Photoshopping Black People Into Photos Never Goes Out of Style
Just when you thought politicians had risen above the racial fray and strode into the multicultural 21st century, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett took one giant step backward for all mankind. Apparently he doesn’t know any black people — or at least any that can fill in as a token in a pinch — so his campaign Photoshopped one into a picture on his website.
With the hot topic of diversity dominating everything from voter ID laws to the demographics of members of Congress, it’s no surprise to see Corbett aiming for the multicultural vote with an inclusive photo.
But it helps if the photo is real, which was not the case for the Republican, whose campaign for reelection recently committed the grave Photoshop faux pas.
The image in question, which has since been removed, showed a smiling Corbett surrounded by a group of individuals who are looking at him. Everybody in the photo is white, save for one black woman, who is grinning back at the governor.
Seems innocent enough, right?
Well, it was. At least until Corbett’s campaign succumbed to media pressure and admitted its Photoshop failure.
A poll released this week shows Corbett is trailing Tom Wolf, which could explain his campaign’s desperate move. Can you imagine if Gov. Deval Patrick had one of his campaign images manipulated to include people who weren’t even present when the photo was taken? The Commonwealth would have a conniption. Throw the element of race into the mix and you have the recipe for a toxic political cocktail.
Corbett’s misstep is just the most recent example of Photoshopping black people into pictures in order to purport what eventually turns out to be a false image of racial inclusion.
The phenomenon isn’t just restricted to political outfits, either.
At least two universities are also guilty of the practice, as is an oil and gas lobby.
The city of Toronto got in on the fun, too.
In an interesting reversal of the practice, the image of a black person on a movie poster was removed in the UK, a move attributed to the belief that black movie stars aren’t very popular overseas.
However, there is one simple (and obvious) solution to bring the disingenuous habit of digitally enhancing a photo by cutting-and-pasting in black people: just snap an organic photo that includes black folks instead of resorting to doctoring images. It’s unclear why the above groups never came to this realization before logging on to Photoshop.
Before its removal, Corbett’s photo appeared at the bottom of each of his website’s pages. It has since been replaced with another image that also happens to feature a black woman, among other people.
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But the damage has been done, leaving at least one media outlet to wonder how many other times his office has been guilty of the same offense.
All photos used courtesy of Facebook.
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