If I were a racist (Photographer’s Cut)
Photography, power and the frame we don't see
In his powerful poem If I Were a Racist, musician and educator Dr. Nathan Holder exposes how racism often operates not through explicit hostility but through everyday assumptions, institutional habits and inherited standards. His poem reveals how power shapes what is taught, what is valued and what is allowed to pass as normal.
Inspired by Holder's structure and spirit, I have remixed his words through the lens of photography, a medium equally shaped by power, history and exclusion.
Photography is often presented as objective. A photograph appears to show us the world as it is. Yet every image is the result of choices about who is seen, who is believed, whose stories are preserved and whose are forgotten.
If I Were a Racist (Photographer's Cut) explores the hidden assumptions that shape photographic culture, from classrooms and galleries to archives, funding bodies and museums. It asks what happens when power determines not only what enters the frame, but who gets to build the frame itself.
This version is not a replacement for Holder's original work. It is a response. A continuation of the conversation in another medium.
If I were a racist (Photographer's Cut)
If I were a racist,
I'd teach children that photography is about
Aperture, ISO and shutter speed.
Everything else is politics.
If I were a racist,
I'd teach photography as a universal language,
Then make sure only certain voices
Were fluent.
If I were a racist,
I'd showcase Gordon Parks' fashion work,
But spend less time on what he saw
When he turned the camera elsewhere.
If I were a racist,
I'd call photography neutral,
Then decide
What neutrality looks like.
If I were a racist,
I'd teach the Masters as though they appeared fully formed,
Without asking
Who named them.
If I were a racist,
I'd praise the canon,
But never discuss
How it was built.
If I were a racist,
I'd teach "African photography"
As a category,
And European photography as photography.
If I were a racist,
I'd celebrate one photographer from the continent,
Then spend the rest of the semester
Looking somewhere else.
If I were a racist,
I'd call work from Europe timeless,
And work from everywhere else
Cultural.
If I were a racist,
I'd describe photographs of white life
As universal,
And photographs of Black life as niche.
If I were a racist,
I'd say documentary photography tells the truth,
Without asking
Who was allowed to speak.
If I were a racist,
I'd teach photographs of empire,
Without teaching
How empire used photography.
If I were a racist,
I'd discuss archives as though they were neutral,
Not collections of choices
And exclusions.
If I were a racist,
I'd call it preservation
When I saved my history,
And ephemera when I saved yours.
If I were a racist,
I'd write the history of photography
As though everyone else
Arrived late.
If I were a racist,
I'd fund projects about Black communities,
Provided the photographer
Came from somewhere else.
If I were a racist,
I'd photograph struggle endlessly,
Then wonder why
That's all I could see.
If I were a racist,
I'd commission stories about resilience,
As long as they remained
Comfortably distant.
If I were a racist,
I'd shoot diversity campaigns
With Black and brown faces,
But never hand them the camera.
If I were a racist,
I'd invite photographers into the room,
After deciding
What the room was for.
If I were a racist,
I'd hire diverse talent,
Then ask them to fit
An existing vision.
If I were a racist,
I'd hold exhibitions in white-walled galleries,
For audiences already familiar
With the rules.
If I were a racist,
I'd believe access meant invitation,
Not participation,
Ownership or influence.
If I were a racist,
I'd think one photograph,
One exhibition,
One acquisition changed everything.
If I were a racist,
I'd teach lighting for every skin tone,
Then design every example
Around one.
If I were a racist,
I'd teach composition as balance,
Without asking
Who gets centred.
If I were a racist,
I'd crop out context,
Then call the image
Objective.
If I were a racist,
I'd never revisit my syllabus,
My collection,
My assumptions.
If I were a racist,
I wouldn't need to exclude people.
I'd simply teach generations
What belonged.
If I were a racist,
The frame wouldn't look white.
It would look
Normal.
Reframing the frame
Photography does more than document the world. It helps construct the world we recognise, remember and value.
The question is not simply who appears in photographs. It is who decides which photographs matter. Who gets exhibited. Who gets collected. Who gets funded. Who gets taught. Who becomes part of history.
For decades, many of these decisions have been presented as neutral, inevitable or meritocratic. Yet photographic culture, like every culture, reflects the values and assumptions of the people and institutions that shape it.
Building a more inclusive visual culture requires more than adding new faces to old frameworks. It requires questioning the frameworks themselves. It means examining the canon, the archive, the curriculum and the structures of authority that continue to shape how photography is understood.
Because the most powerful frames are often the ones we never notice.
They're the ones we've been taught to see through all along.
