A shop has faced major backlash for hanging a picture of a tobacco plantation.
Misan Harriman, a photographer who has taken portraits of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, posted the image hung up behind a counter in Farrants in Cobham, Surrey.
It includes the words ‘we sell tobacco’ and appears to show black people working on a tobacco plantation overseen by white men.
Misan, who photographed Lilibet for her first birthday, was shopping for toys for his daughters when he saw the photo on Tuesday.
He said in a video: ‘I saw the most triggering thing, I’ve just come in to try and get toys for my girls, and I just saw the most incredibly triggering imagery; luckily my children are not with me.
‘This is supposed to be a family store that has imagery of, if not enslaved, definitely indentured workers with their white masters or overseers.
‘This shop in the middle of a Surrey high street thinks it’s normal to have that type of imagery next to where I could go and buy toys for my children.’
I just went to Cobham to get my kids some toys and went into a shop called @Farrants_Cobham
There is a MASSIVE picture that is pride of place at the point of payment. It is an image of black men, broken black men at a tobacco plantation with their overseers next to them?!?! I… pic.twitter.com/QZnrzJlCde
— Misan Harriman (@misanharriman) August 8, 2023
Former Netherlands and Chelsea football player Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink shared Misan’s post and said he had complained about the same image in 2020. He said the store’s owner agreed to ‘replace’ the picture.
Farrants has so far declined to comment on the controversy.
Some people have said the photo cannot be depicting slaves because they believe it was taken on a Cuban tobacco farm in 1907 – 21 years after slavery was abolished on the island.
But Misan argued this is irrelevant. In another video posted to Instagram, he said: ‘Indentured servitude happened for decades after any kind of emancipation or end of slavery.
‘Many history books have covered it and the power dynamic of those two white men who dressed very cleanly, look very comfortable, next to the broken, soulless, black men that are actually working that plantation.
‘The optics, that dynamic, that power dynamic, is there clear as day.
‘In all, something needs to change, and that image needs to go, and I hope the people of Cobham will come together and make sure that image is taken down – it’s unacceptable.’
He went on: ‘What I would say about community and matters like this, is that I don’t judge people for having a different lived experience or just being busy.
‘But, when the generational trauma and damage that is caused from imagery like this is shown, and you now know that it’s dangerous.
‘That’s when the choice matters, whether you wilfully ignore it, or you refuse to look away, and I’m glad to say that many people have refused to look away.’
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