October 2001 LSAT
Section 2
Question 11
Ross-Rinehart on February 7, 2022
This asks us what journalistic and photographic records of Depression-era Harlem do *not* do. The reference to these records is in the fourth paragraph. There, the author says that, “Bearden sought in his work to reveal in all its fullness a world long hidden by the clichés of sociology and rendered cloudy by the simplifications of journalism and documentary photography” (lines 45-48). So, the author thinks that journalism and documentary photograph simplified the fullness of life at the time. Later, the author says that Bearden — in contrast to sociology, journalism and documentary photography — insisted “that we truly see the African-American experience in depth” (lines 52-53). Based on these two quotes, the author would say that the journalism and documentary photographs of that era simplify the era, preventing us from seeing the African-American experience in depth. Therefore, (D) is the correct answer — the journalism and documentary photographs don’t depict the “richness,” or depth, of African-American life.