Crude forgeries

In 2000, the University of Wisconsin at Madison was caught inserting the face of a black student into a photo of white Badgers fans for the cover of its undergraduate application:

“Robert Seltzer came to me, initially, with the photo – the undoctored one – and said he was going to use it for the cover,” Barrows said. Barrows, who is black, said he objected to the choice, arguing that the all-white crowd did not reflect the image the university was trying to portray…

Seltzer, who is white, agreed that the photo did not reflect UW-Madison, where minorities make up more than 9% of the school’s enrollment… So when Seltzer was provided with a photo in which the head of a black student was electronically clipped from a photo from another campus event in 1994, and then reversed and inserted into the corner of the football photo, he approved it…

… Gould noticed late last week that the face of the black student, Diallo Shabazz, looked different from the others in the picture… “So Anna looked at the picture, noticed the glare and said, ‘Something isn’t right here.’ “

The university has apologized to application recipients and says they’ve learned from their mistake. By which they mean that next time, they’ll match the light source and contrast for a more believable fake.

Earlier this year, Sepia Mutiny itself was caught digitally inserting an underrepresented minority into a photo:

‘Sepiagate’ was a stain on our blogging credibility, and we’ve vowed never to repeat it.

However, we now feel absolved or, at the very least, in good company. Turns out that Hollywood has been caught doing exactly the same thing, albeit with more technical sophistication. They surveyed global film audiences and used a 64,000-processor supercomputer to calculate, with high degree of precision, the whitest man alive. They shot hours and hours of footage of that man. They crudely pasted him into scenes where he was clearly out of place, attempting things beyond his capabilities like ‘dancing’ and ’emoting.’ And the sad thing is, so far there hasn’t even been a whisper of an apology to filmgoers like you and me.

It’s pretty subtle, but see if you can spot the forgery:

12 thoughts on “Crude forgeries

  1. finding a pic of brad pitt and changing the name to me.jpg is how I get 1st dates with girls i meet online

  2. i went and checked out southern utah university’s website once, and i thought it was funny how the image rotation script seemed to insert a black dude into about 1 out of 5 refreshes.

  3. Diversity? I sure as hell don’t consider 90% white to be very diverse. They should have kept the all-white picture to show minority applicants what they’re getting into.

    And you’re telling me the second pic is a fake! So Abhi wasn’t an original member of Run DMC? My dreams of being signed to G-Unit have just been shattered… I guess I’ll just stick to electrical engineering.

  4. To avoid all this racial slander….everyone should born as zebras. This was they are always in dilema if they are Blacks with white stripes on or whites with black stripes on. and hence no discrmination what so ever:)

  5. Abhi, are you going to keep taking this taunting??

    Fear not Brimful. Manish knows full well that my wallet is embroidered with the initials BAMF. The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. He knows that when he least expects it I will strike down upon him with great vengeance and furious humor.

  6. “…..I’m the righteous man. And Mr. 9mm here, he’s the shepherd protecting my righteous ass in the valley of darkness. Or it could be you’re the righteous man and I’m the shepherd and it’s the world that’s evil and selfish. I’d like that. But that sh*t ain’t the truth. The truth is you’re the weak. And I’m the tyranny of evil men.”

    Pen mightier than the sword? Eh, not so much when you’re swinging your 9mm above bloggers frantically typing before the midnight deadline. “Quality before quantity.” Is this how you keep the peace up there in the Dakotas? ;0)

  7. GMU law did something similar – they used to have a rotating pic on the homepage, and something like 3 out of 5 showed minorities. Totally offensive considering (1) that is NOT reality at our school, (2) at least 2 of those people TRANSFERRED to other schools, and (3) that our only recruiting trips are made to …. Utah. Not exactly a hot-bed of diversity. My point being: if you want to tout your diversity, then be honest about it. If you want to improve it, then do that – and that means MORE than putting up a rotating pic of people who aren’t even students, it means recruiting in places where you might actually meet minorities.

    No one is fooled by what they see in the glossy brochure, or on the homepage. Any student who bothers to visit the school knows what’s up right away.

    -D

  8. deepa,

    Wow, you just said what I said in the beginning, except better :-). You have to realize, though, that it isn’t necessarily the university’s fault. I find it annoying that a lot of minorities just HAVE to be on the cover of every magazine and brochure, even if they only consist of 1% of the population, or else they’ll throw a fit.

    If the UWM didn’t add the black guy, they would have been accused of racial bigotry, the NAACP would have gotten involved, and things would eventually get way out of hand (there may have been a lawsuit). In the end, you do what you have to do to avoid a big mess, even if it is ridiculous.

  9. Nice. What encouraging words to hear for a brown person such as myself going to grad school at Madison.

    I’ll ask them to include in in their next picture as the token.

    🙂

  10. I went to UW-Madison from 1996-2001 (I know…super-senior) I remember the brouhaha about this. UW administration apologized and the student whose picture got inserted gave some really self-righteous statement about how this was reflective of reality about the lack of minorities at UW-Madison and about how far we are from martin luther king’s dream…yada yada yada ad nauseum ad infinitum.

    The truth is that UW-Madison is a state school and as with all state schools, it is made up primarily by instate residents. Wisconsin’s demographics are like 85% – 90% white which means u are going to have a higher proportion of whites compared to Michigan, california, illinois. As long as all students are afforded an enqual chance at success there was nothing to complain about and surely no need to insert that stupid picture. To desis who whine about this, please keep in mind that a student brochure of IIT-Bombay would probably not be very diverse 🙂 Europeans, Americans, Chinese and Africans would be conspicuous by their absence