'SEEING WHITE' RAISES RACE QUESTIONS
January 26, 2004
By Philippa Garson
"SEEING WHITE" a photographic exhibition by Michelle Booth and on show at PhotoZA Gallery in Rosebank until 14 February, is stirring hot and perhaps long overdue debate about where white identity fits into the racism puzzle.
Booth, a Cape Town-based artist, has captured images of white people going about their daily lives with an old-fashioned, easy-to-use plastic camera. On the glass over the framed pictures are sandblasted text messages, written by academics, that reflect on the position whites hold in the racism picture. For example, covering one photograph of a group of whites seated at a pavement café are the words: "There is no comfort zone for white people when it comes to discussing white racism. Being uncomfortable is the price we must pay."
Michelle Booth's exhibition is stirring hot debate
During a tour of her exhibition last week Booth elaborated on her work. "Whiteness - as a system of power relations - remains invisible to those who are white and consequently white privilege is largely taken for granted.
"People think that talking about race makes you a racist. This is not the case. Talking about it makes you understand what it feels like. We want to be in a world where race doesn't matter, to be individuals with our own dreams. It doesn't matter whether we have a black or a white skin.
"Racism has come from a white place. I'm not suggesting that people should be made to feel guilty for being white, but we have a responsibility to create the society we want to live in."
Some of the (white) high school pupils on the tour were at pains to point out that they were part of a new generation that neither felt the guilt of apartheid nor saw their fellow students as black or white. Some felt attacked by the works on display, others felt alienated by the academic discourse.
Booth argues that even though today's generation of young people may be growing up in a more non-racial environment, the broader society is still racist and black people continue to experience racism all the time. She explained that although the text messages on her works may be inaccessible to some, they were nevertheless relevant to her as an individual and in her role as artist rather than educator.
Booth explains why she only photographed white people: "I want white people to be the object and not to have the attention drawn away by the inevitable focus on the relation between black and white. I don't want to perpetuate an impression that whiteness is only white or only matters, when it is explicitly set against non-white."
In the literature supporting her work she writes: "As whites, we must be willing to face ourselves as others know us. We must begin to imagine what it must be like to be the 'other' for a black someone."
Booth is passionate in her belief that whites must take responsibility for the racism in our society, the way they are perceived and the way they perceive others of different races. Black South Africans, she says, have carried the burden of racism for so many years. It is time in her view for whites to do more to change unequal race relations in society, to stop seeing themselves as 'normal' compared with black people who are 'other'.
Booth has been criticised for, among other things, being naive, for trying to make whites feel guilty and for attempting to speak on behalf of whites. One critic slated the artistic merit of her Brownie camera photos. Still others have commended her for being brave and, as one visitor writing in the gallery's comment book put it, for "challenging our norms and forcing me to act and approach being white differently".
Certainly Booth must be praised for giving the town something new to talk about when it comes to the all-important question of racism in our society.
PhotoZA Gallery is on the upper level, Mutual Square, 153 Oxford Road, Rosebank, and is open from Monday to Friday between 10 and 5pm and on Saturdays and public holidays from 9am to 2pm. For more information contact the gallery on 011 880 0833.