A lone Camel Trader

In the words of Dyer, “Decisions that constitute the practices of the world are at every point informed by judgments about peoples capacities and worth, judgments based on what they look like, where they come from, how they speak, even what they eat, that is, racial judgment.”

As stated in the blog post directions I am suppose to analyze or supposedly judge this picture from a political/cultural view. As I am sure many others do, I plan this man’s life story in my head, assuming his situations in life. My story for this man goes a little something like this, as I look at this picture of the old man, who I am assuming is from somewhere in India. I automatically look at the sky, noticing that it is dark out, maybe this man is homeless? Maybe he travels day after day and sleeps in the cool desert nights in hopes of finding supplies to start a fire. I notice in the background that his camel does not lie far from him, and to his right is a trailer, which possibly could hold all of his valuable possessions. He looks cold, sad, and thin. He could possibly be looking for companionship, maybe lost his friends, or family…. My assumption is that he is lower class because of his worn out shoes and clothes. Maybe not low class compared to others in his country because he not only has his own camel and trailer but also has a five o’clock shadow, which either means he can’t grow a beard, or he has shaved recently.

My story of the old man screams politics/cultural views and representations that I have gotten from being a middle white class American. I automatically assume he is poor and I feel bad for him. As white Americans we are very lucky to have nice cars, houses and opportunities to go to college and so forth…. I just assume that since he has a trailer and a camel he is unhappy. Although that might not be the case, in many cultures they put little importance on material items…many are just spiritually rich. Therefore I look at this picture and think poor old man, in reality he might be the happiest luckiest guy in the world. Where he is from they might live like this….this is what he is use too…all that he maybe even knows.

As we have said in class every image is an argument, everyone has different views and perspectives on life. Although I view this man as having little in the world, he might see himself as having many riches in life. In reality the caption for this picture thanks to National Geographic is this “Rising before the sun, a lone camel trader sits near his fire to keep warm while he waits for the day of trading to begin at the Nagaur Cattle Fair in Nagaur, India.”

How do you view his life story now?