Archive: Issue No. 80, April 2004

"This is a load of horseshit... This is 10 years too late� You can't tell me I'm racist - I've looked after black people for twenty five years!" exclaimed one person at the opening of Michelle Booth's photographic exhibition 'Seeing White'.

An exhibition consisting of black and white photographs depicting 'white life' in public spaces, Booth's photographs were augmented by text sand-blasted onto glass over the images. A closer look at this text revealed phrases such as: "The point of looking at whiteness is to dislodge it from its centrality and authority, not to reinstate it." Booth stated that her intention with this exhibition was to highlight the importance for "white voices to be seen to be taking responsibility for raising awareness of our own (mostly unaware) complicity in perpetuating 'embedded' racism".

Needless to say, Booth took on a mammoth task in attempting to raise awareness of white privilege amongst white people, and this is perhaps one of the reasons the show received mostly negative commentary, most notably in the Sunday Times. These negative responses in the press were only confirmed by white high school students who claimed that they couldn't understand why they should feel guilty for the fact that they were white. At this point Booth intervened, inviting CARAS (Centre for Anti-Racism and Anti-Sexism) to host a discussion at the PhotoZA gallery, where the exhibition was installed.

This discussion was intended to address some of the views expressed in the visitors' book, and was subsequently posted on the PhotoZA website. The tone of the discussion was appropriately set by the CARAS, who on the invitation asked: "Have you ever thought about what privileges whiteness illegitimately confers and how these become normative and invisible?"

Booth opened the discussion by restating her motivation for producing this show, saying that it was intended "to turn the critical gaze from the racial object to the racial subject". What ensued was a discussion on how economic power and the labour system informed white privilege. One speaker confessed to catching himself speaking slowly and with an accent when addressing his 'maid'. Another recounted the story of his four-year-old nephew attending a mixed race kindergarten. The child wanted his playmate Themba to come over and spend the night. With apprehension his father asked, "Is Themba black?". The little boy looked at his dad with a puzzled expression and replied, "I don't know Dad, I'll have to ask him tomorrow." The following day in the playground the boy ran up to Themba and asked, "Themba, Themba are you black?" Themba became a bit pensive and eventually replied, "Today I'm Blue!".

I appreciate this story because it highlights the way in which racism and privilege are imposed with subtlety on children. They usually become aware of difference and its implications later in their development. Booth's show, it seems, doesn't take cognisance of these generational differences in consciousness among black and white people. It was also disappointing that none of the people who had written comments in the visitor's book were present at the discussion, or if so, were not willing to express their opinions in this public forum. One reason for this might be that a good few attendees were members of, or had been invited by CARAS.

The discussion also lacked in the way it avoided critically engaging Booth's work as fine art. One issue that still remains unresolved relates to the role of the subjects of her photographs. Booth argues that she wanted to 'objectify' whiteness, which is why her images were not simply portraits. "I am not interested in the individuals that I have photographed," she remarked. "They just happened to appear at that place at that time. These individual whites have become signifiers of white people". In my view, there is a certain lack of integrity in this statement.

When an individual (or subject) is photographed, especially without the knowledge that they are being used in an exhibition scrutinising white privilege, their choice is taken away. In fact, one of the subjects of Booth's work only found out they had been photographed when they read the daily newspaper. [In this regard, it is worthwhile revisiting the objection of one of these 'subjects', published in the Sunday Times letters page, in the Lifestyle edition - Ed.] When a photographer engages physically and verbally with her or his subject, the power dynamics involved in the gaze as well as the power of the lens over a subject, shift. By not allowing the individuals she photographed any choice in the matter, Booth's intention comes across as forceful and accusatory.

The apparent distance between the photographer and her subjects also brings to mind the form of stereotyping discussed by the author Bell Hooks (in her essay Representing Whiteness in the Black Imagination). This stereotyping does not "tell it like it is", but rather invites and encourages pretence. "They are a fantasy, a projection onto the other that makes them threatening," writes Bell Hooks. "Stereotypes abound when there is distance."

On one level, Booth's exhibition is commendable. It acts as a signifier of racial awareness in relation to white privilege, and Booth squarely engages with the normative aspects of white privilege. However, as a photographic exhibition, Booth's work remains unresolved.

One of the characteristics of photography is the implication that it signifies the truth. This truth is usually defined by the decisions a photographer makes in their portrayal of the subject. In her artistic statement, Booth claimed that the deliberate use of a plastic Brownie camera was an attempt to "remove as much intervention of herself as photographer". The integrity, or 'truth' of her images was nonetheless compromised, if not overtly manipulated by the introduction of sandblasted text. To my mind this renders her subjects paralysed and without agency to recognise their inbuilt prejudices as white people. Furthermore, one cannot really tell from her images where Booth (a white woman) situates herself within this debate.

In the year South Africa celebrates 10 years of democracy, it seems fitting that this exhibition will be travelling to a South African embassy in South America. Perhaps the work will have a more receptive audience there. Certainly the very act of moving the show to foreign turf hints at a measure of conscientious progress. But - and this where Booth's show strikes a chord - this 'progress' remains an ideal. 10 years will not necessarily eradicate the intrinsic constructions and institutionalised prejudices of an entrenched system of racial beliefs encapsulated by the word 'whiteness'.

January 17 - February 14