美国国家公共电台 NPR 'National Geographic' Turns The Lens On Its Own Racist History

 

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

OK. National Geographic¹ became a cultural institution by bringing other cultures to Western readers. Now, in what it's calling The Race Issue, the magazine is issuing an apology. National Geographic says it often portrayed² foreign cultures through a racist³ lens. And the way Nat Geo saw those cultures was how generations of Americans, especially white Americans, saw them, as well. As NPR's Elizabeth Blair reports, in the magazine's heyday⁴ before the Internet or cable, most readers probably didn't know they were getting a narrow vision of the world.

ELIZABETH BLAIR, BYLINE⁵: Remote, exotic, vivid. National Geographic showed images of people and places most Americans never even knew existed.

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UNIDENTIFIED NARRATOR: The photographers of National Geographic must try to bring the world and all that's in it to the pages of a magazine.

E. BLAIR: The world and all that's in it. Turns out, that wasn't quite true. But in the 1950s and '60s in white suburban⁶ New Jersey⁷, it didn't matter to Catherine Lutz.

CATHERINE LUTZ: And I devoured⁸ every issue. It was this beautiful and exciting set of pictures and stories.

E. BLAIR: She even credits National Geographic with inspiring her to pursue a career in anthropology⁹.

LUTZ: It stood for science. It stood for education. It was used prolifically¹⁰ in schools. It also stood, though, for a kind of white view of the world.

E. BLAIR: Call it adventurous¹¹ American colonialism. The mandate¹² from one of its earliest editors? Print nothing controversial or unpleasant. Lutz, who teaches at Brown University, co-wrote the critique "Reading National Geographic" in 1993.

LUTZ: It's an ideal world that's safe and that's basically free of problems. Just lots and lots of smiles.

E. BLAIR: Nat Geo wasn't like Life or Time magazine. You didn't see the ugliness of war or poverty. You also didn't see progress being made in developing countries. For Jim Stanfield, that was kind of the point. He was a staff photographer for almost 30 years, beginning in the late 1960s.

JIM STANFIELD: I was trying to find tribal¹³ areas where these people were a thousand or 2,000 years old, and I was trying to hunt a people that traveled by the same mode of transportation, dressed the same way, had the same kind of jewelry¹⁴.

E. BLAIR: Stanfield, who is white, says showing, for example, half-naked women from those tribes wasn't racist.

STANFIELD: They were just trying to pass on different cultures and the way other people lived. And you couldn't go to Africa without seeing topless natives.

LUTZ: Well, that's true, but there's also a lot of places where you could see men with their penises out or, women with - men and women with genitals out. Those pictures never appear in the magazine. So they made choices all the time.

E. BLAIR: In 1962, for example, an article about South Africa barely mentioned the brutal¹⁵ Sharpeville massacre¹⁶ from two years earlier in which white police killed and wounded some 250 black protesters, including women and children.

JIM BLAIR: That article was a disgrace.

E. BLAIR: Jim Blair, who's also white, was another photographer just starting out at Nat Geo in the early 1960s.

J. BLAIR: It was written by someone who was old, was very rigid¹⁷ and was pro-segregationist.

E. BLAIR: And here's where small changes begin at the magazine. Jim Blair says he was part of a generation of photographers who fought the status quo.

J. BLAIR: We were in our 30s. The people who were running the magazine were in their 60s. So there was a 30-year gap. And of course we wanted change. We wanted it to reflect what was going on in the 1960s and not what was going on in the 1940s, the kind of country club attitude that white people had towards blacks.

E. BLAIR: In the 1970s, Blair took a now famous photo of Winnie Mandela on a trip to South Africa to cover apartheid and oppression. John Edwin Mason is an African-American historian. He was recently hired by Nat Geo to look through the archives for the new Race Issue. He says it took individual dissenters¹⁸ like Blair to force change.

JOHN EDWIN MASON: Until the 1970s, I don't think that those dissenters got very much traction¹⁹. But I think it's important to recognize that they were there. And internal change doesn't just happen automatically.

E. BLAIR: Four years ago, Susan Goldberg became Nat Geo's first female and first Jewish editor. She recently hired Debra Adams Simmons, an African-American, as the magazine's culture editor. Simmons says one of their goals, diverse stories and storytellers.

DEBRA ADAMS SIMMONS: That's not to say that as professionals we can't tell other people's stories. But I also think that we're living in a time where people should be able to tell their own stories, and that's what we're trying to achieve.

E. BLAIR: Still, the cover of Nat Geo's new Race Issue is an image taken by a white male. And the photography staff is still majority white. Times change, values change. Institutions can be slow to catch up. Elizabeth Blair, NPR News, Washington.

1 geographic   

adj.地理学的，地理的

参考例句：

• The city's success owes much to its geographic position. 这座城市的成功很大程度上归功于它的地理位置。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Environmental problems pay no heed to these geographic lines. 环境问题并不理会这些地理界限。 来自英汉非文学 - 环境法 - 环境法

2 portrayed   

v.画像( portray的过去式和过去分词 )；描述；描绘；描画

参考例句：

• Throughout the trial, he portrayed himself as the victim. 在审讯过程中，他始终把自己说成是受害者。
• The author portrayed his father as a vicious drunkard. 作者把他父亲描绘成一个可恶的酒鬼。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

3 racist   

n.种族主义者，种族主义分子

参考例句：

• a series of racist attacks 一连串的种族袭击行为
• His speech presented racist ideas under the guise of nationalism. 他的讲话以民族主义为幌子宣扬种族主义思想。

4 heyday   

n.全盛时期，青春期

参考例句：

• The 19th century was the heyday of steam railways.19世纪是蒸汽机车鼎盛的时代。
• She was a great singer in her heyday.她在自己的黄金时代是个了不起的歌唱家。

5 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

6 suburban   

adj.城郊的，在郊区的

参考例句：

• Suburban shopping centers were springing up all over America. 效区的商业中心在美国如雨后春笋般地兴起。
• There's a lot of good things about suburban living.郊区生活是有许多优点。

7 jersey   

n.运动衫

参考例句：

• He wears a cotton jersey when he plays football.他穿运动衫踢足球。
• They were dressed alike in blue jersey and knickers.他们穿着一致，都是蓝色的运动衫和灯笼短裤。

8 devoured   

吞没( devour的过去式和过去分词 )； 耗尽； 津津有味地看； 狼吞虎咽地吃光

参考例句：

• She devoured everything she could lay her hands on: books, magazines and newspapers. 无论是书、杂志，还是报纸，只要能弄得到，她都看得津津有味。
• The lions devoured a zebra in a short time. 狮子一会儿就吃掉了一匹斑马。

9 anthropology   

n.人类学

参考例句：

• I believe he has started reading up anthropology.我相信他已开始深入研究人类学。
• Social anthropology is centrally concerned with the diversity of culture.社会人类学主要关于文化多样性。

10 prolifically   

adv.多产地，丰富地

参考例句：

• He wrote prolifically both in Ireland and England, nearly constantly shuttling from one to the other. 他几乎不断穿梭于爱尔兰和英国之间，并在两地写出大量作品。 来自互联网
• He had directed his first film in 1923 and had worked prolifically throughout the silent era. 1923年，沟口健二执导了他的处女作，在之后的整个默片时代里，他创作了大量作品。 来自互联网

11 adventurous   

adj.爱冒险的；惊心动魄的，惊险的，刺激的　

参考例句：

• I was filled with envy at their adventurous lifestyle.我很羨慕他们敢于冒险的生活方式。
• He was predestined to lead an adventurous life.他注定要过冒险的生活。

12 mandate   

n.托管地；命令，指示

参考例句：

• The President had a clear mandate to end the war.总统得到明确的授权结束那场战争。
• The General Election gave him no such mandate.大选并未授予他这种权力。

13 tribal   

adj.部族的，种族的

参考例句：

• He became skilled in several tribal lingoes.他精通几种部族的语言。
• The country was torn apart by fierce tribal hostilities.那个国家被部落间的激烈冲突弄得四分五裂。

14 jewelry   

n.（jewllery）（总称）珠宝

参考例句：

• The burglars walked off with all my jewelry.夜盗偷走了我的全部珠宝。
• Jewelry and lace are mostly feminine belongings.珠宝和花边多数是女性用品。

15 brutal   

adj.残忍的，野蛮的，不讲理的

参考例句：

• She has to face the brutal reality.她不得不去面对冷酷的现实。
• They're brutal people behind their civilised veneer.他们表面上温文有礼，骨子里却是野蛮残忍。

16 massacre   

n.残杀，大屠杀；v.残杀，集体屠杀

参考例句：

• There was a terrible massacre of villagers here during the war.在战争中，这里的村民惨遭屠杀。
• If we forget the massacre,the massacre will happen again!忘记了大屠杀，大屠杀就有可能再次发生！

17 rigid   

adj.严格的，死板的；刚硬的，僵硬的

参考例句：

• She became as rigid as adamant.她变得如顽石般的固执。
• The examination was so rigid that nearly all aspirants were ruled out.考试很严，几乎所有的考生都被淘汰了。

18 dissenters   

n.持异议者，持不同意见者( dissenter的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• He attacked the indulgence shown to religious dissenters. 他抨击对宗教上持不同政见者表现出的宽容。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• (The dissenters would have allowed even more leeway to the Secretary.) （持异议者还会给行政长官留有更多的余地。） 来自英汉非文学 - 行政法

19 traction   

n.牵引；附着摩擦力

参考例句：

• I'll show you how the traction is applied.我会让你看如何做这种牵引。
• She's injured her back and is in traction for a month.她背部受伤，正在作一个月的牵引治疗。