Why Is Kevin Carter Unethical

Our society has never been shy about voicing opinions on media released to the public. If something is perceived as unethical you most certainly will be placed under scrutiny. This happened to be the case for Kevin Carter whose images created large amounts of controversy, mainly because individuals weren’t aware of the circumstances. I am a firm believer that Kevin Carter’s images are justifiable to be released to the public, even though opposition may suggest that these images are way to graphic.
Kevin Carter was a South African photojournalist who was also a member of the Bang Bang Club. He was born in Johannesburg, South Africa within a whites-only neighborhood. At a young age, Carter occasionally witnessed police raids to arrest blacks
The one he is most famous for is the vulture and the little girl who is clingy on to life as she is very malnourished and underweight. Individuals did not take well at all to this photograph as they referred to Kevin Carter as inhumane, they felt that instead of taking photographs he should have been running to save the little girl’s life. Although this may have been the right thing to do in the public’s eyes they didn’t understand Kevin Carter’s Circumstances as during the time photojournalist were instructed not to touch any famine victims for the fear of spreading disease. So even if Carter really wanted to physically help the girl in that moment he couldn’t, so this wasn’t something he ultimately had a choice upon. In fact prior to taking the images he often voiced regret that he hadn’t done anything to help the girl even though there wasn’t much that could have been done. Kevin Carter, later on, received a Pulitzer prize in 1994 for the photo of the vulture and the little girl which added, even more, controversy behind the images. Individuals disagreed with Carter’s images not only because they didn’t understand the circumstances but because they felt these images were to graphic to be released to the public. Photographs such as these ultimately show people on the brink of death and
These individuals not only didn’t take into account of the circumstances he was put under or how he actually felt about the issues. He was essentially dying inside after seeing these things first hand, many people didn’t know what he was actually aiming to do. With these images he served to raise awareness to these issues, he wanted to make people pay attention and open their eyes. Before these images came about the majority acted as if nothing was going on, people didn’t even know things like these were still going on today before images such as these were released. Kevin Carter ultimately died fighting for injustice as well as for raising concern of the world’s ongoing problems. He spent his whole career trying to show people what was going on through his images in which spoke far more loudly than his words ever could in his position. For people to blatantly and ignorantly come out and say these images should have never been released to the public shows how blind people can be to others intentions and what they are aiming to do. This also shows how blind we are as a society as it takes someone to physically show images of hardships around the world before others begin to take notice. Kevin Carter did what every culturally aware citizen should want to do. Even though others were oblivious to their environment