Prof. Hub Brown, Libby Denkmann (AirTalk®, Pi Day, 3-14-18); Editors, Wisdom Quarterly
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| I like reading it. It's a very good magazine. |
As part of its April issue focusing on
RACE, National Geographic (
natgeo.com) made the bold move to acknowledge
its own past racist coverage.
To
explain the magazine’s decision, Editor-in-Chief Susan Goldberg wrote: “We thought
we should examine our own history before turning our reportorial gaze to others.”
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| Me, too. If I read. |
The list of past missteps included a slavery-era slur being used to describe
California cotton workers and a 1916 story on
Australia with a photo caption that read: “South Australian Blackfellows:
These savages rank lowest in intelligence of all human beings.”
While this admission is unexpected, the content is not surprising given that National Geographic has been around for over 100 years, and they certainly aren’t alone in their offensive past.
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| I don't read Nat Geo, just da Bible. It's a Southern thang. All y'all wouldn't understand. |
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| I don't read, but if I did, I'd read this 1 |
For instance,
The New York Times reported that it retroactively wrote
obituaries for women who were initially overlooked.
And in 2016 Louisville, Kentucky’s
The Courier-Journal publicly
apologized for continuing to publish Muhammad Ali’s "slave name" Cassius Clay rather than his adopted freeman's name, even after the boxer legally changed his name in 1964.
National Geographic’s move has been
trending on social media, and whether or not the response around it has been positive, it’s definitely been a conversation starter.
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| Libby Denkmann |
What do readers think about National Geographic’s acknowledgement of past racist coverage? Will it prompt other media publications to do the same?
Are you yourself more apt to read the magazine now, or does this hinder you from supporting the old time magazine?
More + AUDIO
- GUEST: Associate Professor of Broadcast and Digital Journalism and Associate Dean for Research, Creativity, Int'l Initiatives and Diversity at Syracuse Univ. Hub Brown
*White men didn't RAPE black children as "property," did they?
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| I wish it were the olden days! - Why, John? |
Because of the power relationships at work,
slave females in the United States were at high risk for
child molestation,
rape, and
forced impregnation.
Many slaves fought back against sexual attacks by whites, and some died
resisting.
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| It's not what it looks like! |
Others carried
severe psychological and physical scars from the
attacks. Sexual abuse of slaves was rooted in part in a patriarchal Southern culture that
treated black [and
Native American]
women and children as property or "chattel."
Black children as young as 6 were advertised and sold by white men to other white men to "satisfy their lust." It was not an aberrant practice looked on as violent "child molestation" and/or rape, but just a property right.
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| He loves black girls. - But with his tongue? |
Whereas Southern culture strongly policed against sexual relations between
white women and black males -- purportedly on the grounds of "
racial purity" --
by the late 18th century, the many
mixed-race slave children showed what white
Christian slave owners were doing to slave girls and women.
More
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| Curious? So's the government. Big Brother spies from low-earth orbit and you say nothing. |
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