Carol Guzy, The Washington Post - January 14, 2010 Yesterday Pulitzer prize winners were named and, not surprisingly, many photo journalist and print journalist who covered post-quake Haiti were nominated. In the print journalism category, photo's of post-quake Haiti won big. The Washington Post photographers Carol Guzy, Nikki Kahn and Ricky Carioti all won the Pulitzer for Breaking News Photography based on pictures of the human suffering during the aftermath of the quake.I've had a complex relationship with images, documentaries,and news coverage of Haiti since the quake. I remember how camera scanned over bodies lying in the streets after the quake with a voyeuristic sense of awe and trepidation in order to get the best shot in the aftermath. People, living and deceased, and rubble were given the same level of care and respect when news channels fought to present the most symbolic and heart-wrenching stories and images. As a Haitian person, it became unbearable to watch the news coverage because, with so many people unaccounted for in the aftermath, I was afraid to glimpse a familiar face in the rubble. The cameras had forgotten that these were people, too, who'd had friends, families, hopes, and dreams of their own.
Carol Guzy, The Washington Post - January 24, 2010
I understand the depth and scope of that disaster was unprecedented but there was nothing new about its coverage. For years, the Western media has felt the need to remind us of Haiti's poverty, it's constant battle with man made and natural disasters, the differences between "them" and "us". NGOs harp on the "resilience" of Haitians to accomplish the overwhelming feat of survival against what they perceive as insurmountable odds and inhumane conditions. Zoom into the now standard picture of a poor Haitian child staring wide eyed into the camera, stone-faced,withered Haitian women, or "violent mob" of Haitian men protesting the latest injustice and the Haitian photo becomes an iconic representation of "third" world disorder and first world consciousness.And, while it may be necessary sometimes to show unbelievers the reality on the ground and to stir emotion into those with deep pockets, the consistent lack of respect for the humanity of the people being photographed is an example of exploitation. Nowhere in the United States would a photographer feel entitled to capture the image of a woman or the elderly bathing after a disaster. There is an understanding that life should be valued and intimate moments should remain even more so in the face of disaster or grief to preserve a semblance of normalcy. Thankfully, I have yet to see an image of Japan's dead under rubble. Unlike Haiti, Japan's Western identity has placed it out of the scope of the exotic, untamed, and unfamiliar.
What the Pulitzer photos and the post-quake coverage has solidified to me is that the mysticism and misconception that surrounds Haiti and its people allows for a disconnect that makes it hard for Westerners to view Haiti as anything but the "poorest nation in the Western hemisphere" or a constant charity case that they are entitled to capture, present, and exploit as they wish regardless of the wishes of its people. And, though some may have sincerely sought to humanize Haitians in the eyes of millions, the constant coverage even now of bodies ashen by rubble, amputated limbs with no anesthesia, squalid IDP camps, and traumatized faces begging for food widens the disconnect, leaving Haiti frozen in memory as a ghastly production of epic and violent suffering.
We can only accept so much devastation into our daily lives before it all becomes normalized in the larger story of human suffering, war, and disaster that has become a cornerstone of mankind. In order to move forward, Haitians deserve the opportunity to finally control their own narrative and shape their own image. The quake was, and will forever be, a defining moment in Haitian history but the people deserves a chance to move out from under its literal and metaphorical rubble.
