Sound the white bullshit klaxon, friends, coz this one’s a doozy: an American couple who travelled to the Democratic Republic of the Congo in order to get married at the top of an active volcano… at gunpoint.
I honestly don’t know what to say.
Travel photographer John Milton travelled with his now-wife to DR Congo in 2017 in order to take the staged photos, and the Instagram documentation of the whole sordid project is really something.
Documented by ESL teacher and appalled citizen of the internet Cecilia Christin, the images and their captions are a sterling example of the kind of white nonsense that I honestly thought had died out circa 2016. How wrong I was.
“Saying our vows at the top of an active Congolese volcano with a local tribe while a civil war is brewing below is surrealism at its best,” reads one caption. And surrealism certainly is one word for it! Blithering self-absorption is another – who uses a civil war as a colourful backdrop for wedding pics?!
“This is how our journey began in Congo before we reached the top of a fiery volcano to get married. Just us, a security team, sherpas, a chef, a local tribe, and a Congolese minister…” reads a second caption, because GOD FORBID you carry your own shit or cook your own meals on your pilgrimage to the altar of obliviousness atop Fuckwit Mountain!
CHRIST.
Christin spoke to Insider about her choice to post the pictures, which she found on her Instagram Discover page (Milton has since deleted his account, @30.raw, so RIP his 11k followers), saying:
I decided to share these pictures in order to foster discussion within my friends and following, specifically about the accessorization of black bodies for this couple’s photo shoot.
I can’t think of a better example of blithe, ignorant, breezy racism than putting a wedding ring on an AK47 in the hands of a Congolese person and captioning it “Blood diamonds“. Or calling a local village and its inhabitants the “ghetto“. It is truly gobsmacking.
Even worse is this full-length interview with Milton on another photographer’s blog, where he refers to their “daring adventure” of a honeymoon in “an Islamic region of Africa where sadly enough modern-day slavery still exists“. Cool! Literal slavery porn!
Unsurprisingly, I’m not the only one who’s unimpressed.
https://twitter.com/briiilliant/status/1054648592449687552
I’m seething – this is perhaps the most cringe thing I’ve seen. Taking wedding pictures in the Congo with all the tired, racist stereotypes you can possibly muster. Despicable. https://t.co/KQQ7s38UFB
— all croissants and brownies (acab) (@slimakova_) October 23, 2018
https://twitter.com/Aelkus/status/1054756868957069313
https://twitter.com/gemmagreene16/status/1054697982531158016
You’d hope it’s satire, but I just don’t think it is. Once again my friends, I say unto the heavens: come, friendly asteroids, and blast all evidence of our existence from this godforsaken rock. It’s time to start again.
