Photo journalis?m or poverty porn?

Originally posted January 12th 2016

To be poor in Haiti: is that to be nothing and hungry, sick or dead in a photo album on a desk in New York, sold for $10 apiece?

To be poor in Haiti: is that to be nothing and desperate and needy, to be pitied or saved. Take my bible and I will feed you the bread?

To be poor in Haiti: is to be reformatted as ‘troubled’ and to feed the pockets of foreign NGOs and journalists.?

To be poor in Haiti: is that to be nothing and no one of value and dignity and meaning and sacred potential? Accountable for in the story of this country?**

Mr Brad S Workman – Turning World

I was alerted to the website Turning World – @Turning_world – by some friends here in Haiti. The site is run by photojournalist, Brad Workman who has an ongoing photo documentary in Haiti. I took issue with his language, the project, the fact that there is no acknowledgment let alone giving back to those whose lives he invades under the guise of social documentary. The books and prints are for sale on the website. and previews here. There are different ways to tell a story without invading peoples lives and assaulting their dignity – see here and here the photos were chosen by the Camp Acra residents on their blog which should be a lesson on what Haitians see for themselves. Teju Cole’s 7 point tweet analysis of the “White-Savior Industrial Complex” is a must-read for any white saviors or potential white saviors embarking on a savior mission..

4 – This world exists simply to satisfy the needs – including, importantly, the sentimental needs of white people and Oprah

7- I deeply respect American sentimentality, the way one respects a wounded hippo. You must keep an eye on it, for you know it is deadly.

The story be dammed – people are more important. Enough already!

My email only begins to touch on the whole issue of the ethics of disaster photojournalism and the white savior mindset. Two well-known examples of disaster voyeurism are the one of a young Haitian girl, Fabienne Cherisma, who was photographed dead having been shot by a policeman after the January 2010 earthquake. The accompanying text states that looters then ‘went through her pocket to steal what they could” meanwhile all 14 photographers stood by her body adjusting their lens for further shots- a kind of double shooting, one causing death and one prolonging death as imagery forever. Two of the photographers won an award for the series.

A second even more disturbing photo is one of a Sudanese baby dying of hunger whilst a vulture waited in anticipation of her death. The photographer, Kevin Carter, who also won an award, waited 20 minutes before chasing it away. Journalists in Sudan had been told not to touch famine victims so instead of, at the very least holding and caressing the child to at least give human comfort or try to get her to the nearest field hospital and treatment she was left alone.

There are also many questions around the unequal power relations between photographer and their subjects, objects. Photos rarely come with context beyond what was in the photographer’s lens at that moment and their decision to click. We the observer are left with the photograph and our imagination to interpret what we see and if this is to influence thousands of white saviors to invade Haiti then I see that as problematic. A question that constantly returns is why is it that so many white Americans, the majority who have no contact with Black people in their own country, feel the need to spend their life saving the people of a Black nation?

In the case of Workman, the idea of photojournalism as non-interventionist is serialized across the global south under a guise of non-partisanship, shooting people in distress and ‘enmeshed in political or social change’ and for his own material gain as well as satisfying ‘emotional needs’ and white privilege. It’s certainly not driven by notions of solidarity and struggle for justice but rather flowing from sentimentality and who knows what other emotions are carried behind the choice to avoid the words ‘slavery’ and describe structures of violence as ‘troubles’!

Mr Workman

I am writing in response to your description [Turningworld.org] of your photo journalist project in Haiti where I note you have visited 20 times. Specifically I wish to respond to the your presentation and thereby engagement with Haiti based on the language used in the description which I find highly disturbing.

Firstly without text and context photos do not tell the story that needs to be told. So even before your photos are presented, the text you write is a shadow of the reality behind the story – So how will the truth be told?

You use the words ‘human bondage’ and Haiti’s resistance to this. Why not simply be clear and upfront by using the word slavery and writing that Haiti has a history of revolution beginning with the only slave revolution which led to the first black independent nation? Instead you imply that this ‘human bondage’ is not only continuing but you erase the very resistance you attempt to speak of. Presumably after 20 visits you have an in-depth knowledge of Haiti’s history, culture and politics? Incidentally are you aware that after Haiti’s independence many enslaved people who escaped managed to travel to Haiti to live as free men and women? Are you aware that Haitians including the revolutionaries fought on the side of the Americans against the British. Are you aware that Haiti’s debt is a direct result of being forced to pay reparations to France for ending slavery and then being punished for demanding the return of these monies which have contributed to the impoverishment of the Haitian economy?

You write that ‘Haiti is a deeply troubled country’ and go on to speak of poverty as if poverty happens outside of the socioeconomic and political regional and global landscape. How is Haiti troubled in ways that other countries are, by implication not troubled? This kind of Eurocentric exceptionlaism is counter productive as first of all it ignores the underlying systemic structures of capitalism which perpetuate poverty from Guatemala to India to Nigeria to Haiti to South Africa. Secondly it singles out Haiti as being somehow different to other sites of poverty in for example the above countries which are at the very least as poor! One just has to know and understand the racism that underpins the US’s relationship with Haiti, something I note completely ignore by those who come to ‘publicize and save’ Haiti from all manner of ‘misery’ to question a simplistic statement on poverty in Haiti.

You talk of hunger, child labor, street children, environmental degradation, limited health care, cholera as ‘troubles’ .. These are not TROUBLES, they are acts of violence and the direct effects of colonialism, elitism, occupation, capitalism and rampant disaster capitalism and what Paul Farmer calls structural violence for which western nations, the US, France etc are the driving force. Attempting to de politicize Haiti in view of presenting a non-partisan perspective just doesn’t work because it erases the proud history of this country, it erases the destructiveness of US and French imperialism, it erases the truth behind the poverty, the street kids and the non existence healthcare and the fact this present government is systematically disposing of the popular masses to the extremities of the city and the country.

You speak of MINUSTAH but only in half truths i.e. you fail to explain why they are in Haiti or the violence they have committed in poor neighborhoods plus their responsibility of cholera. You fail to mention the militarization in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake which added to the trauma of people’s lives.

I have viewed the first stage photos and I am deeply concerned at showing photos of wounded, hungry, sick vulnerable people. This is a objectifying and insulting and pure pornography of poverty. So the world will see these photos and the false narrative that Haiti is a poor diseased violent country is perpetuated. Yes this I know to be the narrative. It is one told to me regularly whenever I visit the US and mention Haiti, the one the media loves to describe as ‘the poorest country in the western hemisphere’ as if that is the sum of 10 million people and 300 years of history! .How on earth does this help Haiti? And why do you feel you need to publicize the struggle rather than support or come in solidarity. Whats the response OMG, how awful these poor people are suffering, lets make way for more of the faith based missionary and the NGO industrial complexes to save Haiti.

How about giving Haitians cameras and letting them take their own photos; how about providing equipment for Haitian photographers to train youth and kids so they can document their own lives as they see fit instead of a self-centered careerism on the backs of the poor people!

You mention ‘promotional’ photos on your web page without giving some proper explanation on the monetary value of these and what you intend to do with monied raised from this and the rest of your work. I see no where you explain how you will give back to the communities and people who will be come subjects [objects] of your work?

His reply which I will leave for readers to interpret…

Dear Sokari Ekine:

Thank you for taking the time to write such a thoughtful e-mail! I hope to
have additional contact with you as I work to complete (and possibly
expand) the “Embracing Haiti” project.

For now, I must go but will remain

Sincerely Yours,
Bradley S. Workman

Reposted from Black Looks 1:0, February 2013