Blues Ain't No Mockingbird

The camera—ever-present, “buzzin” around the property and the family—symbolizes the white men’s entitlement and invasiveness. It is a tool that allows its user to intrude and to capture a narrative that rarely serves its subject. Photography is also what motivates the white men to walk all over Granny’s property, suggesting that they will “take” what they want and that what she has will never truly belong to her. The camera is such a central symbol that the narrator calls one of the county men “Camera” and the other “Smilin”; “Camera” holds the camera, and he represents the watchful eye of whiteness.

The men say they are taking pictures for the food stamp campaign and, noticing Granny’s garden, tell her, “If more folks did that, see, there’d be no need—” (131). Now Granny knows that they want to use images of her and her garden to shame those who need food stamps. Their camera is thus also a tool of objectification and manipulation, as the men want to use Granny for their own purposes. She knows that the men are taking more than just pictures and that if she allows them to continue, she is complicit in her own subjugation.