Don’t be the person in these photos

I didn’t know how to feel about this when I first saw it, the idea of public shaming is abhorrent to me, more so since reading Jon Ronson’s spectacular book So You’ve Been Publicly  Shamed. But here was a slew of self portrait photographs of a woman who dared to be fat showing the reactions she received from people in the street.

Because I don’t look like “her.” #YesAllWomen pic.twitter.com/Mca5qp5r5n

— Haley Morris-Cafiero (@hmorriscafiero) May 26, 2014

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“When photographer Haley Morris-Cafiero developed a self-portrait she had taken in Times Square, something stood out. There in the background, surrounded by a riot of colourful advertising and soaring tower blocks, was a man smirking at her back.

Instead of being hurt, Haley was intrigued, turning it into the first piece in her extraordinary series Wait Watchers, which looks at the meaning of other people’s stares.

“He was being photographed by this woman, so to have him focused on me was really interesting,” Haley, an associate professor at Memphis College of Art, told news.com.au. “Then five minutes later, it happened again.”

The 39-year-old began setting up her camera in crowded streets, beaches and shopping districts all over the world, using a remote to capture how other people reacted to her. The result is a revealing and uncomfortable collection of suppressed smiles, sneers, puzzlement and wide-eyed fascination.

“I don’t care what anybody thinks,” she said. “I pick images if something looks critical on a stranger’s face.”

I got over the public shaming thing pretty quickly, but I think it was just because it held up such a mirror to me. Haley Morris-Cafiero’s photos are eye opening. I have not been able to stop thinking about them. More than that I have not been able to stop thinking about my reactions to people on the street. Am I one of the people she would photograph?

There is so much shame attached to being fat. So many negative and unjustified connotations given to people who aren’t what we are used to seeing on the pages of the magazines we read and the shows we watch on TV.

Long before she caught them on camera, Haley Morris-Cafiero noticed the stares http://t.co/XiuS3z2sih pic.twitter.com/FS97C1qYvx

— The Independent (@Independent) August 7, 2015

When fat people are on the cover of a magazine IT MAKES THE NEWS. That’s just insane. Think about that.

Let’s not kid ourselves and talk about the obesity epidemic and the burden that it places on the health care system. Let’s not talk about our concern for people’s health and the fact that their organs may be straining under too much fat – that’s not the reason we look at people with disgust in the street. We, the people that are the subjects of Haley Morris-Cafiero, look at people like that because we don’t like what we see.

Imagine not liking to look at black people because they are black, or tattooed people because they have ink. Imagine not wanting to see people with blonde hair in the streets, imagine mocking and jeering them. Imagine not liking people because they are fat.

People, don’t find yourself being publicly shamed in a photograph. Have some respect.