Higher Levels of Freedom - Essay Example

Painting is an art that is done to convey messages of different content and meanings. This means that for any professional painter, he or she would use painting to detect a specific event or issue that is worth addressing. Most of the messages and issues that painters use their works to address are those that have to do with either present or past subjects that are of universal interest. In the case of Faith Ringgold and specifically with her 1969 painting of Flag for the Moon, it could be noted that at the time of her work, one pressing issue that topped discussions was the issue of civil rights freedom for the American American society in the United States (Rogers, 2009). Before the 1960s, other major nations like the United Kingdom had in various ways permitted higher levels of freedom to the Black community (Mohammed, 2010). Faith Ringgold used the ‘N-word in her painting thus to bring attention to the fact that it was high time the so-called ‘nigger’ of the United States had his or her own freedom and rights respected.

Clearly, the overall meaning of her work could be summed up as a protest against racism. Living a fight that had been started by the civil rights movement, Faith Ringgold was more or less adding her voice to the call for the Black American to be respected by virtue of his color and the need for the Black community to be granted as much freedom and justice as the White community. In relation to the documentary, the N-Word, which sought to review various meanings associated with the word nigger, one is right to say that the title of ‘Die Nigger’ used by Faith Ringgold was an advocacy call for the negative connotations associated with the word nigger and the personality of the African American, of which the painter was one, as nigger to die (Mohammed, 2010). In the opinion of the painters, African America did not deserve any more continuation of nigger connotations and so the overall meaning of the painting was for the associated nigger to die once and for all.

One unique social structure of the United States that distinguishes it from other major countries and cultures of this world has to do with the kind of identification they give to citizens who are not of original American descent. This identification is in the fact that they want to mention the original origin of the citizen in addition to the word, American. One such identification is Mexican-American. Interestingly, this does not end there. In the era prior to the civil rights freedom era, it was generally speculated and the notion that Americans refused to give total freedom to respect the rights of these labeled Americans. In this vain, several civil rights groups sprang up among these labeled Americans who in most cases formed the minority group (Rogers, 2009). The Chicano Movement is one of such popular groups that was instituted to defend the human rights of Mexican Americans. As a member of the Mexican-American himself, Mel Casas used his talent and profession as a painter to trumpet his side of the message for equality before the law. In support of his move, other famous methods of trumpeting the need for equality sprang up through the use of strange means like cartoons and commercials.

PART 2

As far as the representation of the two imagery is concerned, it can be seen that the artist took advantage of the power and authority behind the national flag of the United States to put her message of the need for absolute equality before the law across. It is not surprising therefore that the painting really was done in the image of the United States flag. Imperatively, one nation that had all its people using the same flag needed to be treated the same but in the opinion of the artists, this was not done. She therefore could not help than to use her painting to create the impression that some people in American society had a different identity by virtue of the treatment they received at the hands of their own people.

The first point that confirms that the message in the work of David Betello’s Read Between the Lines addresses the issue of the Chicano Movement is the fact that the main protagonist in the mural was portrayed as a Chicano. What is more, this fellow who was a supposed Chicano was enslaved and bound. Reading through history it would be noticed that slavery of the freedoms and mentality of the Chicano community was the exact phenomenon that was the order of the day at the time. What makes the mural more portraying of the Chicano Movement is the fact that the art artwork was vocal enough to depict modernity when the use of technology was represented in the work with the presence of television. All in all, David Botello preached the need for patriotism that was sparked by freedom for the human rights of all people.