The Problem We All Live With

This picture is called The Problem We All Live With and it is a painting done by Normal Rockwell in January of 1964. It features a colored girl, Ruby Bridges, on her way to school, surrounded by white guards.  What I think is so great about this picture is Ruby’s naïve image. Back then she was just a six-year old girl, on her way to the first day of school at William Frantz. This scene originally took place on November 14, 1960 and Ruby’s brave image can be seen in this painting. Even though segregation was cruel during that time, Ruby Bridges was only thinking about school. While people think about her being the only “colored” girl, the only “black” girl in William Frantz, it was only a school day for her.

Ruby Bridges had to be escorted by the Federal marshals that day and that’s whom the white bodies represent. The wall behind Ruby has two important signs, details that Norman Rockwell added in order to make this scene extremely shocking and signs that one might not see.  First of all, there is a huge graffiti saying NIGGER and Ruby Bridges is walking right across it. On the top left corner of the painting there are three K’s, the initials of the racist group Ku Klux Klan. Lastly, there is a tomato, lying on the ground after hitting the wall behind Ruby. This tells the viewer that the crowd was trying to hit Ruby but missed and instead, hit the NIGGER sign.

Like I said before whoever sees this painting is well aware of the situation surrounding Ruby. You can see the demeaning words, a thrown tomato, and the federal government guards escorting this little girl during her first day of school. You see how cruel segregation was and you feel sad for how gruesome it must have felt to be Ruby Bridges. Now, that is a completely different perspective than what Ruby saw that day. During her interview at the White House she said, “The girl in that painting at six years old new absolutely nothing about racism. I was going to school that day”. She also clarifies that over time, she learned that hatred is passed on to us when we are children and that no one, should be judged by the color of their skin. This really changes the perspective from the viewer (us) and the protagonist (Ruby). It shows how innocent a child can be while the rest of the world is only spreading hate.

Every person sees things differently. What I think when I see the picture is probably different from what you thought when you saw the picture. Our eyes see different things, find meaning in objects the other might not see, and feel sad about scenes the other might not recognize. Therefore, it is impossible to know exactly what Norman Rockwell was trying to imply when he drew this painting. Norman Rockwell was known for drawing scenes about the normal, common American family. I can’t imagine what people thought when they saw the picture on January 14^th, 1964. Because Norman was known for his conservative paintings this meant he really wanted to make a point. I think he was simply trying to show people what was going on. Segregation had gotten to such a level that even six-year old girls were involved. It got to a point were not even colored children could peacefully walk to school without having to see what the world was becoming. What Americans were doing was inhuman, and to him, it made no sense that this poor girl couldn’t even walk to school without seeing racist signs and being discriminated by the crowd around her.

The first thing I see when I look at this painting is Ruby. No matter what, I see her. She’s so present, with her head held high, her school books in her hand, her white dress, and her ribbon. I think this is why Norman Rockwell decided to crop the guards’ faces. He wanted everyone to see Ruby. I like the way Ruby is looking ahead, with her right foot stepping forward, not caring about the signs or the guards in front of her. Her white dress gives me the idea of pureness, innocence. That girl is only worried about school. The next thing I see is the NIGGER sign, and the tomato. As you see these things you start to realize what the whole scene means. I see how the tomato hit the wall, a missed attempt of hitting the poor girl. The graffiti on the wall inmediately creates a bravery image for Ruby. I see her expression, the way she is not even looking back at the wall. The Federal marshals are part of the painting but I don’t think it’s what Norman really wanted us to see. It is just a detail to remind the people of that day, the day the African-American girl was escorted to school by the deputy marshals. The three K’s was definitely the last thing I saw, after looking and scanning the picture for more details. It is there for the viewer to discover, a tiny detail. So that when all the demeaning signs around it have sunk into the viewer’s heart, the three K’s will show up, reminding us all, of the world we live in.

The name, The Problem We All Live With sums up the entire point of the painting. We live in a world where everyone judges their neighbor, their friend, the stranger passing by. A world where the last thing we think about is how the other might feel. And to me that is the so called “problem we all live with”. The problem of discrimination. Whether it’s toward African-Americans, Hispanics, Asians, or just discrimination to that one person we don’t like. This is our problem. Judging people just because we feel like it, just because everyone is doing it, just because our first impression of them wasn’t good enough.