Today I joined a friend and her mom on a little charity drive to an impoverished white community living in a squatter camp just down the road from us. I so wanted to take photos, but I could not. I just could not invade their private suffering like that. The hollow questions in those light eyes, the children running around in wild abandon.
What was interesting was how well organised the operation was. There is a soup kitchen/delivery area for all donations. Which gets written up in a book, with contact details and a person responsible for the equitable distribution of all the stuff. Clean spaces everywhere between the tents, little fenced of gardens. The homes were tents, corrugated iron shacks, caravans and wooden structures. A ray of hope in the middle of drawn faces, emaciated bodies.
I see poverty on an almost daily basis - seeing white poverty affected me differently. What does that say about me? Is the desperation just so much easier to read in those light eyes? The wrinkles more prominent on a white skin? Is it because it could be me? My family? Does black poverty look different because I dont understand all the cultural nuances and the language is foreign? I am thinking I would like to go back there, armed with a notebook and my camera. I would like to go and capture some of their stories.
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