| This work was made from maps and industrial output charts cut from a children's geography text from the twenties. The book ennumerated all the blessings of America's topography and natural resources, and played down all political ramifications. For instance, it never mentions the land, goods, and labor stolen from nonwhite people like Indians, blacks, and Mexicans. Maps have connotations of exacting accuracy. But we all know that maps are just abstractions and dilutions, and any tendency towards generalization necessarily erases details and subtleties. Alluding to these “Two Americas,” the country of the victors and the country of the vanquished, I wove together maps that abstracted hundreds of years of history into “cotton growing regions,” or “coal producing areas,” or “heavy machinery producing cities.” |
These abstractions mirror the suffering of real people and entire races. The “cotton growing regions” show plantation areas where the worst abuses of slavery were protected by state and local governments. The portions of the map that are left clear show where there was less political support for slavery and secession. For example, only in eastern Texas, where the land was flat and received enough rainfall, was cotton such a profitable crop that its local planters were in favor of secession. They overwhelmed then governor Sam Houston and the representatives of the western cattle ranching areas, and pushed Texas to join the Confederacy. The subtext for all these works based on geography textbooks was that land and culture and politics are so intertwined that abstracting one and neglecting the others is a sort of lie. |
I’m sure that in academic settings the integration of geography with culture and politics is normal, even de rigueur. But in the popular media, the world is still sliced up into sound bite details. Journalists who refuse to explain the connections between geography and culture and politics, who hide behind “objectivism,” and who don’t present full accounts, can never present a rounded and humane view of an issue. In this Information Age, where we have the ability and obligation to preserve and organize information, that sort of incompetence, or negligence or even purposeful obfuscation is our last Great Enemy.
And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
John 8:32 KJV
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