Berger feels that white publications would depict black people in a negative way, and that white journalistic exploitation of photos reinforced white domination. I agree with berger when he says black people are shown in a negative way in photographs. I believe this has carried over as a race issue throughout many decades as racism still exists today and is one of the worlds biggest problems. I do believe that photographs benefited white people as they had reassurance in those photographs, while black people on the other werent given that same reassurance.

Berger felt that white publications consistently depicted blacks in a bad light, and that whites’ journalistic exploitation of photos reinforced white domination. I’m somewhere in the middle. I feel that white publications exclusively cover the bad sides of the Civil Rights Movement, never showing photos of people peacefully protesting or simply standing up for their rights. On the other hand, I believe that nowadays, instances like this are treated much more seriously when it comes to exhibiting discrimination towards black people, such as the case of George Floyd and Trevon Martin.

I agree with Berger when he refers to the fact that photographs mostly show black people as victims and not as people who defend their rights, however it can be said that I am somewhat in between since we cannot deny that many times black people have stood out as people who defend their rights in several important movements in history. Like the one I have lived through, that is to say BLM.

Berger claims that the white press used photos of black people succumbing to white people to gain a sympathetic and revolutionary feeling out of them. He claims photographs used by the white press fed white superiority. I agree. These photographs gave white people reassurance that their power is not threatened. It gave them a false feeling that they are the ones in power to choose to treat black people equally or not.

In the Introduction to his book Seeing through Race, Martin A. Berger (not related to John Berger) lays out the thesis of his book’s interpretation of the photography associated with the U.S. Civil Rights era (1950s &1960s). According to Berger, newspaper and magazine editors selected photographs based on their perceived power to draw out the of their white readers. The result, Berger continues, was that “the media could not assuage the racial anxieties of whites without affecting the depiction of blacks.” This meant that photographs that featured the black protestors succumbing to white violence was more common than depictions of black-led political action. In other words, editors, especially white ones, were more likely to use photographs featuring black people as victims as opposed to black people standing up for their rights.

Recently, we have seen a similar dynamic at play as media depictions of the killing of George Floyd caused many white allies to take to the streets in solidarity with black Americans. We have also seen media depictions of African-American protests incite white racial anxieties about black violence.

What do you make of Berger’s argument? Do you agree, disagree, or something in between? Use the information from Chapter 4 of They Say/I Say and the “Sheridan Baker Thesis Machine” and write a thesis statement in which you take a position on Berger’s argument.