Show and Share: “A Militia Gets Battle Ready for a ‘Gun-Grabbing’ Clinton Presidency”
This piece was published in the New York Times on November 4 2016, just before the presidential election.
I chose this story because of the country’s current political climate. This piece shows the people who posses the type of mindset that many people feared with the onset of a Trump presidency. That is, an anti-muslim, borderline racist and fully extremist. We discussed this piece and it’s use of photography in Laura Fong’s Photojournalism class.
This piece is great because even while you’re reading it (if you’re left leaning) and thinking that these people are crazy or extreme, it still humanizes them. It was also incredibly interesting to read about a group of people that you know exist but haven’t necessarily come in to contact with. The photographs in the piece brought you into their gatherings as a whole. You didn’t just see them out on the range but you saw them with their kids and sharing a meal together.
I like this piece for its use of photography. Showing these people in their homes as well as out on the practice range made sure that you thought of them as real people. Also, because the story takes place so close to home in Jackson, Georgia, it was interesting for me to see how radically different ideas, even within a few counties of each other, can differ. In Atlanta, people with this mindset are very often the minority. But Georgia Security Force certainly isn’t the only militia group in the state.
