Do Not Look Away

My understanding of public murder has grown and deepened. In Art Spiegelman’s graphic novel, Maus, Holocaust survivor Vladek Spiegelman remembers: “The Germans intend to make examples of them… They hanged there for one full week. I did not want to go outside to pass where they were hanging.” Each public murder victimized both an individual and a community. Such control-by-targeted-brutality crosses cultures and years. It also characterized America’s Jim Crow South. Those in power printed postcards of Black lynching victims. Whole communities were terrorized. Who might be next? I chose to depict both the murdered and the ones who had to look. Remembering, we should not look away.