13 September 2015

Humans of the White House?

TeleSUR English

During a recent excursion to Iran, Brandon Stanton — creator of the wildly popular Humans of New York (HONY) blog — posted some shots of humans in the Islamic Republic. One of them features a father and his 10-year-old son in the city of Tabriz, with the accompanying anecdote from the dad:

“One time when he was five-years-old, he came with me to the store and we bought two pounds of fresh apricots. I let him carry the bag home. He walked a little bit behind me the entire way. After awhile, I asked him to hand me an apricot. ‘I can’t,’ he said. ‘I’ve given them all away.’ I knew then that I was raising a humanitarian.”

The post elicited a Facebook comment from none other than Barack Obama, who praised the “inspirational story” as one that “really resonated” with him. Before signing off as “bo,” Obama pledged to “continue doing whatever I can to make this world a place where [the Iranian boy] and every young person like him can live up to their full potential. (And if I ever get to meet him, I hope he’ll save me an apricot!)”

Rapidly accruing over 160,000 “likes,” the president’s comment also spawned predictably sappy media coverage. The Huffington Post reported that Obama had “pulled at America’s heartstrings.” Over at Vox, Max Fisher lauded Stanton’s photographs for “doing important work in humanizing a people who are too often vilified in America and in Washington particularly.”

At first glance, it’s a convenient arrangement. Stanton humanizes the vilified Iranians, while also giving the U.S. president the opportunity to humanize himself. And we the viewers get to feel all warm and snuggly at the sheer abundance of emotion transiting the internet. Which means everyone’s happy, right?

Not so fast.

Let’s start with the president and  the nature of his office which generally excludes anyone with genuine human qualifications. Obama is no exception, having presided over an impressive amount of suffering worldwide, and especially in the Middle East. One can safely assume he would not have felt inspired to comment on a photograph of a regional father accompanied by, say, this quote: “When he was five-years-old, my son was obliterated by a U.S. drone.” READ MORE AT TELESUR ENGLISH.
During a recent excursion to Iran, Brandon Stanton — creator of the wildly popular Humans of New York (HONY) blog — posted some shots of humans in the Islamic Republic. One of them features a father and his 10-year-old son in the city of Tabriz, with the accompanying anecdote from the dad:

“One time when he was five-years-old, he came with me to the store and we bought two pounds of fresh apricots. I let him carry the bag home. He walked a little bit behind me the entire way. After awhile, I asked him to hand me an apricot. ‘I can’t,’ he said. ‘I’ve given them all away.’ I knew then that I was raising a humanitarian.”

The post elicited a Facebook comment from none other than Barack Obama, who praised the “inspirational story” as one that “really resonated” with him. Before signing off as “bo,” Obama pledged to “continue doing whatever I can to make this world a place where [the Iranian boy] and every young person like him can live up to their full potential. (And if I ever get to meet him, I hope he’ll save me an apricot!)”

Rapidly accruing over 160,000 “likes,” the president’s comment also spawned predictably sappy media coverage. The Huffington Post reported that Obama had “pulled at America’s heartstrings.” Over at Vox, Max Fisher lauded Stanton’s photographs for “doing important work in humanizing a people who are too often vilified in America and in Washington particularly.”


At first glance, it’s a convenient arrangement. Stanton humanizes the vilified Iranians, while also giving the U.S. president the opportunity to humanize himself. And we the viewers get to feel all warm and snuggly at the sheer abundance of emotion transiting the internet. Which means everyone’s happy, right?

Not so fast.

Let’s start with the president and  the nature of his office which generally excludes anyone with genuine human qualifications. Obama is no exception, having presided over an impressive amount of suffering worldwide, and especially in the Middle East. One can safely assume he would not have felt inspired to comment on a photograph of a regional father accompanied by, say, this quote: “When he was five-years-old, my son was obliterated by a U.S. drone.”

This content was originally published by teleSUR at the following address: 
 "http://www.telesurtv.net/english/opinion/Humans-of-the-White-House-20150912-0017.html". If you intend to use it, please cite the source and provide a link to the original article. www.teleSURtv.net/english
During a recent excursion to Iran, Brandon Stanton — creator of the wildly popular Humans of New York (HONY) blog — posted some shots of humans in the Islamic Republic. One of them features a father and his 10-year-old son in the city of Tabriz, with the accompanying anecdote from the dad:

“One time when he was five-years-old, he came with me to the store and we bought two pounds of fresh apricots. I let him carry the bag home. He walked a little bit behind me the entire way. After awhile, I asked him to hand me an apricot. ‘I can’t,’ he said. ‘I’ve given them all away.’ I knew then that I was raising a humanitarian.”

The post elicited a Facebook comment from none other than Barack Obama, who praised the “inspirational story” as one that “really resonated” with him. Before signing off as “bo,” Obama pledged to “continue doing whatever I can to make this world a place where [the Iranian boy] and every young person like him can live up to their full potential. (And if I ever get to meet him, I hope he’ll save me an apricot!)”

Rapidly accruing over 160,000 “likes,” the president’s comment also spawned predictably sappy media coverage. The Huffington Post reported that Obama had “pulled at America’s heartstrings.” Over at Vox, Max Fisher lauded Stanton’s photographs for “doing important work in humanizing a people who are too often vilified in America and in Washington particularly.”


At first glance, it’s a convenient arrangement. Stanton humanizes the vilified Iranians, while also giving the U.S. president the opportunity to humanize himself. And we the viewers get to feel all warm and snuggly at the sheer abundance of emotion transiting the internet. Which means everyone’s happy, right?

Not so fast.

Let’s start with the president and  the nature of his office which generally excludes anyone with genuine human qualifications. Obama is no exception, having presided over an impressive amount of suffering worldwide, and especially in the Middle East. One can safely assume he would not have felt inspired to comment on a photograph of a regional father accompanied by, say, this quote: “When he was five-years-old, my son was obliterated by a U.S. drone.”

This content was originally published by teleSUR at the following address: 
 "http://www.telesurtv.net/english/opinion/Humans-of-the-White-House-20150912-0017.html". If you intend to use it, please cite the source and provide a link to the original article. www.teleSURtv.net/english