Emma Reed, Blog Post Week 11

Mapping the history of sensitive topics such as racial violence and white supremacy comes with large ethical implications that must be considered when understanding and interpreting maps. The “Racial Terror Lynchings Map” which was created by the Equal Justice Initiative looks to document the lynchings of African Americans primarily in the United States South. While this map can be used as an advocacy tool as it highlights the historical targeted injustices and their current day implications such as mass incarceration, they map reviews many critiques. Firstly, it has a narrow focus and overlooks other marginalized groups experiencing similar targeted violence during its time period such as Native Americans, Asian Americans, and Mexicans. It also has an emphasis on the Southern regions of the United States, but these other marginalized groups often experience injustices outside of the South. The map immediately centers itself on the United States South, even when there are counties outside the region that are marked as lynchings occurring. When comparing this map to the “Map of White Supremacy Mob Violence”, the latter takes a more inclusive route as it acknowledges the violence inflicted in different geographical regions and to other minority populations.

Secondly, the differences between these two maps are even more polarized when comparing the state of California. The “Racial Terror Lynching Map” shows just two occurrences of lynching in California and does not provide any further information. We know that the map is looking at 1877 to 1950, however it does not provide the date for these lynchings, nor does it show them over time. However, by looking at the “Map of White Supremacy Mob Violence” it shows lynchings of Chinese, Italian, Mexican, Native American, and Black populations, provides dates for each, and the story behind each case given the information available. Also interesting to note is by zooming in on California, it is seen that there are 7 cases of Black lynchings when the “Racial Terror Lynching Map” only displayed 2, effectively disregarding 5 lives while also providing little to no information in general. When looking at sensitive topics such as this, authors must acknowledge any biases in their research or presentation of the material, including violent actions taking against other groups that you might not be depicting in your map.

The author, Hepworth, proposes an ethical visualization workflow that can provide a framework for ethical considerations in the mapping of historical data. It places an emphasis on the importance of clearly defining your subject, thoroughly reviewing previous literature, a wholistic collection of data, and publishing your findings with the underlying datasets. By reviewing existing literature of not just one, but all affected groups, scholars can gain a deeper understanding of the historical context and identify potential biases in the data and how that might affect their presentation of it. This can also prevent inaccurately classifying groups based on stereotypes or marginalizing different groups. In addition, scholars can chose to represent each victim instead of using aggregate data which leads to the map appearing less personal and human. Finally, when it comes to publishing, authors must be transparent about their sources for both their methodology and data. By clearly outlining where the data came from, how it was collected, and how it is visualized, allows the viewers to have a clear and reliable understanding of the map. This can provide a helpful understanding of tactics to use in order to minimalize the harm to both the audience and the subjects of maps while still remaining effective in your presentation.