Fashions have changed.  Laws have changed. Our social standards have changed.  But have we sufficiently advanced the causes represented by the flag and the words on the wall? Reflection on the art of Kerri Warner by Deborah Seiler, Retired Election Administrator and Renaissance Society member

At first glance, I was struck by the symmetry of the three figures, all of similar volume, all peering wistfully down over a low wall with an American flag and the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution in the background.  The woman is striking with her red hair and a green dress my mother might have worn, a figure reminiscent to me of the 1930’s or 40’s.  The Black man appears timeless and fitting of any era. The older man on the right reminds me of our immigrant populations, a man I might have seen walking in Eastern Europe with his beret and striped pants.

Neither the flag nor the Preamble seem to be the focus of their attention.  The American flag is heralded as a symbol of liberty but is often used as a foil to telegraph racist and anti-immigrant sentiment.  All three might have waved it, yet none of these persons might have been able to exercise its promise of democratic rights. The woman might have been born before half the population was granted the right to vote.  The Black man could not have voted in the Jim Crow South, and the immigrant might have been denied citizenship.    

The Preamble, with all its promise of Justice, general Welfare, and Blessings of Liberty, was mostly an empty promise when written.  Only white male property owners were allowed to vote.  It would be 144 years and 72 years of intense struggle before women could vote and 189 years before most Blacks gained true voting rights.  Immigrants from some European and all non-European countries were fiercely discriminated against and even interned during WWII. Indigenous people? Betrayed, forgotten, abandoned.

The wall they are leaning against and peering over separates them from some vision or action or dream.  It’s a low wall, seemingly insignificant, but doing its job to keep the three figures at a distance.  Walls still haven’t disappeared and seem to be rising.  Barriers to voting are increasing as laws proliferate to raise the bar: more voter ID requirements, fewer early voting days, denial of food and water during excessively long waits that are engineered to deter certain voters. Walls on the border with Mexico –but not Canada—reflect racism and ruthless indifference to the plight of thousands.  The unspeakable sight of children in cages. 

In their dignity, poise, and humble humanity, the woman and two men seem like figures out of a Norman Rockwell painting of small town life in a simpler era.  But their separation and the implication of political injustice, with outsiders looking in, calls to mind a later Rockwell painting of a very young Black girl being escorted to school by four white U.S. Marshalls. 

Fashions have changed.  Laws have changed. Our social standards have changed.  But have we sufficiently advanced the causes represented by the flag and the words on the wall?