Peachy the Magazine August September 2014 | Page 98

Public domain.

Caricature and Social Activism

this very refinery produced over half
of the processed sugar in the United
States. The history of the sugar trade
is fraught with issues of colonialism,
slavery, industrialization and labor
abuse. One also must consider the
insidious role sugar has played in
creating a sort of modern day plague,
diabetes, which has been particularly
devastating to the African-American
community. And then there is the fact
that the factory is being demolished to
make way for upscale condominiums,
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leading us to consider the ramifications
of gentrification. 
Upon further contemplation of the
Sugar Baby and Walker’s use of
her art to relay messages of social
activism, however obtuse, I thought,
oddly enough, of Honore Daumier,
the nineteenth century French artist who used caricature, painting
and sculpture to skewer nefarious
public figures and raise pressing social
issues. Daumier lived in an era of