That image of the drowned father and daughter at US border

[editor]

It's horrific but is anyone else uncomfortable by the way it's been used just about everywhere - front pages of newspapers, Facebook feeds etc - but the people's names or lives are barely mentioned.

Yes, I know a shocking image can have a lasting impact but there's something about this that feels wrong.

 

[weltweit]

I haven't seen the image but I can imagine it must be pretty awful.

 

[weltweit]

While I haven't seen it I did hear it discussed during a R4 news bulletin at some point today.

Drowning photo exposes US border risk for migrants

 

[Poot]

Yes. It feels like a loss of dignity for those people. And it's too upsetting. I can't think of another instance where you'd do that. Car crashes? Bombs? Just no. Show some respect.

 

[editor]

I haven't seen the image but I can imagine it must be pretty awful.

It's everywhere. It must have appeared about 7 times from different sources in about a page and half of my FB feed.

 

[trabuquera]

Disagree (that images this explicit and awful should not be used.) The world is full of horrors and people need telling. This image, like the one of Alan Kurdi, SHOULD be horrible to look at and it SHOULD prompt some more serious thoughts about how abstract rhetoric of 'cracking down on migration' results in the deaths of real live people. Including children.

 

[weltweit]

I tend to agree with trabuquera, images like this can motivate action, yes ideally they wouldn't be used but there have been awful images over the years whose effects have been positive on a mass of viewers who otherwise might not have fully understood the implications of the situation.

Does anyone remember the image of the four dead Palestinian children lying on a mortuary slab. It certainly brought home that dispute to me!

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

Yes, it makes me uncomfortable on a number of levels. How can it not? I find it distasteful that children are being pimped out to defend one side or the other, even if (in this instance) it's meant to mobilize people. Some of the ways children have been portrayed by the pro-camp crowd are even worse. Check out the video about halfway down this link:

"Rape after rape after rape. Children below 10 years old engaging in sexual activity. All kinds of sin and disgrace and darkness; the pit of the pits. So we’re not getting the top-of-the-line echelon people coming over this border, we’re getting criminals. I mean, total criminals that are so debased and their minds are just gone. They’re unclean, they’re murderers, they’re treacherous, they’re God-haters."

Christian TV Host Defends Trump’s Concentration Camps For Kids

If that's Christianity, I want none of it.

 

[8ball]

It's horrific but is anyone else uncomfortable by the way it's been used just about everywhere - front pages of newspapers, Facebook feeds etc - but the people's names or lives are barely mentioned.

Yes, I know a shocking image can have a lasting impact but there's something about this that feels wrong.

Exactly my thoughts. It’s different when it’s brown people, innit.

 

[8ball]

Disagree (that images this explicit and awful should not be used.) The world is full of horrors and people need telling. This image, like the one of Alan Kurdi, SHOULD be horrible to look at and it SHOULD prompt some more serious thoughts about how abstract rhetoric of 'cracking down on migration' results in the deaths of real live people. Including children.

I get you totally btw, but you don’t see it when it’s white people.

 

[IC3D]

I've never seen a dead white kid on the front page of the metro

 

[Poot]

The people have families, though. Imagine if it were a member of your family.

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

I get you totally btw, but you don’t see it when it’s white people.

If they were white, they wouldn't be putting them in camps in the first place. I can't recall a time when I've been so angry and disappointed in my fellow citizens who support this.

 

[8ball]

If they were white, they wouldn't be in camps in the first place.

Sure, but whatever the disaster or incident, I don’t think I’ve seen an image in the news media involving a dead white person since Ceascescu (sp?).

It’s not a controversial point, it gets discussed a fair bit.

 

[likesfish]

Tbf at the moment I can't think of anywhere where poor white people are fleeing for there lives.

 

[trabuquera]

Yes I would agree that media (in the UK & US at least) tend to be more cavalier where the bodies are black, brown or Muslim than they are when covering dead (white) victims of terrorism, accidents, crashes and so on. There is more and more pushback on that and debate about double standards recently. See the recent anger at the N Y Times for publishing (online, several clicks in) a very graphic pic of Kenyans who'd been shot during the Dusit2 attack earlier this year. It's a fair point; most of the pictures of the conflict in Ukraine (about the only conflict with 'poor white people fleeing for their lives' that gets coverage) have certainly been more 'oblique' - more 'tasteful' - more 'respectful' if you like. But I really wrestle with the ethics of reporting on graphic, horrible things without either sensationalising/exploiting them, or censoring by omission. Personally I simply don't believe that any picture showing a dead body, injury, extreme distress ought to never ever be shown. How else are you supposed to cover a war? Stay away from the hospitals? Observe a total taboo on images of death or gore? (it's an open question, not a challenge to any poster here.)

 

[SpookyFrank]

Disagree (that images this explicit and awful should not be used.) The world is full of horrors and people need telling. This image, like the one of Alan Kurdi, SHOULD be horrible to look at and it SHOULD prompt some more serious thoughts about how abstract rhetoric of 'cracking down on migration' results in the deaths of real live people. Including children.

I don't think it makes anything less abstract. We don't know those people. We feel sympathy, but that's very different from empathy. We feel powerless in the face of such horror, and when we feel powerless we do not act. I know a lot of people who have put their boots on the ground to try and help migrants in various shit situations around the world, and none of them to my knowledge were moved to do so by a photo in the papers.

 

[girasol]

I read that he actually got his daughter to the other side safely then went back to get his wife, but his daughter went after him and they got caught up in the current. I cried for a long time when I read it. Is it ethical to use the picture? I don't know, but I hope Trump loses sleep over it for the rest of his life.

 

[Sprocket.]

Horrible but needed, it’s a cliche but a picture does paint a thousand words.
The horrors that poor people endure in their efforts to find a reasonable life need reporting.

 

[Poot]

I read that he actually got his daughter to the other side safely then went back to get his wife, but his daughter went after him and they got caught up in the current. I cried for a long time when I read it. Is it ethical to use the picture? I don't know, but I hope Trump loses sleep over it for the rest of his life.

He won't. Sorry but his mind doesn't work like that.

 

[8ball]

He won't. Sorry but his mind doesn't work like that.

I don’t want to ‘like’ that post, but you are so right.

We shouldn’t dwell on the thoughts of a psychopath, though. It’s way more than he deserves.

 

[Poot]

I don’t want to ‘like’ that post, but you are so right.

We shouldn’t dwell on the thoughts of a psychopath, though. It’s way more than he deserves.

I very nearly put the p word in my post but stopped short. He is though, isn't he.

 

[8ball]

I very nearly put the p word in my post but stopped short. He is though, isn't he.

Well, if you look up psychopathic traits on Google and try to find some that don’t apply, I think you’ll be left with enough to count on the fingers of one head.

 

[Baronage-Phase]

There were numerous warnings on telly on the bbc prior to the photo being shown. But sadly I dont think other stations were so sensitive.
It is a dreadfully sad image

 

[Yossarian]

I don't know, but I hope Trump loses sleep over it for the rest of his life.

Fat chance of Trump losing any sleep over this tragedy - if anything, he's likely ignore any wider issues, seize upon the fact that, according to relatives, the family left El Salvador to "chase the American dream" because the father couldn't make ends meet working at a Papa John's pizza, and boast that these are the kind of people who should be prevented from claiming asylum.

 

[8ball]

Fat chance of Trump losing any sleep over this tragedy - if anything, he's likely ignore any wider issues, seize upon the fact that, according to relatives, the family left El Salvador to "chase the American dream" because the father couldn't make ends meet working at a Papa John's pizza, and boast that these are the kind of people who should be prevented from claiming asylum.

There is a wealth of terrifying things to unpack from that.

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

We shouldn’t dwell on the thoughts of a psychopath, though. It’s way more than he deserves.

He wouldn't be able to do what he's doing without support from other politicians, business leaders, and a percentage of the general population (around 33%).

I hope that will turn around. I noticed, of all companies, that Bank of American would no longer fund the private prison industry:

Bank of America Corp., the second-biggest U.S. bank, will stop lending to companies that run private prisons and detention centers.

“We have decided to exit the relationship’’ with companies that provide prison and immigration-detention services, Vice Chairman Anne Finucane said Wednesday in an interview. “We’ve done our due diligence that we said we would do at the annual meeting, and this is the decision we’ve made.’’

The move followed a review by the bank’s environmental, social and governance, or ESG, committee, which included site visits and consultation with clients, civil rights leaders, criminal justice experts and academics. The Charlotte, North Carolina-based lender also met with its internal Hispanic and black leaders.

The company will stop its activities in the industry as soon as it can, while meeting contractual obligations, said Finucane, who leads Bank of America’s ESG efforts.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. took a similar step in March, breaking off its relationship with the industry after deciding it was too risky, and Wells Fargo & Co. is also halting loans to the industry. Protesters have been urging bank executives to back away from the business, and shares of several prison companies slumped last week after presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren tweeted about her plan to get rid of them.

Bloomberg - Are you a robot?

If an entity as loathsome as BAC can figure it out, maybe there's hope for others.

 

[polly]

I read that he actually got his daughter to the other side safely then went back to get his wife, but his daughter went after him and they got caught up in the current. I cried for a long time when I read it. Is it ethical to use the picture? I don't know, but I hope Trump loses sleep over it for the rest of his life.

Oh god. There are no words.

I heard Trump on the radio earlier using this to justify tightening up on border controls, 'so that people don't try to make the journey'. He knows that people will always make the journey. He knows this is happening, he's got children sleeping in crates on earth in the desert. He doesn't give a fuck.

 

[Shippou-Sensei]

It's horrific but is anyone else uncomfortable by the way it's been used just about everywhere - front pages of newspapers, Facebook feeds etc - but the people's names or lives are barely mentioned.

Yes, I know a shocking image can have a lasting impact but there's something about this that feels wrong.

You could argue that it is about the symbolism of the image rather than the specific image. The image of Phan Thi Kim Phuc or the hooded man fron Abu Ghraibh are not so much about the individual not the circumstances.

Or you could see it as the commodification of individual tragedy.

Or or course little of column A A little of column B

 

[Yossarian]

Trump is showing about as much empathy as you'd expect: