Several years of white flight has made downtown Atlanta a place feared by many suburbanites, so it is interesting to see what kind of crowd shows up when the target audience is middle class white folks from the exurbs and the protest location is the state capitol in downtown Atlanta. A variety of signs were seen expressing points of view on a number of issues, mostly having to do with healthcare and taxes, and nothing was overtly racist. The oddest thing was the number of references made to venereal diseases and other unpleasant health problems and their association with elected officials.

Stroll to the protest

Some things you see at a protest are impossible to photograph and get the nuance. I observed a group standing around looking at a photo of Obama with his feet on the
presidential desk in the Oval Office, smiling and chatting with someone. “Just look at him!” one scowled. “That desk is over 200 years old and he’s got his feet on it!”.
Another chimed in, “You notice how he is showing the soles of his shoes to those people? To Muslims that’s a sign of disrespect.”

Muffin was not amused

I’m sure some feel strongly about their cause, some somewhat so, while others may just be looking for entertainment. No doubt some attend merely to shake things up, to cause trouble if they can. The leaders have various motivations as well. Some may be looking to build a power base from which to launch a political campaign, while others may be seeking to effect change on a specific issue like their supporters. More often than not, it takes political action to achieve the desired result. Often the protest is in support of many complex issues under one large umbrella, such as with the Tea Party movement. The participants may have a number of hot buttons which the leaders can target by generalizing the cause under some broad heading such as “conservative” or “pro-Constitutional”, or labeling those they envision as their enemies with some broad brush labels such as “liberals”, “fascists”, “racists”, and “socialists” so the entire membership feels a camaraderie against their common enemy. A supporter may individually feel strongly about a single hot button issue such as illegal immigration, while not feeling strongly about another such as healthcare reform. They may go along with the positions about which others feel strongly as long as their issue gets the attention or support they think it deserves.

Although I’m interested in the expression of protest in images, I often wonder what brought on the ontology that gave birth to the expression – what events, education, discussion, and thought brought the individual to the protest. Learning this would require more in-depth discussion with individual participants, something I hope to have the opportunity to do.

I’ll close this first article with an image from my Forsyth County protest coverage which I think is apropos to the current anti-Obama protests which we have seen lately.