Whose voices do you hear? Whose voices get left out?
Our mindsets are influenced by all kinds of factors: our families, friends, wider society. It’s not always obvious or easy to pick out what those influences are on each of us.
Read this blog – https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/africaatlse/2020/01/31/vanessa-nakate-davos-cropped-photo-white-race-climate-activism/
Cropping out Vanessa Nakate from a photo with fellow young climate activists at the World Economic Forum has prompted allegations of racism. Despite forecasts that the African continent will be most affected by climate change, the erasure has been seen as part of a broader pattern of silencing African voices on climate debates.
Five young climate activists met at the World Economic Forum in Davos on 24 January 2020, gathered to raise the alarm at global inaction on climate change. The news agency Associated Press (AP) photographed the group, later cropping out the Ugandan climate activist Vanessa Nakate for publication, leaving the four young European climate activists including the famed Greta Thunberg. That the four remaining activists were white prompted allegations of racism, which led to AP arguing the edit was made on ‘purely composition grounds’. But does this fit into a broader pattern of silencing African voices on climate debates?