Minorities in Photographs at UNT

Today while attending Honors Geology, the UNT public relations department had hired a photographer to come in and take some photos for an Honors College brochure. There were about twenty students in the class who all came in and sat in their regular seats. I sit down in my regular seat and the photographer comes up to me and quietly asks if I can please switch seats with another white girl who is sitting in the first row in the first seat from the center. I agree without much though and realized he was asking me to move so that he could capture some ethnic diversity in these photos. He also asked a black male student to move to another seat. He and I were the only obviously non-white students in the class (that I could tell).

The class was at first unsure why we were being asked to move but it became quickly obvious. They were shocked that the photographer would ask us to basically pose or stage a picture. It was embarrassing being asked to be in a photo because I am an ethnic minority.

I have no problem with the university trying to portray ethnic diversity in photos, but I just hate they way they are always staged to have 1 or 2 white students, 1 black student and one Hispanic/latin@ student. I think they should just take photos of events that occur naturally on campus. Not every white person consciously surrounds themselves with a black and white person at all times as portrayed in most University publications.