Is Photo District News guilty of “passive raciscm” in their latest photo annual? In a word, no. What started (here) as race-baiting, progressed into money-grubbing race-baiting here, with a well honed charge that PDN’s photo competition is passively racist because their jury is all white. I have already been critical of PDN’s past photo contests (No Confidence Vote for the PDN/NGS Contest, (1/28/08), but this charge is merely outright asinine.
By creating a jury that looks all white, they will select or be pre-disposed to selecting white photographers, white subjects, or issues mostly of interest to whites. Premises 1 and 2 are actively racist, as compared to the initial charge which implies passive racism, and premise 3 results from having less actual knowledge of the inner goings-on of the contest, and can be an assumption by critics.
The judges didn’t have a headshot (or likely a good name) associated with each admittance through the judging. 1k offer, is the best money the critic must spend, to be able to understand this type of charge from the backwater where it should have stayed. An era has arrived when people are mainly judged by the content of their character, and not the colour of their epidermis. You bet. Whites can be racist, as well as blacks just, asians, hispanics, etc. We won’t eliminate all racism. Bush’s trusted Secretarys of State? African American, alonside other races in other cabinet posts.
Obama’s respected VP and cabinet officials too mix a spectrum of competition, and …