If there’s a single photograph that people most associate with the 2012 election, it’s probably this one, which shows Barack Obama and Michelle Obama embracing and quickly went viral once the election had been called in the president’s favor. It’s an optimistic photo, capturing a moment of supreme validation being shared by the first African-American president and first lady in U.S. history. It’s easy to see why it was so popular.
There’s another kind of image that’s distinctively 2012, however, and it’s not nearly as up-lifting. It’s an image, like this one or this one, showing an exceedingly long line of people waiting to exercise their right to vote. When you look at these photos, you tend to notice two things. One, that for a country often accused of political apathy, a surprising number of people are willing to wait a long time to cast their single, relatively insignificant vote; and two, that most of the people in the most discouragingly long lines are Latino or African-American.