The Radiance of a King article

     When I first read this article I didn't really know what to think. It's interesting how some Africans portray Obama or view him. They depict him different ways through flour sack posters. One such poster called Power House '08 has Obama and his African grandmother on a motorcycle that says "Change we can believe in." Close behind them is John McCain on a brown pony the flaps on the saddle read P.O.W. and "Nation First". As they race toward the White House it becomes clear who the artist wants to win this presidential race. Another poster depicts him as Super Man with a tag line that reads, "Obama ready to fly to the black and White House." As we talked about these posters in class I noted that one said, "Congrats on being the first black president." When I talked with my group most of us said that Obama being black had no pull in which way we voted. That's something that we never thought about during the presidential race because the way we saw it was that it doesn't matter what color skin you have we're all the same. What did matter in the race was the world views of each party. Even though I don't necessarily agree with the posters in that Obama was the perfect choice for president, they are still interesting to look at. One thing that Ernie Wolfe stated in this article that I liked was, "There's a theme of unity in many of these paintings, they reference peace, getting along, black and white sharing: Democrat or Republican. We are one Nation. Creme or Chocolate."

     These African artists don't just paint presidential posters but they also create movie posters. What do I mean by this you ask? I mean that they are not the real posters for the movie, but they are recreated posters of what the artist thinks the message of the movie is or they adapt the poster to what they think the movie means or is about. Some of the posters get pretty insane and your not sure what movie influenced it. The process used for these posters is simply oil paint on flour sacks.