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2-SATURDAY, MARCH 31, 2018-THE CAROLINA TIMES National Geographic acknowledges past racist coverage By Jesse J. Holland WASHINGTON (AP) - National Geographic acknowledged On March 12 that it cov ered the world through a racist lens for generations, with its magazine portrayals of bare-breasted women and naive brown-skinned tribesmen as savage, unsophisticated and unintelligent. “We had to own our story to move beyond it,” editor-in-chief Susan Goldberg told The Associated Press in an interview about the yellow-bordered magazine’s April issue, which is devoted to race. National Geographic first published its magazine in 1888. An investigation conduct ed last fall by University of Virginia photography historian John Edwin Mason showed that Until the 1970s, it virtually ignored people of color in the United States who were not domestics or laborers, and it reinforced repeatedly the idea that people of color from foreign lands were “exotics, famously and frequently unclothed, happy hunters, noble savages-every type of cliche.” For example, in a 1916 article about Australia, the caption on a photo of two Aborigi nal people read: “South Australian Blackfellows: These savages rank lowest in intel ligence of all human beings.” In addition, National Geographic perpetuated the cliche of native people fascinated by technology and overloaded the magazine with pictures of beautiful Pacific island women. This examination comes as other media organizations are also casting a critical eye on their past. The New York Times recently admitted that most of its obituaries chron icled the lives of white men, and began publishing obituaries of famous women in its “Overlooked” section. In National Geographic’s April issue, Goldberg, who identified herself as National Geographic’s first woman and first Jewish editor, wrote a letter titled “For Decades, Our Coverage Was Racist. To Rise Above Our Past, We Must Acknowledge It.” 25 NEW ORGANIC ITEMS IN THE PRODUCE DEPARTMENT “I knew when we looked back there would be some storytelling that we obviously would never do today, that we don’t do and we’re not proud of,” she told AP. “But it 1 seemed to me if we want to credibly talk about race, we better look and see how we talked about race.” • Mason said he found an intentional pattern in his review. “People of color were often scantily clothed, people of color were usually not seen in cities, people of color were not often surrounded by technologies of automobiles, air planes or trains or factories,” he said. “People of color were often pictured as living as if • their ancestors might have lived several hundreds of years ago and that’s in contrast to westerners who are always fully clothed and often carrying technology.” White teenage boys “could count on every issue or two ofNational Geographic hav ing some brown skin bare breasts for them to look at, and I think editors at National Geographic knew that was one of the appeals of their magazine, because women, es pecially Asian women from the pacific islands, were photographed in ways that were almost glamour shots.” National Geographic, which now reaches 30 million people around the world, was, the way that many Americans first learned about the rest of the world, said professor Samir Husni, who heads the Magazine Innovation Center at the University of Missis sippi’s journalism school. Making sure that kind of coverage never happens again should be paramount, Husni said. “Trying to integrate the magazine media with more hiring of diverse writers and minorities in the magazine field is how we apologize for the past,” Husni said. . Goldberg said she is doing just that, adding that in the past, the magazine has done a better job at gender diversity than racial and ethnic diversity. “The coverage wasn’t right before because it was told from an elite, white American point of view, and I think it speaks to exactly why we needed a diversity of storytell ers,” Goldberg said. “So we need photographers who are African-American and Native American because they are going to capture a different truth and maybe a more accurate story.” National Geographic was one of the first advocates of using color photog raphy in its pages, and is well known for its coverage of history, science, environmentalism and the far corners of the world. It currently can be found in 172 countries and in 43 languages every month. Nature’s Place* III w ^^^^ Ow^w Produce We take special pride in our commitment to provide affordable organic products that are grounded in goodness and made with “free from” ingredients. You will feel good knowing that our products fit into your budget as easily as they fit into your lifestyle. We know that you and your loved ones will enjoy Nature’s Place for many years to come. EXCLUSIVELY AT FOODI^LION Maryland bill would ‘retire’ state song to ‘historic’ status By Brian Witte ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) - A major ity of Maryland senators hope they’ve found an elusive compromise to han dle the state’s controversial state song: send it into retirement without erasing all recognition. The Senate voted 30-13 to put “Maryland, My Maryland” on historic status and say its sensitive pre-Civil War references to “Northern scum” and a despotic President Abraham Lin coln don’t reflect Marylanders’ values today. The bill now goes to the House. While it would no longer be the of ficial state song, the measure doesn’t completely jettison it, either. It desig nates it as a “historical state song.” Opponents of the measure say it just doesn’t do much. “The words are still there,” said Sen. Bryan Simonaire, an Anne Arun del County Republican. “If they’re so offensive, they’re still in Maryland law.” But supporters say it makes a sig nificant symbolic gesture. “This bill acknowledges a dated, offensive, racist-themed song, that it’s time to move forward,” said Sen. Cheryl Kagan, a Montgomery County Democrat. Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller, a Democrat, said the song needs to be put aside until the state can come up with a new one. The song was written in 1861 by James Ryder Randall. It became the state song in 1939. It calls for Mary land to secede from the Union before the Civil War when many Maryland residents sympathized with the Con federacy. Previous attempts to change the song have stalled, partly because law makers were reluctant to tinker with history. But supporters have said re cent events involving Confederate statues have highlighted the need for a change. In August, several days after violent protests in Charlottesville, Virginia, Maryland officials removed from the statehouse grounds a statue of Roger Taney. Taney was the U.S. Supreme Court justice who wrote the 1857 Dred Scott decision that upheld slav ery and denied citizenship to African- Americans. ,
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