The White House Photographer

So apparently it's been standard practice since Kennedy's day to pick one official White House photographer, who then hires a flock of other photographers, and the minions shoot various public events but the head guy is the one allowed to wander around behind the scenes, snapping pics while the President is in meetings or on the phone.

According to this Daily Kos diary, Pete Souza is the current White House photographer, and previously held the post during Reagan's second term. What's different from Reagan's day is twofold: first, Obama has apparently given the guy much more extensive access, and second, the White House posts his photos on Flickr.

Looking through them, what gets me is the role Souza's work has in creating the narrative of a presidency. He's not the only guy taking photos of Obama, of course, and photos are far from the only record we'll have. But no matter how much you remind yourself that photos can be just as biased as any other form of art -- timing, framing, post-processing -- there's still a subconscious tendency to accept them as "the truth." And behind-the-scenes photos, doubly so: when the president is out in public, then of course we understand he's performing a role, but surely in those moments when he's alone, you see the real person behind the mask.

Except he isn't alone, is he? The photographer is there. And just as the president is deciding, consciously or unconsciously, what face to show, the photographer is deciding -- consciously or unconsciously -- what to record.

There's a startling amount of power in that.

When we see a shot of Obama with his feet on the Oval Office desk, it both frames him as a "regular guy" and connects him with a photographic tradition of other presidents. When we see his marked-up speech, it tells a story of intelligence and thoughtful preparation. When we see him standing alone before an event or while talking on the phone to some foreign leader, it reminds us of the burdens our nation's leader bears; when we see him in a crowd, it connects him to the people. All of these things create a narrative, but a narrative always has a narrator, and in this case, it's Pete Souza.

Let me be clear: I'm not bringing this up because I think it's sinister. I think it's an excellent idea to document these things, and given the circumstances, it's amazing enough that one guy gets to run around in meetings and private moments, let alone the prospect of opening that up to multiple photographers. But it's worth remembering that any documentation is always, always inflected by the person doing the documenting, and so it's interesting to know who that person is.

random morning picture

Here, have a ridonkulously cute picture of a kitten in a shoe.

Prop 8 ruled unconstitutional

The decision on Perry v. Schwarzenegger has come down, and the ruling is that Proposition 8 (declaring that California only recognizes marriages between a man and a woman) is unconstitutional.

Which is hardly going to be the end of this; the case will end up in front of the Supreme Court eventually. But it's good news for equal rights.

I've been following the court case off and on. If you haven't, you really ought to take a look -- because it's astonishing, how incoherent the Prop 8 defense is. The incoherence starts with the proposition itself, I suppose; California only recognizes marriages between a man and a woman as valid, except for those same-sex marriages performed prior to the enactment of Prop 8. Why do those get exempted? Because the odds of it passing would have dropped precipitously if its supporters had tried to invalidate thousands of existing marriages. Then you get things like the motion the defense filed before this decision, trying to delay enforcement of the decision (which tells you they knew how it would go), wherein they claim in a single document both that "Same-sex relationships [...] neither advance nor threaten this interest [of procreation] in the way that opposite-sex relations do," and that "Not only would redefining marriage to include same-sex couples eliminate California's ability to provide special recognition and support to those relationships that uniquely further the vital procreative interests marriage has traditionally served, it would indisputably change the public meaning of marriage." So which is it, guys? Does same-sex marriage threaten the procreative function of marriage, or not? And that's not even touching the point that we don't exactly require fertility tests before letting people tie the knot; as the judge overseeing the case pointed out, he recently married a pair of geriatrics long past their procreative days.

To quote the decision, "Proposition 8 fails to advance any rational basis in singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license. Indeed the evidence shows Proposition 8 does nothing more than enshrine in the California constitution the notion that opposite sex couples are superior to same sex couples." That's the coherent thread running through all the defense's arguments. Every time they were pressed to cite evidence that same-sex marriage would cause material harm to children, the institution of heterosexual marriage, or the fabric of society itself, they failed -- and tripped over a mountain of contradiction in doing so. You can cite religious arguments against the idea, and then we can have a theological debate, but when it comes to state and federal law, there is no defensible basis for this discrimination.

Privileges and Rights

With various responses to the Prop 8 decision floating around out there, I was particularly struck by this tweet, which articulates a divide I've been chewing on for some time: Californians knows that marriage is a civil right, not a privilege.

"Privilege" is a word that's seen widespread use lately, in the context of society's treatment of different groups of people: white privilege, male privilege, straight privilege, able-bodied privilege, etc. There are many lists out there pointing out what kinds of advantages a person is likely to enjoy if they fit into the preferred group, and how many of those advantages aren't even the kind of thing you think about in your daily life (unless you don't have them). But I think there's a blurring that happens in some of those lists, which I want to look more closely at: the difference between privileges and rights.

Privilege is, literally, private law. It's a special exception made for favored individuals or groups. Centuries ago, a nobleman might be given the privilege of hunting deer on the king's land; today, I pay for the privilege of checking books out from Stanford's libraries, which is otherwise reserved only to their students and staff. If the king decides he doesn't want anybody shooting his deer, or Stanford decides they don't want to deal with outside users, then they can take that privilege away.

A right, on the other hand, is something everybody has, unless we permit laws or behaviors that exclude disfavored individuals or groups from it. Voting is a right belonging to all U.S. citizens, unless they're children (excluded on the basis of immaturity) or incarcerated felons (excluded as part of their punishment). Freedom of speech is a right. Fair trials are a right. You can't take somebody's rights away without a damn good reason.

The distinction is important because it affects how a problem can best be solved. One of the white-privilege lists I saw mentioned the privilege of being able to walk around in a store without the employees watching your every move to make certain you aren't going to steal anything. I had a visceral reaction to that: for god's sake, that should be a right! Our default should be to assume that a given customer is not a criminal, unless we have evidence to the contrary. (Evidence other than skin color, which doesn't count.) You don't fix that problem by telling your employees to give every customer the hairy eyeball; you fix it by telling them not to discriminate against the black (or Latino, or etc.) customers. On the other hand, being able to make an offensive joke about a member of a disfavored group and not suffer any consequences for it? That's a privilege. You fix that by calling people on it, making sure there are consequences; the privilege harms other people, and so you take it away.

Both of these are important things. But I don't want to lose sight of the rights, in all the talking about privilege; it downplays the importance of the former, while creating the sense that the only solution is to take things away from the advantaged groups. Sometimes that is the solution -- but sometimes it's better to share the advantages with everybody. Improving the world doesn't have to be a zero-sum game.

In the case of Prop 8, you don't resolve the situation by making civil marriage a privilege, granted by the government to those (heterosexual) couples of which it approves. You resolve it by acknowledging that marriage is a right, which cannot be withheld simply because the couple is same-sex -- or mixed-race, or one or both parties are incarcerated felons, to choose a few of the relevant legal precedents. Nobody has to lose anything for other people to gain.

1 last Prop 8 upd8

I promise I won't keep going on about this forever. But if you want a one-stop shop for the highlights of Judge Walker's decision on Perry v. Schwarzenegger, this one's pretty good; for bonus points, you can read about what's up with those "strict scrutiny" and "rational basis" things.

I am so very much not a lawyer, so if there are flaws in either of those posts, I cannot point them out to you. (Actually, can anybody explain to me what's up with the way the material from this trial will be used going forward? I've gotten the impression that the testimony offered there, and the way Walker approached the decision, is going to be really important to how the appeals process goes -- i.e. it's a really, really good thing for the Prop 8 opponents that Walker was so thorough from the start, because it will make it harder to defend Prop 8 in the future -- but I don't really know how that works. Back to my original point --) Those two posts did a lot to help me understand what the points at stake were, why Walker shot the defense down, and what kind of standard(s) will have to be met in order to deny sanction to same-sex marriage. If you need clarification, those two posts seem a good place to start.