Here is part one and part two of my long essay, Ethics of Attention.
And Part Three follows:
While there are limits to how much representation can actually enact material change and benefits for marginalized people, representation does create important cultural visibility. I’ve always kept this in mind when choosing interview subjects. No one needs me to shine a spotlight on someone who’s always been in the spotlight. I’d been drawn to the visual work of an Asian American photographer after seeing their commercial work, and I knew they had unorthodox ideas about digital photography versus film photography (they see digital noise as a benefit, rather than a detraction of digital photography, in the same way some analog photographers prize film grain) so I pitched an interview with them to Believer Magazine.
We conducted the interview in fall 2018 and the conversation was lively, and they made intelligent points about aesthetics and democratization of photography, but because of the Believer’s print schedule (six issues a year) our conversation was not slated for publication until 2020.
Two years can be a long time! During the two-year gap between our interview and the intended publication date, a writer friend of mine, who knew about this interview, sent me occasional messages about this photographer saying, “their a tankie,” now. According to Brian Hioe, writing in New Bloom, tankie is a pejorative term for “leftists who back authoritarian regimes in the belief that they present an alternative to western capitalist nations.” I didn’t investigate this at first because I thought my friend simply meant the photographer identified as a communist (an affiliation I have no problem with) but when I reminded my friend of the upcoming publication, she made her critique more concrete and pointed.
Though they are not Chinese American, this photographer is increasingly apologetic and sycophantic toward China on social media— both Instagram and twitter. They have jokingly begged Chinese President Xi Jinping to adopt them. Even while admonishing American photographers not to photograph protestors at the innumerable protests that erupted in the US during the summer of 2020, because police and other agencies used photographs shared on social media to identify and arrests protestors, they deny there is widespread censorship in China. They have promoted the conspiracy theory that the Hong Kong protest movement is completely funded by the US government (there are right wing factions within the Hong Kong protest movement, and those who naively believe that President Trump’s anti-China stance meant he was a friend to the movement, but this does not prove that the movement is merely a puppet show run by the US government, to believe that you would have to take the paternalistic view that Hong Kong citizens could not possibly seek to advocate for their own rights and oppose increasingly authoritarian rule from Beijing). Though they are neither Chinese American, nor Taiwanese American, they criticize the Taiwanese independence movement simply because they revere the CPC (Communist Party of China). None of which is a morally reprehensible position, but they voiced doubt about the veracity of reports that China engages in large scale internment of Uighurs and other Muslim ethnic minorities in Xinjiang. When confronted with the reality of forced prison labor in Xinjiang, instead of outright condemning the practice, they called them Western imperialistic lies, and then tried to undermine the criticism of China by pointing out America’s own ongoing use of prison labor and the sterilization of migrant women in ICE detention. It’s one thing to point out American hypocrisy (I’m all for it), it’s cynical to use these American injustices to stifle criticism about what is happening in Xinjiang. It’s true that American tech companies are complicit in aiding China surveil people in Xinjiang, and it’s possible that American political interest in condemning China’s human rights abuses is driven by desire for access to resources in Xinjiang, and that material interest cannot in any way be used as an excuse to go to war with China, but using those possible material interests as an excuse not to speak against the human rights abuses against Uighur people benefits Xi Jinping’s regime, and does nothing for the people enduring forced labor in the internment camps, producing goods sold worldwide. Sinophobia exists, but there has to be a way to keep both the United States and China accountable.
Since 2019, more and more people are using the term genocide to describe what is happening to Uighurs and other Muslim minorities in China. My friend who is Chinese, and lives in China, believes what is happening in Xinjiang is genocide, despite what the Chinese state media reports. She asked me how the Believer, from an editorial standpoint, was going to reconcile giving a platform to a genocide denier, with having published, “Weather Reports: Voices From Xinjiang”, a piece with the subheading “Untold Stories from China’s Gulag State”, in which the writer Ben Mauk, in conjunction with human rights group, Atajurt, spoke with Chinese Uighurs living in exile in Kazakhstan about the ongoing mass detention of Uighur Muslims, and the eradication of Uighur culture and religious practice in Xinjiang, China.
At first, I was annoyed with my friend in the same way the barefoot nurse in Kingston had annoyed me. Both women pointed out lapses in ethics on my part. She asked what editorial standards the Believer hold themselves to, and in asking that question she was asking what standards I hold myself to. I initially reacted defensively. I turned it around and asked, “What about people who publish with x publishing company, which is ultimately funded by Y’s ill-gotten family fortune? What standards do they have?” My friend redirected me from that particular ethical problem (oligarchs using culture to launder their dark money) and brought me back to the question at hand. I told her I would think about it. I emailed my editors at the Believer and explained that there was a possible editorial inconsistency with running the interview and giving this photographer a platform, considering the piece the magazine had run on Xinjiang.
I wrote this:
“I wanted you both to know, because it's the right thing to do, but I also wouldn't want the magazine to come under fire for [their] views, especially since you published a piece that got people talking about Xinjiang.
It probably isn't clear from my name, but I am part Taiwanese with Chinese ancestry. Even if I wasn't, I know very well that you cannot excuse what is happening in Xinjiang, even if America has its own history of slavery, racial terror and prison labor. They're both abhorrent. But being part Taiwanese, I especially do not want to give the impression that I support (photographer’s) political views. I absolutely don't.
Please let me know what you would like to do.”
The editors met with other members of the magazine to discuss next steps. They offered to allow me to add an explanatory note or pull the piece altogether. I chose to pull the piece from publication. To the Believer’s credit, I was paid for my work, in full, and when I explained I was going to write about this incident they supported that decision.
Here was my explanation to my editors:
“After thinking about it, I think the ethical thing would be to pull the piece. I can't reconcile giving someone a platform when there's so little space for artists. I do think there's a difference between supporting artists with differing political views and supporting artists who deny genocide and oppression. Obviously, for me, this is a lost opportunity, but I don't think I could explain to someone that I chose a byline despite the denialism on [their] part.”
I genuinely don’t understand blind nationalism. As an American, part of the Taiwanese diaspora, I have personal reasons to be wary of Chinese actions toward Taiwan, but I weigh each state’s actions based on context and intent and I reject nationalism or Sinophobia. I seek to hold our states accountable for their actions; I seek a political position that does the least harm without being impotent or nihilistic.
Discernment is not censorship. This photographer is free to seek clients and promote both their work and their views—ultimately, it’s up to their potential clients and 20,000+ followers to decide whether their photography is so aesthetically pleasing it override their political views. I would never ask that they be denied that right, but I refuse to use my role as interviewer to elevate their status and compromise my own values.
Sontag wrote, “To photograph is to confer importance,” and this is just as true of interviews and cultural reporting. Both give the subject legitimacy they would otherwise have to earn and defend on their own platforms. When there is so little that individuals can do to counter actions of the state, you have to consider what powers you have and wield them ethically. If, as John Berger writes, “Photographs bear witness to a human choice being exercised in a given situation,” publishing is an equally fraught choice. The main power I have as a writer and a photographer is my attention. Art and culture without ethics is an empty gesture, and in the cases I put forth in part one, and the case I make here, aesthetics were not enough justification to take advantage of another person’s vulnerability for my professional gain, nor was a byline and a conversation about photography worth compromising my political convictions. I also want to make clear I believe artists and writers should have a general ethics they apply on a case-by-case basis. I might not make a different decision given different circumstances. Context matters! I have no illusions that withholding the photographs and the interview from public consumption changes anything, but at least this withholding doesn’t make anything worse.