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Ariana Gutierrez

Professor Massie

ENGL 1301

02/25/2021

White Slums of South Africa

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

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

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 him and judge him being that he is a “privileged young black man.” By choosing to

say 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. Reggie

says that he’s surprised to hear about his acquaintance landing the interview and explains that he

finds it hard to be positive about the potential good news. This choice of words encourages
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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.” These words

convey 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.