User talk:64.112.179.103

The caption of the photo of the female in this article reads "'Song of Myself' includes passages about the unsavory realities of the United States before the Civil War, including one about a multi-racial slave." However, the caption grossly misrepresents the photo -- which, despite its impressive beauty, really should not be in the article at all. Note that the photo dates from 1899, 33 years AFTER the U.S. Civil War ended (and seven years after Whitman died); it was taken in Puerto Rico shortly after the end of the Spanish-American War, so at the time of the U.S. Civil War the locale in which it was taken was a foreign country, and not part of the U.S.; the subject of the photo could not have been a slave, since slavery was abolished in the U.S. in 1863 and in Puerto Rico in 1873; and, especially given the quality of the photo, there are no unequivocal grounds for claiming that this person is multi-racial. This is a case where pleasure in the exotic character of an image got the better of the need to be truthful. If anything it shows the "unsavory realities of the United States long after the Civil War ended", and certainly not before it started -- and it has nothing whatsoever to do with the poetry of Walt Whitman! 64.112.179.103 (talk) 12:15, 24 September 2019 (UTC)