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Ariana Gutierrez

Professor Massie

ENGL 1301

02/28/2021

White Slums of South Africa

Have you ever listened to someone complaining or telling a story and you detect select

words or tones revealing bias that make you curious to hear the other side of the story? In

the documentary White Slums of South Africa, viewers follow Reggie Yates as he explores

poverty amongst the white population of South Africa. However, this documentary White Slums

of South Africa only tells one side of the story and contains many forms of partiality including

bias through imagery and audio, selection and omission, and word choice that exist to depict the

white South African demographic as “the new underclass”.

First, Documentarian Reggie Yates guides his audience with biased word choice to view

the white South Africans through a predisposed perspective. For instance, in the beginning when

documentarian Reggie Yates visits Coronation Park, where many homeless white people dwell,

he expresses his feelings of apprehension derived from the worry of how the white folks there

will receive and judge him being that he is a “privileged young black man”. By saying this he

builds the belief in viewers that the white homeless people are going to be racist or dislike him

because of his skin color. Nearing the end of the documentary, Reggie is on his way to see his

acquaintance Hardis, a young white man, who is going to have a job interview. According to

"South Africa: Unemployment Rate by Population Group 2019-2020", black unemployment is

approximately 32.4 percent and white unemployment is estimated to be 7.6 percent in South

Africa as of 2019, however, Reggie says that he is surprised to hear about his acquaintance
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landing the interview and explains that he finds it hard to be positive about the potential good

news. This choice of words encourages viewers to believe that the chances of a white man being

hired are exceptionally low. Additionally, in the last five minutes of the documentary Reggie

Yates says, “but if there is a price to pay for decades of oppression perhaps this is the least worst

option.” This conveys his personal opinion that the difficult lives the white South Africans are

living is justifiable because of the wrongdoings of their forefathers and does not leave the

audience with an open mind to believe what they will about this critical topic.

Furthermore, on multiple occasions select images and audio are arranged to grab the

audience by the heartstrings for better control of opinions. In Coronation Park there is a

“squatter’s camp” welcoming only homeless white South Africans. During the introduction to

the squatter’s camp, clips of homeless and dirty children are presented while dreary music is

played in unison with the imagery. Because children draw out strong emotions in people this

powerful imagery can cause the audience to become narrow sighted and think from a very

subjective perspective. A little more than midway through the film, a child is recorded playing

with a balloon alone in an unclean and unlit bathroom while gloomy piano music is played in the

background. The combination of the somber imagery and music once again invokes feelings of

sorrow or misery. This makes it difficult for the viewers to think and see things objectively.

It is important to keep images and information in context, therefore leaving out certain

details and facts while inserting others can leave an audience with a biased or one-sided view.

This is called bias through selection and omission and is utilized in this documentary frequently.

Now, although the documentary was created to examine poverty amongst the white South

African population rather than black South Africans, the documentary only presents select

images and videos of white people living in poor conditions while omitting almost any images or
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videos of the impoverished black South Africans. Documentarian Reggie Yates clarified that

there is approximately 16 million black South Africans living in poverty, despite this fact white

poverty has been magnified by the selective and omissive imagery. An example of this would be

when Reggie Yates takes a tour of the portion of rundown apartment buildings where only white

people live showing some of the appalling living conditions there. He fails to tour the conditions

of the neighboring “upper handed” black South Africans living within the complex. This

omission disregards the fact that the black population lives in utter squalor along with their white

counterparts. If this was included in the documentary viewers would not be so convinced that

white South Africans are living harder lives than black South Africans as the documentarian

intends to convey. To further this narrative, the documentarian excluded the fact that

approximately 1 percent of the white South African population is in poverty in contrast to the

approximate 64.2 percent of the black South African population in poverty, according to

"FACTSHEET: South Africa’s Official Poverty Numbers".

These cases of bias through word choice, imagery and audio, and bias through selection

and omission serve as evidence that the documentary White Slums of South Africa is a

prejudiced documentary. The word choice throughout the documentary repeatedly reveals the

documentarian’s beliefs and standpoint. The imagery and audio is designed to speak to the

viewers’ emotions and suppress rational thought. Lastly, the selection and omission of

information and images within the film further the documentary’s biased narrative. Due to the

lack of factual information and evidence, and large quantity of subjectivity within the

documentary, it is impossible for the audience to get a clear understanding of the life and causes

of poverty amongst the white population of South Africa.

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Works Cited

"FACTSHEET: South Africa’s Official Poverty Numbers." Africa Check, 19 Nov. 2020,

africacheck.org/fact-checks/factsheets/factsheet-south-africas-official-poverty-numbers.

"South Africa: Unemployment Rate by Population Group 2019-2020." Statista,

23 June 2020, www.statista.com/statistics/1129481/unemployment-rate-by-population-group-in-

south-africa/.

“The White Slums Of South Africa (Poverty Documentary)” YouTube, uploaded by Real

Stories, December 26 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ba3E-Ha5Efc