[normhead]

Journalism in that regard is dead. Modern journalism is about pushing an agenda.

The journalism that didn't have an agenda is part of people's imagination.

[stevebrot]

Well worth our discussing on this forum. Hope more people read this and think about where the truth lies and what the implications are.

Years ago, I took a picture (on color film) of a white man with his hand on a young African-American's head. The context, obvious in the photo, was of the man doing a face painting for the child (at a festival). I printed it as a b&w and cropped it, leaving only the tension of white man holding head of black child. My friend/informal teacher immediately called me on it. He pointed out the manipulation. I was much more aware and careful after that.

The question might be, which crop is more "truthful"?

For some the tight crop illustrates a foregone assumption and is "truth" regardless of whether the image is honest to the facts.


Steve

[stevebrot]

I took a scene that was not racially charged and made it seem as if it were....

Almost by accident, I did something similar. The image below was of a guy on the train platform hula hooping. Do to a lapse of timing, the capture shows a tension that simply was not present at the time.




Steve

[stevebrot]

One approach, I suppose, would have been to show both the original and my transformed version together.

I would love to see that juxtaposition. The two shots together would speak volumes about what we want to see and believe.


Steve

[stevebrot]

You cannot be honest with a camera, you can focus on a very small segment of a given moment, and isolate it from it's emotional and conceptual context, but that is not portraying reality.

Dang! This is good. You nailed it. Every photo ever taken carries with it the "perspective" in every literal sense of the word of the position and field of view of the lens.


Steve

[stevebrot]

This is the same,the only person who could possibly object to such a photograph as described above would be someone who is trying to give some importance to the race of the subjects... and that would be a racist. To anyone but a racist, it would just be a picture of a man with his hands on a child's head. Which is what I would see.

What your teacher /friend taught you was to view the world from a race based perspective. Where I come from, that's just wrong. People are judged by their character, not by their color. That he meant well is not the issue.

This just keeps getting better and better!


Steve

[sholtzma]

Well, I have to disagree with Norm. Race is an issue, in our country and in quite a few other places in the world. Perhaps where he lives it is not as much of an issue as it is where I live, but in North Carolina the identification of people by race and the disparate treatment of people by race is an everyday reality. That was why I cropped the original photo to call attention to those real tensions in the first place. To that extent, although I was distorting the original subject, I felt at the time as if I were portraying another aspect of social reality. My friend's concern was that I was creating that charged scene instead of finding it and then portraying it photographically. (If I had found a racially charged scene and photographed it, my friend would have had no problem and would have complimented me on my photographic success.) My response to him at the time would have been that I was revealing deep attitudes in the minds of the viewers of my image, but my friend would have replied that those viewers would (falsely) take themselves to be witnessing an actually racially charged scene. Thus, my suggestion now that I could have presented both images together, properly labeled.

I'll see if I can find the original photo and the crop. If so, I'll post it here. Better to see the images than to have to imagine them (differently).

Note: a racist is one who believes that race exists and justifies what are in fact unjustifiably disparate treatment of people by race. A racist is not one who acknowledges that people draw racial distinctions.

[stevebrot]

Note: a racist is one who believes that race exists and justifies what are in fact unjustifiably disparate treatment of people by race. A racist is not one who acknowledges that people draw racial distinctions.

I would broaden that to include those who assign significance to the insignificant on the basis of race. Your cropped photo only suggests racial oppression to those who want to see it there. Others might see the dominance of age vs. youth or simply the stark contrast of skin tones.

BTW...I have never been to Ontario where Norm lives, but I have lived in British Columbia and there was plenty of racism in that province directed mostly at First Nations and South Asians. Edit: That was in 1980. Perhaps things have changed.


Steve

[normhead]

You live in the old world, I live in the new. But let me tell you a North Carolina story. A Canadian friend of mine is in a bank, behind an elderly black man, as he is coming to the window, a young white woman cuts in front of him and takes his spot at the window. My friend says to the black man, "that's not right, you should complain." His response was, "lady, you aren't from here, when the day is over, you can go home, I have to live here every day, with these people." Well there are those who are overtly racist, and there are those who covertly allow racism to happen. Now I know they will say it's not their business or whatever, and they think they hold liberal attitudes, but the fact is, until they step in front of that woman in the bank and say, "that's not right, go to the back of the line like everyone else." the are quiet enablers of racism. There simply are no racial distinctions. There are attitudes based on race, and that is completely different.

And just to finish the above story, if that white woman ever tries that stuff in front of my friend in Toronto, her home town, my friend will step in and confront her, because we don't accept that here. That is our attitude of "race doesn't matter" and if you draw racial distictions or imply them, we will be offended. Because we believe that the way to end racism is to stop beleiving people draw racial distinctions and act as if they don't, because if you do that, they cease to exist. Your approach perpetuates racism, ours has pretty much minimized it.

We encourage people not to pay any attention to the race of a person, and to engage with them sole on the basis of their character. Worrying about what others think? My advice is, you do what's right, if others don't like it, that's on them.

Caving in to the attitudes of racists is almost as bad as being one.

[stevebrot]

...but in North Carolina the identification of people by race and the disparate treatment of people by race is an everyday reality...

Your point is well-made and I don't believe that it is easily dismissed as simply being a mark of an unenlightened society. I believe there is a strong human tendency to view people as being either "like me" or "not like me". At its most extreme, "not like me" means that other person may represent a threat, either real or imagined. We all do it, though most of us like to think we don't live at that extreme.

It is easy for me to say that all is cool in my enlightened middle-class neighborhood with a typical racial mix. We don't have many Hispanics, but other races are well-represented and to be completely honest, I see more "not like me" in the homeless white guys that live in the adjacent woods than from the Indonesians that live across the street. Even then, I don't see any of us being that different from each other.

Things may be different, though, in other parts of the Portland metro area. There are parts of town where I have been singled out for persistent verbal abuse from passing cars on the basis of my race. At that point, the primal urge asserts itself and I am very much "not like" those persons much as I might try to view them charitably. In their neighborhood, the distinction is actively maintained, though it is not clear why. I chose to accept that as part of reality in much the same way as whether the sun is shining or not.


Steve

[BrianR]

You live in the old world, I live in the new. But let me tell you a North Carolina story. A Canadian friend of mine is in a bank, behind an elderly black man, as he is coming to the window, a young white woman cuts in front of him and takes his spot at the window. My friend says to the black man, "that's not right, you should complain." His response was, "lady, you aren't from here, when the day is over, you can go home, I have to live here every day, with these people." Well there are those who are overtly racist, and there are those who covertly allow racism to happen. Now I know they will say it's not their business or whatever, and they think they hold liberal attitudes, but the fact is, until they step in front of that woman in the bank and say, "that's not right, go to the back of the line like everyone else." the are quiet enablers of racism. There simply are no racial distinctions. There are attitudes based on race, and that is completely different.

How are you able to determine that this lady was a racist and not ageist? Or just an equal opportunity jerkwad who is rude to everyone whenever she thinks she can get away with it?

[TaoMaas]

How are you able to determine that this lady was a racist and not ageist? Or just an equal opportunity jerkwad who is rude to everyone whenever she thinks she can get away with it?

The part I highlighted was what I was thinking, too. Maybe she's an equal-opportunity offender and is this way with everyone.

---------- Post added 08-08-2015 at 07:10 PM ----------

My response to him at the time would have been that I was revealing deep attitudes in the minds of the viewers of my image, but my friend would have replied that those viewers would (falsely) take themselves to be witnessing an actually racially charged scene.

Sounds to me like you and your friend agree, except he thinks you're tricking your viewers. I would say they are tricking themselves via their pre-conceived notions. Btw, I ran this discussion by my co-worker who is about a year removed from a 20+ year as a photojournalist. He had no problem with your crop of your photo as being honest. It wasn't a staged event, but a juxtaposition seen and captured. The place where he balked momentarily was in deciding how this image could be presented. He felt it had crossed the line from journalism into illustration. It was probably inappropriate if it were to be used in a photo essay about the event where the photo was taken because it's implying something other than what really went on at the event. But on the other hand, it would be very appropriate on the cover of Time or Newsweek to illustrate a discussion of covert racism in America...which is pretty much what it has done here, right?

[normhead]

How are you able to determine that this lady was a racist and not ageist? Or just an equal opportunity jerkwad who is rude to everyone whenever she thinks she can get away with it?

That's always the first question asked in cases like this. It's not a court of law... I shared a story.

[BrianR]

That's always the first question asked in cases like this. It's not a court of law... I shared a story.

Well Norm, you've said that people would only view a hypothetical image you described (or the one sholtzma described) in an ill way if they were perverted (or racist) themselves (post #20). It seems to me you're passing a similar judgement.

Or y'know, maybe you were massively oversimplifying things.

I found it pretty disturbing that you'd try to imply anyone who had a problem with sholtzma's image was racist. You haven't seen it. I haven't seen it. Who knows what expression was on the boys face? Happy? Discomfort? Any photographer knows that it's easy to capture that 'moment in time' where someones face looks miserable when they're laughing, or they look like they're drugged when they're just midway through a smile (or look at stevebrot's example and his admission!). His adviser/teacher felt it wasn't on the level... trying to declare anyone who has a problem with the crop (that again, only one person in this thread has seen) is a racist is pretty weaksauce.

[normhead]

Well Norm, you've said that people would only view a hypothetical image you described (or the one sholtzma described) in an ill way if they were perverted (or racist) themselves (post #20). It seems to me you're passing a similar judgement.

Well since differentiation gone the basis of race is the definition of racism, I'm not sure I follow your logic.

I found it pretty disturbing that you'd try to imply anyone who had a problem with sholtzma's image was racist.

Years ago, I took a picture (on color film) of a white man with his hand on a young African-American's head. The context, obvious in the photo, was of the man doing a face painting for the child (at a festival). I printed it as a b&w and cropped it, leaving only the tension of white man holding head of black child. My friend/informal teacher immediately called me on it. He pointed out the manipulation. I was much more aware and careful after that.

Or y'know, maybe you were massively oversimplifying things.

Or maybe I heard the story first hand from my friend and knew exactly what all the implications and ramification weres, and you are playing with this line of thought because you have your own reasons for wanting it to not be racism. Some people deny racism exists even when it's right in front of them. And some people want to believe that this kind of evil doesn't exist in the world, whether it dies or not because they don't want to have to do anything about it. There's a lot of maybe's to be discussed.

But let's try out a few of my perceptions...
1. When I moved to Columbus some 50 odd years ago, it was illegal to sell a house in a white neighborhood to a black person. Racist or not?
2. My next door neighbour in Windsor On. refused to rent to a person of colour in his rental unit. He claimed he wasn't racist because he let his kids play with me. Guess how the judgement went?
3. A Toronto police officer when I was 18 riding in the passenger seat leaned opened the window of his car, and told him in a very soft voice, he shouldn't let n%$#@1rs ride in his car. Racist or not?

I'm just wondering, how hard would it be for you to admit there are still racists around, or that there were even more of them back then? So, assuming there is racism around how do we deal with it. By dismissing every possible incident as if it was all a misunderstanding?

trying to declare anyone who has a problem with the crop (that again, only one person in this thread has seen) is a racist is pretty weaksauce.

Based on the information given, I don't think so. And one has to wonder, why do you think different?

I printed it as a b&w and cropped it, leaving only the tension of white man holding head of black child. My friend/informal teacher immediately called me on it. He pointed out the manipulation.

How do you know the friend teacher wasn't uncomfortable of any portrayal of black and white interaction, and that his charge of manipulation wasn't just an intellectual masking of unconscious racist beliefs. See, if you want to rewrite the story as told, it can be done many ways. The question I have for you is why did you pick the particular way you did to rewrite it?

The thing is, if everything is not racism, none has to do anything to fight racism. I think that's what a lot of people, including a lot of racists, would like to happen.