Siesta Key Beach, Gun Play
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In an earlier, simpler, more innocent time, this would have been a benign scene. As children in South Africa, we’d mimic cowboys from the afternoon matinees and joyfully fire our cap guns at the bad guys. But that was then. Now, gun violence is a leading cause of death among children, particularly black children living in the ghettos.
Street photography is rife with images of boys pointing guns playfully at each other and themselves. Elliott Erwitt’s photo of a smiling boy pointing a gun to his own head, is iconic. Behind the humor however, there is often something more ominous and tragic.
I wonder, why would a boy bring a toy gun to the beach? Is it a case of him bringing what he knows to the beach? I have seen children from inner city neighborhoods let loose in art museums, often running around excitedly touching objects and yelling to each other. Unlike my granddaughter from a middle-class neighborhood, they have not been taught to use their hushed “museum voice”. They have not been given the art-education and social tools to appreciate the art museum. Has this boy been given the natural history teaching to appreciate the sand, sea, birds and sky? Why isn’t he playing with a bucket and spade? Was he ever told stories of castles, knights, moats, princesses? Without these, can he even have the imagination to build a sandcastle?
It’s now 7 years since this photograph was taken and I wonder, does this boy still have a gun, and if so, is it loaded?
