Posts. Be sure to follow and like the page to stay up to date on my latest videos! Also, your writing style is annoying & incredibly pretentious. Mark Laita: Is This Exploitation Or Stark Reality Through The Guise Of A Societal Need For True Awareness? I am going to assume he titles his videos in this way to draw his viewers into clicking on them. She, as many of his subjects do, ramble along a line of thought scrambled from years of systemic neglect and oppression. Did he only watch Amanda’s video deciding that all of Mark’s videos were of black women? Enter your donation $ USD.00. I, for one, am full up on the depiction of black pain, especially the societal caused agony of black women. Home. Interviewees include, Porn Stars, Pimps, Drug Dealers, and Drug Addicts. Clearly the author has a complex, and while he is quite eloquent, he fails to make a sensible case. Knowing Amanda probably took a hit of whatever illicit vice she. I think Mark Laita of Soft White Underbelly is a creep. Do we watch their interviews and share them on social media, then go about our daily routine? subject questions in talk show fashion, usually starting simple, then working his way up to open-ended inquires that send the interviewees into introspective, incoherent dialogues about life or their place in it. Jump to. Mark is a sell-out, and honestly probably always has been. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/02/27/kelly-mark-laita-videos/. Yet there was no true call to action, no plea from anyone but the subject of Laita’s work; the person who finally had someone listening to a life’s story that most people on this earth wouldn’t care to learn nor experience. titzer 3 hours ago. It is their story to tell and I can’t speak to how a Person of Color feels about the Soft White Underbelly. The individuals in this video are brothers and sisters, except for Timmy who is a cousin. I pressed play and began the latest chapter of Amanda; framed within the lens of Mark Laita’s eye. I’m sure there are wonderful foster care success stories. ― Honoré de Balzac It is really sad (and shows what state this country is currently in) to see this person’s thoughts on Mark’s YouTube channel. He is very much exploiting these people and throws around a Go Fund Me once in awhile while racking in thousands from his monetized videos of THEIR stories (that he only paid 20 for them to tell). Soft White Underbelly TV. He appears to be a very empathetic man who wants to share the stories of marginalized people to educate his viewers on what can happen when you have lost hope. When art and action coincide in a crescendo we can all hear; a revolution that results in quantifiable change heard round the echo chamber political affiliation traps us within; is when the societal shift many of us have dreamed of will come to pass. The collective slumber we are under; bystanders to the world around us are only broken when our sphere of influence is affected; through degrees of social separation. Mark Laita. Stoicism is not necessary nor useful in interviewing (it’s the opposite) it is quite literally just him. In the video, he sympathetically states, “I want to bring awareness to a system that is broken”. On the flip side, these videos do help people understand the root of addiction and provides the viewer with insight into a world that is unfamiliar to us. Interestingly enough, the explanation was only recorded and published two months ago almost three years after his first upload, and about nine months from when Laita started to upload his interviews more frequently. and whether or not I should watch the video. Posts. Ray, the only living son in the Whitaker family, is eager to talk and welcomes Laita into their home. The other group of people are there for shock entertainment and treat these people as a joke. Community. I was moved by these people who are struggling with their issues everyday and I was touched by their honesty, courage and pureness of heart despite the tragedies they endured and the pain they still suffer. Share. Anybody with training in journalism, specifically interviewing, knows how to actually address the trauma that he addresses so carelessly and recklessly. Feb 28, 2020. I saw far more white people than I did African Americans. I have decided to talk about one of the newer videos on the Soft White Underbelly Youtube channel. Maybe we can improve our relationships with our children to stop the cycle of addiction in our society? How obsessed he’s become with views and shock value, how little this channel has to do with healing or conversing. Les champs obligatoires sont indiqués avec *. Some smelled a scam. Mark Laita ‘s Soft White Underbelly video series on YouTube is work you aren’t used to seeing from him. Videos. There is no way I would be able to confirm that the Whitaker parents were related, but given that this does happen in this part of the country and the Whitakers are the most extreme case I’ve seen so far, I would bet that inbreeding was at least partly responsible for the mental and physical abnormalities seen in Lorraine, Freddie, Ray, and Timmy. Intent isn’t at question, for that is as unknown as to where the wind goes when lost to the world, but the methodology behind who and how one spreads “awareness” is the real riddle. This idea of the human condition is the basis for which Mark Laita founded his YouTube channel, Soft White Underbelly, on. English. Listen on Apple Podcasts In this extended episode, we wrap up with Mark Laita and his discussion of his personal project Soft White Underbelly. We all know a child loves his or her parent regardless of the parents shortcomings. To my knowledge, they are not given advice by a professional about how to cope with their issues. Most of Mark Laita’s Underbelly work starts with an intro; monologues from the subject’s life or samples from pop culture set as the backdrop to either a still or video. And homeless are vastly more likely to suffer from mental illness. 11. I have watched dozens of these videos from Appalachian people( not many blacks living there) to the many people on skid row. As of February 2020, Mark’s eponymous Instagram profile flaunted 6.4k followers. One can acknowledge ones own bias and still not fully understand it’s implications. reply. When art and action coincide in a crescendo we can all hear; a revolution that results in quantifiable change heard round the echo chamber political affiliation traps us within; is when the societal shift many of us have dreamed of will come to pass. I’m genuinely confused about how to feel about the Soft White Underbelly Youtube channel. For him it is personal, “it’s a statement about the wealth gap in our country by chronicling the fringe of society.”. Not once did it occur to me that he was that he was showing one race more than the other. View channel on YouTube. This channel contains featurettes of a myriad of people living on the streets in Los Angeles: most are drug addicts, but the lives of prostitutes, ex-gang members, etc. the subject of one of his most popular visual works screams exploitation; the unknowing martyr for a cause that’ll never be resolved as long as money can be made from oppression. "Soft White Underbelly" interviews and portraits of the human condition by photographer, Mark Laita. soft white underbelly. Maybe it was the simple logo thumbnailed in the top left corner, adjacent to the YouTube embedded title “Crack Addicted Prostitute-Amanda (spring 2020).” Most likely it was my initial reaction of disbelief; shifting in light speed toward the question of “who thought this was a good idea” and whether or not I should watch the video. Soft White Underbelly is an aesthetically pleasing web series that is bursting at the seams with life stories from a fresh new angle. Many heartbreaking stories of real people just trying to survive. His clean, colorful, graphic photography has earned him a reputation for award winning work for clients such as Adidas, BMW, Van Cleef and Arpels, and MINI. That’s where I arrive at the dilemma; the grey area similar to the Schrödinger’s Cat, where optimists and people of privilege tend to live, as their position in this caste system can afford them that luxury. It is what it is & sometimes the sad truth makes its way to our tv screens. The video was shot and edited by Los Angeles photographer Mark Laita, who frequently interviews residents of the city's Skid Row for his YouTube channel, "Soft White Underbelly." I would love to hear them discuss interviewing techniques, empathy, compassion, and Mark’s reasoning for doing the series. Entire families can have offspring that have cognitive difficulties and various disabilities. Soft White Underbelly interview and portrait of Ashlyn, an Appalachian woman … Laita has set up a Go Fund Me account for the Soft White Underbelly so he can fund the making of his mini-documentaries. If they are starving and getting money for their interviews, Mark may be helping these people. I almost didn’t click on the video entitled: “Very Sad: Crack Addicted Prostitute Living On The Streets of LA Looks Completely Different After a Year”. Soft White Underbelly video and portraits of The Whitakers, an inbred family from Odd, West Virginia. report; no comments (yet) sorted by: q&a (suggested) best top new controversial old random live … Feb 13, 2020. For more info on its Patreon, click here. Award-winning photographer Mark Laita has used his skills for clients such as Adidas, Apple and … 00:53:49 - This episode is not appropriate for all listeners. I’ll let you decide for yourself because I’m not sure. Oppression does not make us less beautiful, less wise, or less valid in the eyes of privilege; and Laita’s work does a masterful job at widening the lens that would otherwise only fit into stereotypical bias and the exception to the rule. That truth is then up to the storyteller to present. Do we donate to the Go Fund Me accounts and hope they get an apartment and stay sober or refrain from committing crimes? Ray looks like he wants to talk about Freddy, but he can’t. Soft White Underbelly interviews and portraits of the human condition by photographer, Mark Laita. By Missy Hunter. You know what's tremendously unfair? As an artist myself, the job of interpretation is precious, akin to the first taste of a new dish you’ve never tried because you knew not of its existence. Imo therapy is more important than the fostering. The Fragility Of Democracy In The Age Of COVID-19, En savoir plus sur comment les données de vos commentaires sont utilisées. At the end of every visual scene, there were links to assist, shelters to donate to, mutual aid funds that could directly impact the subjects of Latai’s work on display for the audience to support. No signup or install needed. Sign in. Yet the episodic nature of following one’s journey through poverty and addiction without actionable change married to awareness is just a cyclical wheel of predictive persecution; one that is commodified by gatekeepers of reform and monetized by YouTube algorithms. Start a GoFundMe; Sign in; Share; Donate; Soft White Underbelly. Oppression does not make us less beautiful, less wise, or less valid in the eyes of privilege; and Laita’s work does a masterful job at widening the lens that would otherwise only fit into stereotypical bias and the exception to the rule. Playlists. this case, there’s something of a Sinclair. From placing the burden upon the individual who happens to stumble across Laita’s work, making it to the end of a video to access donation information; to the use of marginalized people’s pain as a way to ensure the survival of two-parent households and “good role models,” his “explanation” video mirrors the same kind of erasure of the kind of system we are borne unto and what affect it has upon us. Laita’s subscriber count grew from just under 3,000 to nearly half a million after uploading the video featuring Kelly on Christmas Day with her real name, deleting it and reposting it in late January with her prostitution name. They do not need more exposure to feed their hate. Recently, one of Laita’s other videos has come under fire for racial exploitation, I will leave this story to be covered by a writer of color. Self indulgent. Is the money the interviewees receive to bare their souls worth the risk to their safety?