On Friday, the front page of The Seattle Times had an image filled with Haitian bodies that were killed by the earthquake. The question is this: Can one imagine the editors of our only daily running a front-page image filled with white, rotting, blotted, partially naked bodies? The answer is, of course, no. Why? Because the white editors would have recognized themselves in the dead bodies, and this recognition would have made it impossible or difficult for them to see the deaths as just “destruction all around.” With recognition, each death becomes personal and tragic. With recognition—and here I’m referring to Charles Taylor’s (not entirely unproblematic) reading of Hegel—there is respect for the living and the dead.
Charles Mudede—who writes about film, books, music, and his life in Rhodesia, Zimbabwe, the USA, and the UK for The Stranger—was born near a steel plant in Kwe Kwe, Zimbabwe. He has no memory... More by Charles Mudede
Yeah, Charles, the reason is what you say it is, and not that there aren’t any white Third World nations.
Yes, one can imagine the editors running a front-page image filled with white, rotting, bloated, partially naked bodies. So long as they were foreign. You’re over-thinking the color angle; but then I don’t think you mind being accused of that.
Jesus, it looks like it’s going to be another one of those days on Slog. Guess I might as well just get drunk.
Charles Mudude, psychic media critic. Drawing insightful conclusions based on his own imaginings of what other people would have done if circumstances had been what they are not. Next up: scathing reviews of books authors might have written, but did not.
maybe they would nowadays, charles. its a crass world.
Of course, if the Times chose NOT to run such a photo it would be accused of playing down the tragedy, of missing an opportunity to bring the horror home to all of us living comfortably here in Seattle.
Oh, and while the daily newspaper tries to bring news about the horror of this tragedy the Stranger is all over the tragic Bedbug Scare of 2010.
Oh come on. Stop this BS.
This is a tough one to prove one way or the other, because shit like this doesn’t generally happen to white people (due to location, wealth, and so on). But one thing that occurs to me is that this is such a spectacularly obvious and cliche’d critique, that the editors of the Times almost certainly, at a minimum, asked themselves the question before the ran the photos. This is to say that, whatever they would actually do, they probably believe that they would run comparable photos of dead white bodies.
what’s this “seattle times” you speak of?
Oh, and by the way, Charles, do you remember those photos of the white guys that were hanged in Iraq or Iran or wherever the fuck it was a year or two ago? Everybody published them.
That reminds me of something I read by Judith Butler during grad school about what makes a life grievable. I think it’s from her latest writings, but I can’t remember the title.
charles, not everything is about race. and yes they would run a pic of dead white/asian/whatever bodies on the cover if they thought it would sell newspapers
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&so…
The dead white Afghanis and the dead white American soldiers and the dead white 9/11 victims say hi and wonder why you’re not looking at them.
it ain’t whitey
by the time the bodies got to the ‘rotting bloated’ stage they would be a nice shade of green
why pick on the Seattle Times? Have you noticed that every single news outlet in North America is plastering pictures AND VIDEO of dead bodies all over print and web?
And regarding the black angle…I also get the feeling it is more an issue of being far from the tragedy, and not the color. Distance. Maybe someone can prove me wrong, but I bet a lot of opportunities to show the dead were passed up during Katrina. I know there are some pictures out there of this, but I didn’t get the feeling that the press was going out of its way to hunt those images down. As much as they could have anyway. (barrage of links proving me wrong in 3…2…1….)
Oh. And the poor souls jumping from the WTC in 2001? Why were we even given the chance to watch/see that? That struck me as the most horrible thing on the planet to broadcast. And didn’t we watch those planes, full of friends, family, neighbors, coworkers and loved ones fly into those buildings OVER AND OVER AND OVER? We could not see their faces but that was inconceivably shallow to show that.
although the fact that we aren’t allowed to see dead American soldiers come home from the Middle East really pisses me off.
@11,
It was more like five years ago and those bodies weren’t recognizable as anything human once the Iraqis got through with them.
But this does remind me of the outrage when Al Jazeera broadcasted photos of dead American soldiers. Our news outlets never shy away from publishing photos of dead soldiers, just as long as those soldiers are black, brown, or yellow. Americans are nothing but a bunch of spoiled, callow hypocrites.
For what it’s worth, I think you’re right that there are some interesting contradictions in the way images of human bodies, living or dead, are used in the media. But I don’t think those contradictions can always, or even mostly, be reduced to race-identity issues. We’re sheltered from images of soldiers’ caskets being shipped back to the US, but not from graphic images of individuals murdered by US enemies in the “War on Terror”. We’re sheltered from images of healthy, living naked people, but not from images of dead, naked Asian people whose bodies have been skinned, partially dissected and plasticized. Putting it simplistically, I think the mass media wouldn’t hesitate to show images of dead white people if publishing those images somehow served the interests of advertisers and their share-holders.
Another interesting fashion trend here in the US: middle-class attraction to “undead” sex predators (vampires), and reanimated-dead automatons (zombies). The photo of a young, dead Haitian man on the cover of the NY times on Friday instantly brought to mind images of horror movie zombies. Not only is it okay to kill zombies, it’s the only thing to do — for your own good, and for theirs’.
Generally, I think anything that makes us see Haitians more as objects than humans, makes their mass death more emotionally manageable for news consumers, and makes people a little less likely to ask unpleasant questions about ways years of colonialism, imperialism and forced impoverishment may have created conditions — poorly constructed homes and buildings, and lack of resources for responding quickly in a mass emergency, for instance — that made the consequences of the Haitian quake far greater than they would have been in a more affluent place.
Anyway, thanks for the post. And for the assorted dummies, trolls and knuckleheads reading this: neener, neener, neener, you’re all douchebags!
The problem with seeing everything as a comment against non-Whites is that it perpetuates the idea that everything is a comment against non-Whites. you’re kind of stuck in a no-win eddy, Chuck.
If they didn’t print thise pictures, I am sure you’d find a way to accuse them of ignoring the very real problem etc.
When you give yourself only a hammer to get the job done, everything is a nail. Real life is more varied, Mr Philosopher.
There was a pretty bush league report on Good Morning America today, and it was death and reporter reaction. I found it pretty offensive for 7:15 am, and I’m not sure that guy got on TV – I’d never seen him before.
But won’t running such a picture help put a human face on this tragedy? By showing images that will shock many the tragedy goes beyond just a vague concept that many would not grasp. The photo provides human face and connection that will perhaps help facilitate people giving to a relief effort that will help those in Haiti who are in desperate need. This photo does more good than harm even if it is a difficult choice for an editor.
And you’re not an American, or you’re the exception to the rule? That must be nice.
I agree with Charles.
I distinctly remember Newsweek and every daily newspaper in the Dallas/Ft Worth area running photos of dead white people face down in Jonestown. Hundreds, lined up next to each other. I suspect they (gasp) thought it was both news worthy and likely to sell papers.
Plus if the Haiti images weren’t running now, wouldn’t the conversation become, “no one cares about the Haitians?”
I distinctly remember Newsweek and every daily newspaper in the Dallas/Ft Worth area running photos of dead white people face down in Jonestown. Hundreds, lined up next to each other. I suspect they (gasp) thought it was both news worthy and likely to sell papers.
Plus if the Haiti images weren’t running now, wouldn’t the conversation become, “no one cares about the Haitians?”
@3: LOL, 5280! My exact reaction was, “Oh, crap–here we go again!” Best wishes.
@27/8: Most of the Jonestown victims were, in fact, African-Americans.
You saw no corpses on 9/11, even though the ground was littered with jumpers long before the buildings fell. No shortage of photographic opportunities there, but no paper published any.
Hell, I remember the outcry when papers nationwide published the photo of that 9/11 jumper alive, in flight.
I don’t know if Mudede’s hypothesis is right, but his observation is spot on.
i agree with charles
@31, closed my argument. thank you.