National Geographic’s misstep on racism is nonetheless a first step
The news, of course, is not that the coverage of people in the National Geographic was racist. It is that the magazine is acknowledging it.
It’s a headline-grabber that has been lauded variously for its honesty, for not shrinking away from using the word “racist” rather than other euphemisms mainstream media conjure up, and for moving toward correction.
It’s a big deal. That is a problem, because this giant leap in journalism is a small but long overdue step in the march of progress.
Black people and Indigenous people around the world — thinkers, academics, writers, poets, lawyers, ordinary folks — have been actively resisting racism and colonialism in the course of the National Geographic’s 130-year history.
But it’s only now, 18 years into the new millennia, that the needle of change has whizzed all the way from denial to … a baby first step. One magazine, a leader in the North American media that is otherwise rife with racial insensitivities and non-representational staff, has devoted an issue to race and is acknowledging that, yes, it has been racist.
What the National Geographic did was news because it’s an information source of such reach and authority that its imperialist gaze trained the rest of the world to see itself as relational to whiteness or its colonial rulers.
Susan Goldberg, the magazine’s new editor in chief, said in her note that “it hurts to share the appalling stories from the magazine’s past.”
Introspection and the realization of being complicit in wrongdoing are indeed excruciatingly painful — but they pale in comparison to the harms inflicted on those who have been wronged. Change is never easy. Even in its earnestness to set the record straight, the magazine went awry in its cover piece depicting mixed-race twins. “Marcia and Millie Biggs say they’ve never been sub- jected to racism,” says the intro to the story.
What could be the question asked to receive that answer? Have you ever faced racism?
In other words, have you ever faced the intentional prejudice of another person in a way that they spoke to you hurtfully invoking your race?
And if the answer to that is no, does that mean a person has never faced racism? What about the racism that is enacted in structural ways that sees a child punished for crimes others get away with, that views struggling kids not as children in need but as a menace that deserves institutional wrath?
Depicting mixed-race kids on the cover to stand in for post- racial hope also perpetuates the myth of racially mixed people being the panacea for racial divisions. It enables those who don’t want to deal with racial inequities under the guise of “we’re all humans” to jump from race shouldn’t matter to race doesn’t matter. But even missteps won’t happen unless the first steps are taken. This requires leadership. For this moment of reckoning to have meaning, Canadian media must view it as a throwing down of the gauntlet. “We cover a diverse world,” Goldberg said. “If we want to do so accurately and with authority, we need a diverse staff to cover it.” Journalists make countless judgments: what to cover, what to ask, whom to quote, which quote to publish, where to place it. Judgments are rooted in experience and a lack of diverse experiences constricts broad-minded perspectives. In the past year, so much has been said about lack of representation in Canadian newsrooms that it risks being repetitive, but has it wrought change? Have hiring decisions changed, for instance? There’s no empirical evidence because unlike American media, there is still no transparency around staffing data. Anecdotal evidence from vari- ous newsrooms suggests a resounding no.
Has coverage changed? Yes and no. There is a lot more talk about racism. A multiracial lens is slowly starting to be applied to various journalistic beats ranging from housing or real estate, elections or education, food or film, immigration or security or the criminal justice system.
Yet, Canadian newsrooms also continue to exhibit shameful instances of racial illiteracy — journalists criticizing “white privilege” without a grasp of what it really means; racial indifference — all-white panels discussing “Is Donald Trump racist for saying “s---hole countries”; racial/gender insensitivity — a victim-blaming headline on murdered Indigenous teen Tina Fontaine.
These are but a few examples. On Twitter, there continues to be backlash to the mere concept — not reality — of equal power in society with white male journalists openly mocking terms such as “intersectional,” which defines how marginalized identities intersect with systems of power.
History, if it remembers these people at all, won’t judge them kindly, but that’s a while away. Until it’s time for history to make its call, what action are the current leaders willing to commit to?