Photos of Undermined or Destroyed Human Dignity

 Brogan Victor

April 11, 2022

 
In this image, a man is shown beating up an elderly Asian woman based solely on the fact that she is Asian. While lying helplessly on the ground, the woman was punched 125 times by the man in the picture. Human dignity is being destroyed in this picture because the man in the picture had no reason to hit her because she was simply going about her day minding her own business. Not only is the man destroying the woman's dignity by assaulting her but is also destroying her dignity by being racist towards her. In the surveillance footage, the man is shouting racial slurs while punching and assaulting the 67-year-old woman. Racism and assault can tear anyone's dignity apart and make people feel that they are not good enough or feel out of place in society. Personally, I believe that posting this footage was necessary to publish to show an example of how horrible racism is towards people of Asian descent and racism overall. One quote from the past readings I thought of when seeing this picture is "A photograph passes for incontrovertible proof that a given thing happened. The picture may distort, but there is always a presumption that something exists." (Sontag, 1977: 5). Photographs and videos offer a more heartbreaking perspective on situations like this one. 



This image depicts a young girl running through the streets of Vietnam crying during the Vietnam War. The nine-year-old girl is naked because her clothes were on fire and she had to tear her clothes off to not burn alive. The Vietnam War was a very controversial war due to situations like this. Many innocent people died during the catastrophes of the war. In this picture, the little girl's human dignity is being stripped away because she was innocently attacked and lit on fire. Many people in Vietnam's human dignity was completely stripped away because they were people who were not even fighting in the war who suffered and died from terrible incidents. The photographer of this image took the young girl to the hospital and the people working there declined to take care of her. The photographer then stated that when he publishes this image, everyone will see it and realize how bad the war is and get a lot of publicity. Furthermore, he stated that if they do not treat her they will get publicity by denying to treat the young girl. One quote from the article titled A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words stuck out to me is "Photographs also glamourise. The most horrific of scenes can be inadvertently beautified by the very skill that enables the photographer to create the image."( Alia 2004). I believe this quote relates to this picture because even though this picture is heartbreaking, people started to really realize how terrible the war actually was and protested greatly against it. 



Work Cited

A picture is worth a thousand …: Ethics and images. (2004). Media Ethics and Social Change, 100–114. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781474463898-011


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