Cloud believes that was why Schutz’s painting made people so angry. “One of the things about black people in America is that our suffering is something one sees on TV,” he added. “It’s a mediated event. Hegel mentions the concept of reconciliation. When a painter paints a portrait, they must reconcile themselves to the subject of the portrait. I felt that if Schutz had proposed to actually make a painting of Emmett Till, proposed a reconciliation with him rather than a photograph of his suffering, that people would have been more open to it.”
-Mike Cloud, ARTnews