Shephard Fairey's We The People

Improved Essays
American identity has long been theorized, and even, institutionalized through a complex system of othering, which pits the United States, its citizens, and their proposed unified beliefs, values, and practices against that which is assumed to be different. This has resulted in an American identity, which, while touting its diversity, excludes the “foreign” or “other” identities which are proposed to contrast traditional American characteristics. This incongruity is pervasive in American society, but a compelling contemporary example, which is largely rendered invisible due to its progressive and egalitarian intentions, is that of the Shephard Fairey’s “We the People” poster series, specifically the poster that depicts a Muslim woman in an

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