2008 Woodie Awards
Posters, magazine covers depict graphic messages
By: Ian Glennie
Issue date: 1/16/08 Section: News
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An exhibit loaned from Ferris State University's Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia now is displayed on the third floor of the Charles V. Park Library.
The display, called "THEM: Images of Separation," is a part of a series of events throughout January brought to campus by Minority Student Services and the Office of Institutional Diversity in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. It will be available until Feb. 1.
Shawn Wilson, assistant director of Minority Student Services, said the display looks at discrimination throughout America using old and fairly current pop cultural artifacts.
"It really opens your eyes and educates you on some of the different things that are out there in our everyday society that serve as a way to bring different groups of people down," Wilson said.
One exhibit shows the graphic before-and-after photographs of a 14-year-old Emmett Till, who was brutally beaten as a result of a racial hate crime.
Posters, magazine covers and clothing depict sometimes graphic, discriminatory messages against not just races, but also sexual orientations, obesity and gender.
"It covers a wide spectrum," Wilson said. "Different parts of this exhibit are going to mean different things to different people."
Marion graduate student Nick Stokes said he regularly attends the exhibitions at the library. He said this display is one of their most thought-provoking displays.
"It's one of the most provocative exhibits they have had in a long time," Stokes said. "People are going to be attracted to this, and it's going to stand out."
Stokes said a poster that read "God Hates Fags" in large, capital, brightly-colored letters was a sample of a homosexual hate campaign that will be one of the bigger eye-catching displays in the exhibit.
Mount Pleasant sophomore Kim Patishnock, a mother, said parents also could greatly benefit from this exhibition.
"These things were passed down from parents to children," Patishnock said. "It's crucial for my kids to know that tolerance and acceptance are important in life and the exhibit helps promote these ideas."
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