What a picture can do
Sep. 7th, 2011 09:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nairiporterRacist FB pic 'was a joke'
http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Racist-FB-pic-was-a-joke-20110904
On a sunny afternoon on a farm in Bloemhof, in North West, a 19-year-old man carrying a rifle sees a little eight-year-old boy sleeping in the grass. He stands over the boy and one of his companions photographs the scene with a cellphone.
The little boy’s father and three of the boy’s friends stand by, laughing, while watching the incident unfold.
Later, the little boy’s father carries him to shade under a tree where he continues sleeping, unaware of what had happened.
As dusk falls, they all hop into a bakkie and head back to their respective homes. The whole thing is quickly forgotten. It was a joke, they say, just one of the games boys play here in this rural backwater.
But to a South Africa that has just emerged from decades of institutionalised racism, the photograph of a white man standing over a little black boy in a hunter’s trophy pose evokes anger, outrage and police and media attention.
Article...
http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Racist-FB-pic-was-a-joke-20110904
On a sunny afternoon on a farm in Bloemhof, in North West, a 19-year-old man carrying a rifle sees a little eight-year-old boy sleeping in the grass. He stands over the boy and one of his companions photographs the scene with a cellphone.
The little boy’s father and three of the boy’s friends stand by, laughing, while watching the incident unfold.
Later, the little boy’s father carries him to shade under a tree where he continues sleeping, unaware of what had happened.
As dusk falls, they all hop into a bakkie and head back to their respective homes. The whole thing is quickly forgotten. It was a joke, they say, just one of the games boys play here in this rural backwater.
But to a South Africa that has just emerged from decades of institutionalised racism, the photograph of a white man standing over a little black boy in a hunter’s trophy pose evokes anger, outrage and police and media attention.
Article...
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Date: 2011-09-07 07:56 pm (UTC)