Strength and Resilience: The dark side of these labels

Once again, I find myself in a class that has supercharged my thoughts on a topic. After reading Walt Whitman's America and comparing and contrasting that poem to a Levi's commercial that uses Whitman's poem as a narration, I felt that the message of the poem was disjointed from the images portrayed. The poem speaks to me of resilience, however the idea of resilience can have good intentions while falling short for the resilient. For reference I will include the poem:

America by Walt Whitman

Centre of equal daughters, equal sons,

All, all alike endear’d, grown, ungrown, young or old,

Strong, ample, fair, enduring, capable, rich,

Perennial with the Earth, with Freedom, Law and Love,

A grand, sane, towering, seated Mother,

Chair’d in the adamant of Time.

The Levi's ad depicts images of homes and areas that might be associated with lower-income level neighborhoods while the narrator says "centre of equal daughters, equal sons, All, all alike endear'd, grown, ungrown, young or old." Also being depicted in the ad at this time is a vehicle trying to move through a rioting crowd with the businessman in the car sitting in the back seat covering his face and eyes so as not to see and be seen. The ad goes on to show images of young children making the "muscles'' pose aligning with the narration of "enduring..." What this ad depicted for me was strength against odds and resilience in the face of hardship or at least hard times.

What this conglomeration of poetry and marketing brought to my mind was the idea that individuals, families and communities that have financial struggles and potentially live below the poverty line are often grouped together as being a resilient people, that even though they don't have money they have the wealth of family and community. By being given that honorable label they are then assumed to be doing just fine because of the riches they have in spirit and in family vs having the financial ability to provide for themselves without egregious struggle. They are fine and don't need help.

But why should the anthem for life, strength and resilience, also be the reason that those who need the most help, get none. I read an article titled, "Beyond Expectations of Resilience: Towards a Language of Care," written by Malaka Shwaikh. The author talks about how the resilience narrative placed on a people or a community puts the responsibility of bouncing back on those who are experiencing the hardship. She says, "It lifts responsibility off of our shoulders (and that of the international community) who may consider a specific community resilient enough and undeserving of support, inflicting further harm and violence upon them." In her article she references citizens of Northern Ireland, Palestinians as well as those who endured Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, La. Shwaikh quotes Tracie Washington, the President of the Louisiana Justice Institute with regard to resilience, “we were not born to be resilient; we are conditioned to be resilient. I do not want to be resilient . . .. [I want to] fix the things that [create the need for us to] be resilient [in the first place].”

I wholeheartedly agree with Shwaikh and was brought to tears while reading her article which reinforced my thoughts while trying to wrap my head around the Levi's ad which seemed to be promoting the strength and resilience that ends up only hurting those labeled as such. I have less issue with Walt Whitman's poem on the subject because while he is basically using the same language of strength and resilience to describe America, he is not doing so while trying to sell pants. The voice of an artist captures their unique perspective and while I can read his poem and find an idealistic if not potentially ironic voice, I can't find fault. I do believe that Levi's sends a confusing message by being a for profit company, actively trying to sell a product while using images of a marginalized group interspersed with images of violence and hope all the while using Whitman's words to create a questionable message.

References:

‌homotography. “Levi’s - America (Go Forth) Commercial.” YouTube, 1 July 2009, www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdW1CjbCNxw. Accessed 13 Dec. 2019.

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Malaka Shwaikh. “Beyond Expectations of Resilience: Towards a Language of Care.” Global Studies Quarterly, vol. 3, no. 2, 1 Apr. 2023, academic.oup.com/isagsq/article/3/2/ksad030/7198303#408569802, https://doi.org/10.1093/isagsq/ksad030. Accessed 15 Oct. 2023.

Ward, Steven. “America by Walt Whitman.” Poem Analysis, 9 July 2023, poemanalysis.com/walt-whitman/america/.

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