Visual and Textual Analysis of American Anti-racism Wall Literature

Abstract

Racism and anti-racist movements existed and continue to exist in many societies, and many people suffer as a result. Certain members of the racist society suffer from unequal opportunities, injustice and loss of many rights. On top of all this, they are a marginalized group and deserve the least in the eyes of the dominant group. People reject racism in different ways, including expressing their opinions through drawing and writing on the wall of buildings and roadsides, this is called wall literature or graffiti. After the brutality of the policemen's actions towards the blacks in America, the artists began to express their rejection through many drawings and writings, and this is the central point of the study. This study is probably the first of its kind that tackles graffiti from a multimodal critical discourse analysis viewpoint. So it aims to bridge the gap through analyzing this genre visually and textually. It also tries to answer some questions such as how social and environmental changes have an effect on adopting such type of art, how images have the ability to convey the suffering of blacks and reflect the ideologies of both groups (blacks and whites) and whether white supremacy and racism are deeply rooted in American society. It hypothesizes that the environmental and social changes have an effect in adopting this genre, these images have the ability to convey the suffering of blacks and deliver their messages to the world. The analyzed graffiti reflect the ideologies of both groups, i.e., blacks and whites. Furthermore, white supremacy and racism are deeply rooted in American society. This study concludes that images are depicted in a powerful and independent manner and based on the attractiveness elements. These images are intended to attract the  attention of targeted people to change the situation which is clear through the combinations of visual elements such as (gazes, size of frames, angles and colors, etc.). Images can be a way of expressing the struggle for survival and access to rights socially worldwide. The blacks succeed in showing all their sufferings to the world and winning the sympathy of the majority by using different colors, gazes and relationships between the represented participants and viewers.