‘Why can’t we all just get along?’

National Geographic has been a sexist and racist magazine throughout its history. So says National Geographic and who is better placed to know?

The American magazine is 129 years old. I’m sure it has mocked women and sneered at “primitive” people since its inception — magazines are dedicated followers of fashion — while failing to make the hires in recent decades that might have pointed this out to pompous men wearing monocles and frock coats, possibly with whalebone corsets beneath.

It has published an April race issue, in which it candidly discusses its history of sexist and racist coverage and offers a cover photo of two young girls of mixed race, their father Black and mother white. Millie and Marcia are twins, but one has lighter skin and hair, the other darker.

And aren’t they both beautiful, confident people? That’s the message of the issue. Americans, unable to recover from their history of slavery, should hear this more often.

Pleasingly, John Geiger, CEO of the Royal Canadian Geographic Society and publisher of Canadian Geographic, is about to undertake a similar study of his magazine’s history. As Geiger told the CBC, he started by studying the earliest issues since it began publishing in 1930.

It is not good. In the first issue, he says, there’s a story about Canada’s governor general Viscount Willingdon (later Viceroy of India) touring the West Indies, the “sun-room of the Empire” just as the Great Depression began.

There’s a photo of Lady Willingdon smiling down at a “dusky maiden,” a tiny local girl in a white dress, another version of the wealthy white saviour of today posing with her little lovely. That was then, this is now, but some things never change. I shudder to think of Canadian Geographic’s coverage of Indigenous people but we’ll find out.

Elsewhere in the 1913 issue, some Asian men are “lusty beggars” with morality “of the lowest type.” Speaking of which, Willingdon decorated Rideau Hall with “rare carpets, screens and objets d’art collected during travels in China and India.” I am now reminded of the Musée du quai Branly-Jacques Chirac, a Paris museum that opened in 2006. They call it “ethnology” because that was expresident Chirac’s passion but as I realized when I visited, it’s basically a collection of colonial loot from Indigenous peoples after French occupation in Africa, Asia and America.

Chirac’s museum is a living Geographic magazine of old and I could see some visitors reacting with interest, others like me with a shudder.

This kind of thing isn’t done any more, at least not without explicit acknowledgement of colonial crimes. Times are changing but not in France, which is not in any way a shame-based society. I suppose this is part of its charm.

Back to National Geographic. I accept that racism was considered fairly normal in its time and should be taken in context. But I like the apology issue and admire its discussion of race in America.

I am of mixed race — Scottish and Indian — and was always puzzled by Barack Obama being described as a Black president. (I dislike the Star’s insistence on capitalizing “black,” for it further isolates people who diverge from the norm.) Same as Meghan Markle, Obama was just as white as he was Black. Everyone’s somewhere on the colour gradient, as NatGeo writes.

Racial mixing is common in Canada and it’s no big deal. That’s if you even care about anyone’s race, which I don’t, while noting that Scottishness is a heavy burden. Its hair is impossible, for one thing. Morally, it’s a harsh inheritance but it carries me through hard times. “I am unhappy,” I say. “And why should you not be?” my inner Scot replies. Then my Indian side goes shopping.

I have had unpleasant reactions from white male editors, well-meaning people, and recently from a German-Canadian who should have known better. People with darker skin are sometimes patronizing. Being female has been far worse.

The National Geographic cover is a triumph, albeit a plaintive apology. Its multiracial sisters are the embodiment of the late Rodney King’s question during riots following the 1992 acquittal of the cops who beat him: “Why can’t we all just get along?”