While I was watching the Ted Talks video and Singer mentioned the video of Wang Yue, I couldn’t help but tell one of my suitemates about it. When I showed her it, she showed me this picture of a little girl that collapsed on her way to a feeding station and a vulture waiting behind her until she dies to prey on her, which is apparently a normal situation in Sudan. It’s a picture that Kevin Carter, a South African photojournalist, took in 1993 to showcase the poverty and hunger children are facing in Sudan and the rest of Southern Africa. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1994. That same year, he committed suicide. The main assumed reason for this is the pressure and backlash he received from this photo became too much for him. Everyone was shocked and mortified that he spent all that time adjusted the lens and trying to get the perfect picture instead of helping her to the station. This reminded me of the altruism topic that Singer discussed, on how it’s everyone’s responsibility to help people less valuable. I am aware that when people like Carter visit to take pictures and report on the issues in these places, they are advised not to touch the children too much in case of diseases that they might have but it raises the question–is it ok that he spent so much time taking this picture, watching this little girls suffer and be in pain in front of him? Yes he did a good thing exposing this situation to the public, but personally, I don’t know if I could live with myself after spending so much time taking one picture then running off instead of helping her make it to the feeding station. The St. Petersburg Times said this of Carter: “The man adjusting his lens to take just the right frame of her suffering, might just as well be a predator, another vulture on the scene.” My personal opinion is that Carter felt remorse and regret in his actions, this is why he committed suicide. It relates to the idea that altruism is everyone’s responsibility who can give it and was Carter wrong in what he did.
You make a good point. I think the fact that Carter committed suicide (and parts of his suicide note can be found online and he does hint that his time in Africa was one of the causes) shows that he realized that he should’ve done something to help the girl and realized that his moral duty to help people was bigger than his job title. Obviously, though, his action was not completely wrong, for it is possible that he positively affected the lives of people in similar situations, as he certainly spread awareness about what they were going through.
While I do believe that Kevin Carter could have done something to help the little girl in her situation as opposed to taking a picture of her, I think he could have also experienced a feeling of helplessness. This past summer when I studied public health in southern India, I saw some of the most impoverished areas of the country. Many of the communities that we visited only received enough electricity a day to power a single lightbulb for an hour. Is there a difference between me not giving some of those people a couple of rupees and Carter taking that girls picture? In that instance both of our actions could have been viewed as selfish, but I know that when I was there I had no idea how to help anybody in that situation, Carter just had the misfortune of his “selfishness” being broadcasted on the international level.
Carter may have thought at the time he was helping more than just the little girl by taking this photo; he may have felt that taking this photo and exposing the world to this impoverished, unimaginable lifestyle may have helped the situation more overall. I’m sure he wanted to help her but he may have had reasons unknown by the public for not helping her. His suicide was tragic and the people broadcasting his “selfishness” should maybe focus on broadcasting the situation the little girl is in and trying to help the impoverished vs. talking horribly about Carter.