Dedicated to UNC SJP
By dagwood crabtree
This series is inspired by the work of Brandon Stanton with his Humans of New York series that I have read since high school (or in other words, over a decade at this point). His photojournalism (portraits and accompanying interviews) is breathtaking (yes, I am a sap, I know). Something he does particularly well is preserving anonymity without compromising personhood or character; he is able to capture a person without any of the usual benchmarks (the curve of a smile, knitted brows, bashful eyes, a solitary tear rolling down a cheek).
UNC SJP is regularly maligned as radical and fanatical. Consciously or not, this narrative serves to deny the group and its members credibility and by doing so, delegitimize their cause and demands. If they are just a group of juvenile extremists, why would I ever need to listen to them?
Denouncing or removing someone’s credibility is an effective way to un-people them, to dehumanize them. The un-peopleing of UNC SJP is further made easier through their collective anonymity–they are no figureheads, no singular charismatic leader, there is simply the faceless collective. Crucially, this process is two-way: yes, it denies credibility to the alleged ‘fanatics,’ and simultaneously, it forecloses the listeners/onlooker’s ability to be curious, to think for themselves, to listen and arrive at their own conclusions.
My goal with this series is to attempt a humanizing mission similar to that of Brandon Stanton utilizing my favorite anonymizing approach of his: a focus on hands. These hands that hold, that bind, that build. I hope that these photos will bring pause to those who see them, that they incite a sense of familiarity and intimacy promoting curiosity as opposed to foregone conclusions and foreclosure.
As UNC SJP agitates for an end to the university’s participation in the US-Israeli genocide against the Palestinian people, know this: every attempt to discredit and delegitimize them is an effort to distract you from the genocide. This series is an attempt to reroute your attention back to Palestine–to Gaza and the West Bank.
