- Courtesy ABC News; Original Photo by Johnny Nguyen for the Oregonian
It’s the photo published on multiple news sites (as seen above) and shared on a million Facebook pages; Oregonian freelance photog Johnny Nguyen’s touching shot of a crying 12-year-old hugging a Portland cop after the Ferguson non-indictment. One could see the photo as a hopeful moment in a time of intense anger and confusion… a quick moment of possibility of not where we are, but where we should be.
Or, according to the Guardian‘s Jonathan Jones, the photo is “a blatant lie.” From his column this morning:
In the 1930s and 1940s the dishonest manipulation of photographs was a speciality of state propagandists. Backroom technicians in totalitarian darkrooms removed unwanted faces from pictures and turned emotive images into posters. Today, we don’t need propaganda machines to deceive us because we can make hypocritical and self-manipulating choices ourselves just by “liking” the pictures that show us what we want to see and ignoring those that are more awkward.
…
Sentimentality used to be the preserve of musicals and Hollywood: now it shapes the news. Photographs are no longer carefully chosen by newspaper picture editors to craft the story. Of course, the traditional media are no strangers to manipulating reality – consciously or unconsciously – with photographs. But when news images are given life and meaning by the number of times they are shared on Facebook, the only editorial control is sentiment. This picture is cute, therefore popular, therefore true.
Jones has a lot more to say about it, and you can read it here. And while I can definitely see his point, he’s really over-swinging here. Newspapers (including this one) use photos and images to move papers—no one’s denying that. Though to say this photo somehow negates all other images coming from Ferguson is overreaching at best and dishonest at worst. While Jones has every right to insinuate this photo is simply crass manipulation from everyone involved, and that its viewers are using it to blind themselves to the realities of racial tension in America—we also have the right to call bullshit on his simplistic, judgemental reading of the situation.
Photos can’t solve our problems, but they can be a catalyst for change. In Jones’ defense, the above photo probably won’t be the catalyst we need—because that photo hasn’t been taken yet.
Hat tips to Blogtown regular Todd Mecklem.
The cop in this picture was also one of the cops that ‘liked’ the “I am Darren Wilson” facebook profile pics of his colleagues. He was also seen later that night ramming his motorcycle into protesters. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that those two facts haven’t been widely reported – they hurt the pro police propaganda value of the image.
You know that someone’s dripping a bit too much acid when they’re even too cynical for Humphrey’s taste.
What he said.
Put lipstick on a pig and it’s still a pig – literally. The photo looks staged and no one in Portland can prove otherwise because Portland is and will always be (due to its horrible efforts of diversifying the workforce & gentrific-hipsterization of the communities) the whitest city in America.
Is there any video of the police officer ramming his motorcycle into the protestors? If there is, why hasn’t it been aired?
Bret Barnum is a Darren Wilson supporter this link says it all.
http://www.theroot.com/blogs/the_grapevine/2014/12/cop_hugging_crying_kid_in_viral_photo_allegedly_supported_darren_wilson.html
He can hug all of the Devonte’s that he wishes, does not change the fact that cops like this are the problem, not the solution. This is America people, and a a black man I have to be honest and say that due to slavery, Jim Crowe, civil rights, war on drugs, prison industrial complex, etc. there has been a systematic effort to attempt to contain and control us since we first arrived here. We are the dangerous other and that is just the way it is. We were never meant to be in this country.