so. about that plaintly titled national geographic article that went viral — did it? — yesterday or the day before: For Decades, Our Coverage Was Racist. To Rise Above Our Past, We Must Acknowledge It. (damn, natgeo, how’d it take you so long!)
there’s something very brief i have to say in response to that. i shall come come to it. before that, 1 or 2 things, natgeo related:
i bought two national geographic magazines not so long ago. (no, i’m not an ardent reader — or watcher — of natgeo; no, the two magazines i bought aren’t recent issues — the more recent of the two being that of july 2011.)
in the members forum of the older issue — january 1983 — i read a very seemingly interested, but definitely interesting comment from a reader of the magazine — Dorothy McCurry — writing from new york, new york.
the title: PROGRESS, SLOW, BUT PROGRESS.
the content: My collection of GEOGRAPHICS goes back to 1913. In looking over the magazines, especially from the 1910s and 1920s, I am struck by the condescending tone used for the peoples of almost any place outside Western Europe and the Eastern United states. I realize that this reflects the world as it was then. However, I would like to think that the increasingly respectful and appreciative attitude toward other people and life forms also reflect the world as it is becoming. Progress is painfully slow, but the long view provided by my collection shows that in some ways we are improving.
condescending tone, etc.? clearly, that puts in lightly, sweetly, pamperly; at least, given the one or two (cruel) examples given in the other day’s article. but still, Drothy’s submission becomes, for me, resonant again in the light of this internet-breaking(?) editorial.
still in the same space — the members forum of the january 1983 issue of national geographic — here is Brian A. Sims, writing from seattle, washington, in response to an earlier issue in which a natgeo writer write about a certain computer chip. the writer apparently asserted the said chip’s “ability to embody logic and memory…gives it the essence of human intellect.”
Brian’s riposte:
Only when a computer ponders a sapling, frolics in a rainstorm, marvels at the idea of infinity, and then prints out the question “Why am i here?” will i share the thinking role with the inredible chip.
hahahahahahahahahaaa. but back to the matter!
Susan Goldberg, who we learn is national geographic’s first woman editor in its 130 years of existence, writes in yesterday’s epiphanic editorial, about natgeo’s reslove, moving forward to “talk about what’s working when it comes to race, and what isn’t. […..] examine why we continue to segregate along racial lines and how we can build inclusive communities. [….] confront today’s shameful use of racism as a political strategy and prove we are better than this.”
awww, how wonderful, how humane an effort! but! there’s (been) so much of that.
you know what would be gamechanging — and of course lit! — though, in this your quest for justice? what would make those who together with their forebears and kin have suffered all the violence, several decades long, of your racist reportage, realise that this your effort is real?
it’s an eleven-letter word called…reparations. don’t be like your government, consider it.