspection required to confront unconscious bias and the perks of privilege that come just from being white.’
and ‘Educate yourself before you engage.’
Who am I - a white Australian who has only lived in the US for 18 months - to write about such topics that I know so little about, and what do these issues have to do with photographs of abandoned buildings anyway? This question has been playing on my mind, and I’ve been wondering, should I still write this post? Well, I guess the answer is yes. As an observer in the US, with no political party allegiance, there are many conditions and issues that have made a clear impression on me, which may not be as apparent if I’d lived here my whole life. In this photo story, I will try to explain the deep rooted impact of the inequities listed above and the role they played in the blight of abandonment we see in Memphis and throughout the US today.
Abandoned - Part 1
One thing that has intrigued me since arriving in the US to live, is the vast amount of abandoned buildings I’ve seen. I first noticed them in downtown Memphis, but then I’ve also observed them throughout parts of the US when we’ve travelled. In some areas, they dominate the landscape and emanate the feel of a modern day ghost town. It’s compelled me to ponder many questions – why are there so many in one of the richest nations in the world, are some areas harder hit than others, what is the story behind their abandonment, and who are the people behind the stories? It’s also raised other questions in my mind – what else becomes abandoned, and why – not just buildings, but whole towns, cultures, ideologies, and most importantly, ourselves? I’ll be delving into these questions in this 5 part series, and in this first photo story, I explore where the intrigue came for me in the first place, the generational farm I grew up on, and the Irish and Indigenous peoples forced to abandon their lands.