From Clint Eastwood westerns to anti-government protests,the cowboy is a symbol of freedom for white Americans. Andrea Robbins and Max Becher’s images of genuine-life black cowboys offer a powerful counterpointIn the stories the US tells itself and the world, the cowboy is a symbol of white freedom, and independence and power. He is the frontiersman taming “savage” Native Americans (the Lone Ranger),the politician riding in on a horse to save a nation slouching towards multiculturalism and debauchery (sensual gratification) (Ronald Reagan), the oppressed cattle herdsman who fights the federal government in armed combat to avoid paying taxes (Cliven Bundy), and the movie star who will speak truth to power approximately “PC culture” (Clint Eastwood).
So it feels highly strange to see black men and women riding horses as confidently as Hopalong Cassidy in the new photography book Black Cowboys by Andrea Robbins and Max Becher. There is something incendiary in seeing a black man in a position historically held by white men who were subjugating people of colour.
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Source: theguardian.com