About a year ago I attended a photo exhibition in the
District Six Museum in Cape Town. The photos told a story of how people used to
live in District Six before the force removals and its destruction.A group us later had an interesting discussion with regards to the pornography of poverty. Those of you who does not know what it is, here is an explanation. The pornography of poverty is the explicit, hard-core photographic illustration of poor people in their living environment. Where photos are used to arouse the emotions in people but not necessarily do anything about it. Like the pornography of sex it is for personal purposes and not for charity.
Before that discussion that night at the museum, I had noticed how 'African safaris' have changed. In the 20th century safaris into the wilderness was a fashionable trend enjoyed by the upper classes of society. People went into the natural habitat of animals and took explicit and hard-core pictures of them. Once they had they pictures they went back to their societal circles and revelled over their pornographic content, and because this was fashion they soon became bored.
So they started a new trend which I call pornography of poverty. They do this via township tours. Like the animals they observed in their natural habitat they now observe poor ‘black’ people in their natural habitat. They take photos of explicit and hard-core poverty which they take back to their societal circles to talk about the unfortunate circumstances of the poor. These photos are merely to arouse them and not to anything about it.
So I am wondering which form of pornography is worst: the pornography of poverty or the pornography of sex. Both have immoral content (the pornography of poverty robs individuals of their humanity unknowingly, whilst the pornography of sex is for money and in most cases an individual choice) but which one is considered the worst.
