Everyday the Lens blog is a reminder that photography is alive and kicking.

If you have a spare ten minutes take a little journey.

Start with this story on LENS about white poverty in South Africa.

Then turn your eye to John Edwin Mason’s blog and get the story under the story. (Incidentally another  photographer both with enormous talent and integrity and whom is still very much in love with the still image)

It just goes to show, that even if some days it feels like all roads lead to LENS, very often the road will take you out the other side and elsewhere. That’s the beauty of the net and especially of blogging. I love it.

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In this city, and the nation at large, no group has suffered more in the current recession than black men. The recent spike in joblessness that has nearly one in five black males unemployed in 2010 is the end result of decades of high unemployment rates for blacks, with devastating consequences for them as individuals, for their families, and for the neighborhoods in which they live.

Open Society Institute Event

Why is that as the evidence continues to stack up that established and and supposedly enlightened photographers refuse to enter a debate about race and photography, demeaning race as an unimportant distinction in measuring diversity?

This is what Gary Knight has to say when the make-up of VII photo agency was questioned (not by duckrabbit):

‘So for the record I would like to say that when it comes to VII – personally (thats important because we are all different at that pIace and I don’t speak for anyone else) – I don’t give a shit about diversity based on gender – or colour – they are way to trivial and limiting factors to consider when isolated like that – diversity based on culture, curiosity, interests, class, education, nationality, politics, spirituality, life experience, age, sexuality (not sex), geographical location – now you are talking – they are way more interesting than gender and skin colour – lets celebrate someone because of who they are not what they look like.‘

Now before you all jump in duckrabbit needs to point out that by all accounts Gary has done an awful lot to encourage photographers from many different countries in the world. He may or may not regret writing these words, and you have to admire him for saying something, but its indicative of a knee jerk reaction to the debate.

There’s a contradiction in making a living out of photographing inequality but refusing to even acknowledge how much a factor race is within your own industry. That’s an issue for all of us including us here at duckrabbit.

Nothing can change until a problem is acknowledged.

“Some kids I’ll describe as friends say I am race obsessed,
the luxury of your opinion shows that you are blessed.”

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Its easy to forget the struggles and sacrifices that were made to force a more equal society. Blood was spilt. That blood must be honored.

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For African Americans, Native Americans, Asian, Latino… or gays… or under 25… or female… they know that their communities have been, and continue to be, routinely left out of their newspaper. They typically make the news for holidays, crime or food.

For many of them, newspapers aren’t dying… they’re already dead.

At SXSWi, attendees of the Online News of Tomorrow session couldn’t help but notice that all the panelists were white males.

Look, here’s the reality. If your news gathering staff does not reflect the diversity of your community, then you made it nearly impossible for them to accurately cover that community. That’s the thinking behind NAHJ’s Parity Project.

Read the rest of this article by Robert Hernandez on the excellent Online Journalism Review.

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Charles Moore is the legendary Montgomery photojournalist whose coverage of the Civil Rights era produced some of the most famous shots in the world (the dogs and fire hoses in Birmingham, the Selma Bridge, and Martin Luther King’s arrest in Montgomery, among many others.) His photographs are credited with helping to quicken the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The noted historian, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. said that Moore’s photographs transformed the national mood and made the legislation not just necessary, but possible. This is his story.

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Important stuff.

‘The photographs were never about me. They were always about the people who were laying their lives on the line for basic civil rights. I look back and I can’t believe there was ever a time in this country when ANY citizen could not vote. The times were appalling.

Pictures can and do make a difference. Strong images of historical events do have an impact on society. They can help with change’. Charles Moore

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We thought about it for two seconds and said yes.

The monthly audiences of these blogs adds up to a couple of hundred thousand people.  This means that the debate can’t get shoved under the carpet. Questions cannot be ignored and answers will be given greater scrutiny.  Tears will be shed and reputations will get bloodied.

Probably ours.

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‘Taking it’s name from a darkroom/photo processing technique, the Dodge & Burn Blog is dedicated to DIVERSITY in PHOTOGRAPHY. My posts reflect PHOTOGRAPHY HISTORY as I would have loved to have learned it and CONTEMPORARY PHOTOGRAPHY as I see and value it.

Dodge & Burn photography blog will highlight what is often “dodged” from the art scene and “burned” in art history: photographers of African, Asian, Latino, Native American, Pacific Islander and Aleutian heritage, women photographers and works of photography about these and other indigenous communities of the world.’

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3. duckrabbit recommends Contact Editions:

Galleries are good, but they often carry an elitist edge and rednecks like duckrabbit can feel a bit out of place.

The computer screen is good too, but photographs often get lost in the noise and knocked about unfairly by snap judgements.

Book print runs are often very small and expensive. They reach a small and often pretty exclusive group of people. I’d like everyone to see Joseph’s pictures, so if you come by my house there’s a good chance you’ll get the book put down in front of you.

Of course if you want to reach a really wide audience than the internet is the place to go That’s why Joseph’s latest project has its own website, and bloody good it is too.

Subscribe to duckrabbit’s feed and follow us on twitter

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I grew up at the same time.

One of my most painful memories was as a seven year old seeing a little boy called Harjit get viciously kicked in against the window of Wilkinsons in Nottingham because he was a ‘paki’.

Nobody cared.

Back then racist jokes were ten a penny in the playground. Racism was open and it was sickening, especially against kids whose families originated from the sub continent.

I was one of the kids who laughed at the jokes and hated myself for it afterwards.

And we really wonder why so many ethnic men of Harjit’s generation grew up angry and violent? Why so many who were getting nothing but two fingers up from this world felt pulled to a form of Islamic, Sikh or Hindu fundamentalism that welcomed them with a warm embrace, that gave them a sense of identity?

In 2009 we’ve made massive strides but as an outsider I’ve been astonished at how many photographers believe that issues of race don’t permeate into the industry. Its a naivete that understandably upsets and hurts those that know the bitter truth and no longer want it buried.

Its not malicious, but is it pernicious. It helps maintain the status quo that feeds those too busy gorging themselves at photography’s top table to speak out. Essentially it is like believing that because you can’t see someone, they don’t exist. Because its not your knife that cuts them, they don’t bleed

I know what its like to bleed, to feel alienated, to feel self hatred and to feel you don’t belong in the world. I know what it feels like to be abused and to be persecuted for who you are. At times as a small child I felt overwhelmed by such feelings but over the years I learned that what pain and suffering and loss I have felt connects me to the world, as does my overwhelming joy and laughter and love of life. I cannot turn away from what I see and feel because for me to do so would be to die.

I know two types of dangerous people in the world. Those that suffer and feel pain and make it their mission that others do not have to go though what they have. These are the people that change the world and are a danger to the status quo. Then there are those that suffer and feel pain and turn it back on the world, expecting, even delighting in others going through what they’ve been through. These are the people that are breaking our world.

Then there are those who see evil everywhere but inside themselves.

The truth is we are all common in our suffering, its just that some people are more common than others.

And we are all welcome to explore this world as photographers, its just that some photographers are more welcome than others.

In the UK ethic minorities are more susceptible to poverty, poor education, chronic health problems, depression and suicide. They are more likely to end up in prison. None of that diminishes the fact that that there is also a British white underclass, forgotten, marginalized, impoverished and with no voice. Equally we need to find a place for them to be heard and more opportunities to pull themselves out of poverty.

I remember the beating that was meted out to Harjit like it was yesterday. I went home and cried. I bet Harjit cried harder. I could have done something, but I didn’t. I could have said something but I didn’t. I just stood passively by accepting that I lived in a world where essentially it was alright to get your head kicked in because of the color of your skin.

No-one in this debate about racism has more right to be ashamed than me.

(Here’s a song for the photographer who grew up in a London twenty years ago where racism was non-existant)

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