I personally feel this is powerful. Why?
I feel that in the ways this image has been shown to us, we only ever see those lynched Black bodies as just that: lynched Black bodies. They are not given an identity, and they definitely had identities. They had names. Families. History. And all of that is erased and eclipsed with the presence and image of their bended-necked bodys swinging from ropes. They become nothing more than a spectacle: something unfamiliar to many Black people.
I think the picture of their bodies without proper voice and identification is extremely disrespectful because it upholds a conceptual and literal erasure of Black people.
As a matter of fact, I think that in erasing their bodies out of these pictures, Rankine is paying them them a form of respect. Everyone knows about or of the violence that Black people experienced and continue to experience. The bodies of these Black folks, especially as nameless, should not be a classroom lesson for anyone.
In erasing their bodies, Ranking is taking away the opportunity for their executions to be beautified and turned into spectacles. It also allows the observer to pay attention to the real spectacles, the true villains: the white crowd depicted. It is an opportunity to truly look at them. Beyond their physics presence. A chance to look into their gleaming eyes, to really pay attention to their curved smiles, their pointed fingers, and their dominant standing positions.
