While watching the black panther movie I was struck by a few things. The black panthers formed to protect black citizens against police brutality. Now a days we see the same trend. We see every day reports of police brutally arresting and even killing people specifically African Americans. The panther is a creature who will never attack but defend itself this is why they . Agnes Varda's 1968 documentary on the black panthers provide a first hand window into their culture. It covers the free Huey campaign. It was interesting the feeling of getting in touch with their roots. Not straightening their hair but rather letting the natural afro grow. Not trying to blend in with white society but spreading and strengthening pure black culture . As the Black Panthers formed a rebel militia so today we see this trend except reverse. Since Obama came into power many whites have formed mistrust towards what they say is a black run government. Since the massacres that occurred over the last few years Obama has sought to change the 2nd Amendment. The 2nd Amendment is the right for citizens to bear arms against a tyrannical government. This did not go over well with the majority of gun owning Americans. Now we see in America the formation of white militias set up to fight what they call as the unavoidable clash that will occur if the government tries to confiscate their weapons. Where the black panthers stood against white brutality in a way now whites stand against what they see as black brutality. Seeing many interviews with people from middle America the notion was the same. Most blame Obama for the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Which to me is quite ridiculous since the war was not started when Obama was in office but rather Bush. Many of white Americans blame the economic situation on Blacks and Hispanics saying that they have too much power in America and many are forming groups they say are to fight against this power.

This is what I chose to represent a political art piece. It is a work made by Blu in Portugal.  It portrays a business type sucking the oil from the earth through a straw. He is wearing a crown that is covered in the logos of oil companies. What Blu is expressing though this piece in my opinion is very strong.

In my opinion hes signifying that all these corporations work together to destroy our planet for profit. 

                                      Ecclesiastes 1:9

                           What has been will be again,
                             what has been done will be done again;
                                  there is nothing new under the sun.

For this assignment I chose a poem by Josef Brodsky. This poem is about communism and its effect on people and culture. I wanted to work with this poem in a visual way. So i started with the poem written out with a picture of barber wire as the background. I wanted to portray the distortion of truth through the generation. As stories move from person to person the story changes and gets distorted until it ends up having yes a similar structure but is different from the original. Thats what I attempted to do with this visual poem. There are three steps and at each step the initial meaning of the writing changes and become unrecognizable to anyone who does not know the original.