{"id":37465,"date":"2014-09-24T16:38:39","date_gmt":"2014-09-24T16:38:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=37465"},"modified":"2016-03-12T02:24:23","modified_gmt":"2016-03-12T02:24:23","slug":"black-fathers-present-and-accountable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=37465","title":{"rendered":"Black Fathers, Present and Accountable"},"content":{"rendered":"

Black Fathers, Present and Accountable<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Lens Blog: Photography, Video and Visual Journalism<\/a>
\nThe New York Times<\/a>
\n2014-09-19<\/p>\n

Maurice Berger<\/a>,<\/strong> Research Professor and Chief Curator
\nCenter for Art, Design and Visual Culture
\nUniversity of Maryland, Baltimore County<\/em><\/p>\n

An anxious little girl hugs her father as a shark swims overhead in an aquarium. A man feeds his baby as he keeps a mindful eye on his three other rambunctious children. A single father reveals the tattoo on his forearm that depicts him as his son\u2019s guardian angel. A young man poses proudly with the teacher he sees as a father figure.<\/p>\n

While these photographs depict everyday situations, they are in one sense unusual: Their subjects are black and counter mainstream media that typically depict African-American fatherhood as a wasteland of dysfunction and irresponsibility. These images appear in a groundbreaking new book, \u201cFather Figure: Exploring Alternate Notions of Black Fatherhood<\/a>\u201d (Ceiba), by Zun Lee<\/a>, a photographer and physician based in Toronto. A reception and book signing to mark its release will take place Friday night at the Bronx Documentary Center<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In 2011, Mr. Lee began photographing black men and their children<\/a> from New York,<\/a> Chicago<\/a>, Baltimore<\/a>, Toronto<\/a>, Newark<\/a> and other cities. He relied on friends and social media to find his subjects. Intent on creating a nuanced and affirmative view of these families, Mr. Lee spent weeks at a time getting to know them.<\/p>\n

\u201cOut of the hundreds of fathers I came across, the ones I ended up photographing were right for this project for very simple reasons,\u201d Mr. Lee, 45, wrote in his book. \u201cNot only did we develop a trust that allowed me into the inner sanctum of their private lives, but something about these fathers\u2019 interaction with their kids resonated in ways that redeemed my own story.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Lee\u2019s personal history informs the project in complex and surprising ways. When he was in his 30s, his Korean mother confessed to him that his biological father was a black man with whom she had a brief affair. This knowledge, combined with the physical and verbal abuse he endured from the Korean father who raised him, stoked anger and confusion. Mr. Lee wondered why his biological father abandoned his mother, why he had made no effort to reconnect with his son, and whether his childhood would have been better had he been raised by both of his biological parents…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Black Fathers, Present and Accountable Lens Blog: Photography, Video and Visual Journalism The New York Times 2014-09-19 Maurice Berger, Research Professor and Chief Curator Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture University of Maryland, Baltimore County An anxious little girl hugs her father as a shark swims overhead in an aquarium. A man feeds his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,24,16,414,8,20],"tags":[16557,2640,147,2327,15283],"class_list":["post-37465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-arts","category-asia","category-family","category-media-archive","category-usa","tag-maurice-berger","tag-new-york-times","tag-photography","tag-the-new-york-times","tag-zun-lee"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37465"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37465\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44583,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37465\/revisions\/44583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}