Hammoud 1

Lara Hammoud
Valerie Fong
English 1S.02
15 March 2016

A Choice Of Weapons
Borders have been going on for a long time now. Whether it is a physical border
or a mental barrier, it all has a significant effect on our lives and behavior. A physical
border is a fence or an item that stands in the way and separates two geographic areas
or countries. A mental border, on the other hand, is a non physical barrier that only
exists in one's mind. Gordon Parks, in his book, A Choice Of Weapons, talks about
racism and discrimination against black people. Throughout reading the book, the
concept of black versus white appears constantly, where people with light skin are
considered the upper power and the ones with dark skin are the minority. This
separation of people is a result of a mental border that exists in peoples minds feeding
them on the belief that one race could be better than the other, creating racism and
segregation against black people. To tell the story of the injustice toward the black race,
Parks decides to capture this discrimination on his camera and uses it as a weapon to
tell his story. His choice of weapon has a significant impact on Parks himself, his
intended audience historically and on us in our current time.
Racial discrimination and death have a closer relationship than we ever thought.
There has been plenty of death caused by race especially the black race. Black people
were targeted back in history, where if a black person made a mistake, he would be
lynched automatically. Parks began his book talking about all the death that occurred in
his life. He started chapter one talking about his mothers death and then continued
telling us about his cousin and his friends who have died unfairly because of their skin
color. Parks said, At fourteen in the black and white world of Kansas, anyone whiter
than I became my enemy (8). He grew up watching black people around him die
because of society that made anyone with light skin an enemy to black people. In

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chapter seven, Parks decides to go to Chicago hoping for a better chance. Arriving to
Chicago on a cold night, Parks goes to rent a place to stay in but he was denied a room
because of his color. Mike, the clerk working at the hotel, told Parks, Im not supposed
to take colored in here.why dont you try the colored section out on the South side of
town? (65). Chicago at that time, and other states, had borders that separated black
people from white. The fact that Parks was denied a room even though he had the
money for it, is an example of mental borders. People at that time believed in no such
thing as equality. There was a simple unwritten rule that went around stating that whites
are always going to get the best of everything and blacks get nothing.
During Parks journey, we were able to view the world in the eyes of a minority
group that faced racism on daily basis. He opened our eyes to a clear history of
segregation and discrimination towards black people. Parks went around and had seen
enough poverty to decide on photographing it. He wanted to capture the pain and
suffering of black people living in such areas. In chapter twenty, Parks said, ....I knew
that more than anything else I wanted to strike at the evil of poverty. And here it was,
under my feet, all around and above me (208). There was no such thing as a wealthy
black neighborhood because poverty would eat the place up; it was everywhere. Parks
described black neighborhoods as landscapes of ash piles, garbage, heaps, tired
tenements and littered streets (208). Black neighborhoods were dirty and unsuitable
for living, but people had no choice but to agree living in such places. He talked about
two societies, black and white. He explained the difference between the wealthy white
neighborhoods and the black ghetto. According to Parks, the place was an area where
blacks were moving in and whites were moving out, it was a dwindling line of
demarcation between the rich and the poor (203). White people lived the wealthy good
life while black people got the worst. A film called Eyes on the Prize talked more about
the different lifestyles of blacks and whites. In part 8 of the film, Two Societies 19651968, showed Detroit as a city booming with highways, skyscrapers and employment.

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Although the city was facing a great success, black communities saw nothing of it. Jobs,
good housing and better environments were all in the white suburbs and the opposite
was in the black ghetto. Detroit was separated into two parts with an invisible border
preventing the association between both races. One city was divided to two societies
because of the existence of mental borders constructed the idea of segregation.
The separation of two races impacted blacks more than whites. Black people
were stripped from the freedom to live comfortably and planted fear and hatred toward
white people. Parks photograph on the right is from an archive of his photographs
under the name, Segregation Story, 1956. This photo captures a moment where black
children are held back from the fun behind a fence. When I first saw the photo I
assumed that the playground on the other side of the fence belongs to a white
neighborhood because of the two black and white unconnected societies. A physical
border is preventing the children from playing and enjoying their childhood because they
werent born white. Society at that time made it seem as if almost having a dark skin is a
crime.
Segregation and racism was a huge problem and people were aware of it, but
some of them decided to live with it and accept it instead of taking action. When Parks
was in Washington working at Stryker's, he refused to eat in the rear if the cafeteria with
the rest of the black people. A man approaches Parks one day and asks him to sit in the
rear like other black people, and when Parks refused, the man said, Eating out of your
place in the cafeteria. Ive eaten in there for
nearly twenty years, right back there in the
rear, and you should do the same(229).
This man didnt want trouble, and for that
reason he wasnt going to do anything
about discrimination against his own race.
In chapter twenty two, Parks was leaving a

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college campus with a professor, and when he pulled up at a gas station a man
disrespected the professor as he was calling him a nigger. Parks asked the professor
how can he accept something like this happening every day. The professor replied with,
Dont think its easy. All of us teachers own here have to take it, day in day out. If we
dont, whod teach those black boys and girls back there? The professor wanted to
stand up for himself but couldnt because it would affect the education of the black kids.
People like the professor and the man who talked to Parks at the cafeteria are the ones
whose stories are being told by Parks photographs.
Parkss photographs allow others to acknowledge the problem and do something
about it. His photographs were significant to his audience historically because it was
their stories that was being told. These photographs captured peoples pain and
suffering and is passing on their scream for help through photographs as a weapon.
We cant really change history but we can learn from it and not repeat the same
mistakes again.. Through from Parks photographs we can get a feeling of what was life
like back then. We were able to understand the story that was being told and made sure
the suffering wouldn't happen again. Parks photographs were also a tool for us to
compare life now and how it was before. One big difference is diversity. People now are
more open to diversity and are more accepting to different races and cultures. In an
article by Andrew Lam called Ode to the Bay, San Francisco airport was used as a
major example to express diversity. Lam said, Go to the San Francisco Airport on any
given day and you'll see what I mean. A world in motion, in flux: the number of people
who pass through those gates at SFO each year exceeds the entire population of the
Golden State. At last count there were 112 languages spoken in the Bay Area. He uses
San Francisco airport to support the idea that we are now living in a melting pot of
different races and cultures. I am not saying that racism is completely gone, but we
have reached a place where everyone of each race, gender, ethnicity is equal and this
is what Parks hoped for.

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Parks wanted to tell a story of segregation. He was fighting a war with a weapon
that was a camera. He captured the truth and told the story of injustice toward black
people. Blacks were seen as something different and people at that time feared change.
The idea of being different was a strange thing back in history. Whites saw themselves
as the right side and believed that being black was
wrong. Parks in his photograph captured the
segregation of the two races. When I first looked at
the photo, I noticed a father buying his children
icecream. It wasnt till the second look that I noticed
that two signs, White and Colored. Even though
there were no white people at the shop, this black
family still had to buy from the colored window on the
side of the shop.
Parks hoped for a better world where blacks had equality, where the pigment or
color of one skins didnt determine the way they were treated. He believed that his
camera would be a significant weapon to end the war of racism and segregation. He
captured the poverty and the injustice black people lived through hoping that it will tell
the story of discrimination and that this issue would end. His photographs impacted his
audience historically by sharing their stories and spreading their voice for help to end
racism. It also impacted us in the present time where we see the suffering of black
people in a segregated history. Lastly, these photographs were significant to Parks
himself as he believed that his choice of weapon would make a change to the history of
black versus white.

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Work Cited
Parks, Gordon. A Choice Of Weapons. New York: Harper and Row, 1966. Print.
Lam, Andrew. Ode to the Bay: My Life as a Vietnamese Immigrant in California.
Huffingtonpost.com. Huffpost San Francisco, 15 Oct. 2012. Web. 03 Feb. 2016.
Hampton, Henry, et al. Eyes On The Prize.Two Societies 1965-1968. n.p.: [Alexandria,
Va.] : PBS Video, [2006], 2006. FOOTHILL COLLEGE's Catalog. Web. 21 Mar. 2016.
Film.