What colour are you?

What colour are you, are you male or female, gay or straight, what god do you believe in (if any) and why the hell should the answers to any of these questions have the slightest relevance to me.

To be honest I don’t care one bit what the answers are and would rather you did not say, you read this blog and even sometimes comment and as far as I’m concern the fact that you do the first qualifies you to do the second as well as any one else. The reason for the questions was to high light the fact that it really does not matter who you are, you are you and that’s fine by me.

But some people think differently, take this article on the blog Duckrabbit, its all about the fact that they perceive that the photographic industry is inherently racist and highlights a photo competition judging panel as a prime example, mainly because they are all white. They claim that it should more closely reflect the ethnic makeup of the society that it is in, this from a uk based blog that’s header picture has only one ethnic group in it. Are they in the right or are they racist for only seeing the colour of the judges skin, check out the names of the judges in the post and the majority are not the fine Anglo-Saxon names you would have expected. The main point of the post is that being an all white panel they will tend to vote for whites, but the judges won’t see the photographers or their names, all they will see is a photograph, which they will judge on its merits, based on their years of experience.

This morning on the news an article was saying a Politian was going to pick more women for parliamentary seats, forcing their appointment if necessary on the local parties, shouldn’t we be picking the best people for the job and not trying to fill quotas.

I’m all for equality and seeing every one gets a fair deal, but when we start to take race, sex, age or religion into consideration when judging people that’s the point when we stop becoming the defenders of an ideal and start becoming its attackers.

A sheep, regardless of colour still tastes better with mint sauce.



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Comments

Dan Felstead said…
Brett...I am in 100% agreement with you from across the pond! This type of attitude was much more relevant between 1900 and 2000. I know there are still bigots out there...but not nearly as prevalent as they used to be. We all have those who "trespass" against us...it could be for age, race religion etc...but as you said...the judges will not see any indication of any of the above and will judge according to quality, composition, subject matter etc. I think this is taking things a step too far IMHO.
Dan
Dan Felstead said…
Oh and by the way...sheep ARE excellent with mint sauce! Great picture!!

Dan
Anonymous said…
Oh my gosh! No wonder the sheep looks startled making mint sauce comments like that!
Benjamin said…
The judgment of photography is a subjective exercise that is inevitably affected by the experiences and backgrounds of the judges. duckrabbit has never suggested employing judges based on the color of their skin, but on merit. PDN agreed, they put out a statement admitting that the make up of their judging panel would be improved by reflecting the diverse talent and experience to be found in the industry.

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