This visualisation implies a kind of discursive toxicity, where 'toxicity' is used metaphorically to indicate a dangerous or debilitating character. Its inclusion attempts to stretch understandings of 'toxic', and how the term can be used more broadly than it has been, to productively describe discourses and relationships.
This is a found image, which the ethnographer describes as a 'go to' slide from the City of Austin's repository of project slides. There are several notable things about this image: the first is the connotation of powerpoint slides, which imply an institutional knowledge of an issue; the second is the inclusion of stick figures and apple trees to communicate a complex issue 'simply', which implies an ability to understand an issue and to do something about it. The aesthetic sits between communicative and intentional: this is what the problem is and we know what we need to do to address it (if you keep watching this presentation, all the stick figures will be in the same position and you will understand the issue and how it is going to be fixed). The ethnographer's inclusion of this image and his caption implies the failure of the administrative body to understand and frame racial inequality. It promotes a critical gaze which undermines blind faith in institutional bodies and their projects.
The caption presents an extensive critique of the image. The ethnographer mobilises the caption effectively: not only does he give us information we might need to contextualise the image, but he presents another set of voices which allow us to critically examine the image.
This found image advances insight into discourses of racial inequality; specificially, the discourse of City of Austin government regarding racial inequality in the context of the City's efforts to reduce racial inequality. The image is a loaded image: a familiar powerpoint presentation slide that indicates an offical awareness of an issue, and a project to address that issue. The ethnographer draws our attention to how the issue of racial inequality is perceived and framed by the City: as one which characterises brown and black people by need, lacking, and helplessness in the top slide, and by violence and oppression in the bottom slide. The caption tells the audience about impressions of such a discourse, and encourages a double-take: is this the only perception and framing of racial inequality we could possibly take? Whose perception and framing is this? Is there another way of seeing it and representing it? This image promotes a critical gaze to a seemingly progressive project, and enlivens a productive dissatisfaction, if not anger.