The Problem We All Live With is a 1964 oil painting by American artist Norman Rockwell.
The painting depicts six-year-old Ruby Bridges, the first Black child to attend New Orleans' William Frantz Elementary School as part of the city's desegregation of its public schools
in 1960, walking to school, to furious protesting from residents opposed to desegregation. She is being escorted by four white U.S. Marshals, as she was in real life, past racist abuse scrawled on the walls and thrown at her. Notably, the angry mob is not depicted in the painting; rather, Bridges is seen from the perspective of the protestors, implying, at the very least, complicity on the part of the audience.
This work — the first of Rockwell's paintings for Look magazine after leaving his long-held job at The Saturday Evening Post — represented an early-'60s shift towards political artwork for Rockwell, who was then known as a fairly apolitical artist who painted wholesome, all-white Americana art. His later paintings of this era would delve more into social justice and race relations.
The Problem We All Live With and the way it visually represented racism and segregation became deeply associated with the Civil Rights Movement after its creation. Currently, it is primarily housed at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, MA.
Tropes in this painting:
- Artistic License – History: Ruby Bridges likely didn't wear all white the first day she went to school.
- Color Contrast: Bridges' dark skin contrasts very sharply with her clean white dress, drawing attention to her and her Blackness.
- The Faceless: The marshals escorting Bridges are only seen from the shoulders down, emphasizing them as representative of an institution and her as the focus of the painting.
- Internal Deconstruction: Rockwell worked in the "The Saturday Evening Post" drawing illustrations for their covers. Until "Golden Rule", he only depicted an idealized Eagleland with a Monochrome Casting of white people doing very American things. The magazine criticized the aforementioned rule and told him to stop drawing black and white people in equal standing. He quit the job and, thus, The Problem We All Live With was born — white people here are minor faceless characters representing an oppressive system and the protagonist is a black little girl.
- Intimidating White Presence:
- Ruby Bridges is a six-year-old, black girl going to her newly desegregated school, so she's the farthest thing from menacing one could think of. However, the mob of angry white protesters (not seen in the frame) sees her like this. Someone clearly wrote the racist graffiti, threw the tomato, and made a guard of federal marshals necessary. The viewer is meant to see the scene from the perspective of a person in the mob, forcing them to confront their own prejudice.
- The marshals are intimidating white presences themselves, as even though they are meant to protect Ruby, they surround her in a cold manner and are extensions of the system that is part of the problem.
- Prejudice Aesop: The painting condemns vicious, unthinking racism aimed at the most vulnerable members of our society. It depicts racism through slurs in blood-red letters looming over an innocent little girl, who needs four U.S. Marshals just for her to be safe on a walk to school.
- Produce Pelting: Played for Drama. A tomato is seen freshly splattered on the wall, implied to have been recently thrown by the angry mob.
- Scenery Censor: Inverted. One of the federal marshals' arms in the foreground partially obscures the racist graffiti that's scrawled on the wall in the background. Not enough that there's any doubt about what it says, but at least the slur is a bit less visible.
- Splash of Color: Downplayed seeing that it's a colored painting. Instead of monochrome, the piece is primarily made of dull, neutral colors except for bright details — the tomato on the wall (bright red), the armbands on the men's arms (yellow, identifying them as U.S. Marshals), and the color contrast on Bridges.
- White Is Pure: Ruby Bridges is the only character in the painting who is drawn wearing white and it remains unstained and unblemished as the racist mob throw tomatoes at her.
- Since Norman Rockwell was an advocate of civil rights, the use of white is to symbolise how Ruby is just an innocent child going to school like everyone else. It also shows that what's supposed to be a good sign of societal progression is being tainted by the fact that the angry, white crowd are throwing tomatoes at her and she's having to be escorted by 4 US marshals.
- The use of white also serves as a contrast to the stained and vandalised brown wall behind her, which is stained by a tomato and vandalised by racist graffiti. It is a visual metaphor for how the so-called purity of white America is only being ruined by their own bigotry and hysteria over an innocent child who's just going to school like any other kid in America.
