ARP Emmett Till

In the first half of the story “Looking at Emmett Till” by John Edgar Wideman, I learned interesting things about what it was like back then to be African American. In the story, Wideman first starts off discussing when he first saw the picture of Emmett Tills face. Jet was a once a week newspaper that was established to some as “the Black Dispatch”, was stories for the black community. This newspaper was the source of where Wideman first saw the picture of Emmett Till. “A blurred, grayish something resembling an aerial snapshot of a landscape cratered by bombs or ravaged but natural disaster. As soon as I realized the thing in the photo was a dead black boys face, I jerked my eyes away. But not quickly enough.” Reading this shocked me on many levels. At first, it shocked me because of the fact that this kids face was so distorted and destroyed that at first sight someone thought it was a landscape of craters. It also made me feel disappointed and uneasy of the fact that people could do an act like this. Having that much hatred toward another race to me is unbelievable. “Emmett Till’s murder was an attempt to slay an entire generation.” This quote opened my eyes to the same fact. My eyes were open even more so to know that people were okay with showing that they wanted an entire race wiped out. This article showed me hatred and opened my eyes towards the madness that was present in the past. However this story also helped me to appreciate how times have changed and there is now respect and a new sense of safety for different races.