"Should NPR have apologized for 'dark continent'?"

[flowomo]

(snip)
Nine times out of 10, it is the adjectives that get journalists in trouble.
Most recently, an adjective got veteran NPR newscaster Jean Cochran into difficulty when she said on Valentine's Day that President Bush was heading to Africa to visit the "dark continent."
Almost immediately, a flurry of angry emails and phone calls came into NPR.
"I thought that we had wrested that comment along with 'colored' and other euphemisms for Africans or Afro-Americans," wrote one listener, summing up how others felt. "Could you please report my comments to NPR management? I almost drove off the side of the road to start a protest!!!"
"This is simply an outdated reference as well as being outrageously offensive," wrote another listener, Karrye Y. Braxton.
The copy, which had been approved by an editor, was pulled and Cochran agreed to never use the expression again.
"I had no idea the term would be found offensive," said Cochran, who joined NPR in 1981. "I will concede antiquated but I was unaware it was 'racist and irredeemable,' as one person put it in an email. I was floored. Am I insensitive? I don't know how that could be since I didn't know there was anything to be sensitive about. I understood the term to refer to the African jungle. It's a canopy blocking out the light. A geographical term."
(snip)

http://www.npr.org/ombudsman/2008/02/should_npr_have_apologized_for.html

[lumberjack_jeff]

1. If it bugs people, sure.

It's an anachronism, and I don't think it racially insensitive, but I'm not the judge.

If I were NPR, I'd apologize for using the term and be done with it.

[bbinacan]

2. Maybe not.

From Wikipedia,

"A 19th century expression previously used to describe Africa, particularly Sub-Saharan Africa. As little was known about the continent's interior geography, map-makers would often leave this region dark."

[Dogmudgeon]

3. I thought it was about the depth of the jungles

I avoid the phrase because a lot of people are quite sensitive to that kind of thing, and not without reason.

Still, the vehemence of the reactions seems a little extreme.

It's part of the media learning curve.

--p!

[Journeyman]

4. Interesting. . . I've understood it to refer to how the continent was largely unexplored. . .

which was true up until the days of European imperialism. Quite an antiquated term these days, I haven't heard it since last time I read Conrad. Given the sensibilities of people today, and the possibility of it being interpreted much as it has been by those who protest this present use, it's not a term I'd use today outside of an historical reference.

[silverweb]

5. It sounds like it was an innocent misunderstanding.

Many people really are naive as to ways terminology has changed over time. I confess to being one of those people at times. I thought "dark continent" was a literary reference to dense jungles, too -- though obviously after thinking about the savannahs and deserts and open plains, that obviously wouldn't apply to the whole continent.

According to Wikipedia, "Dark Continent" was a 19th-century term to describe Africa, particularly sub-saharan Africa, because so little was known about the continent's interior geography that map makers would leave the region dark. That doesn't sound racially biased at all.

I embarrassed myself one time when my daughter and I were out. We were talking about a movie and I referred to "black humor" when I meant "dark humor." She stopped in her tracks and said, "you want to rephrase that, Mom?" I went completely blank until I glimpsed an African-American woman about my age sitting within earshot, who glanced at me a little grin on her face and I suddenly "got it."

Misnomers happen. It sounds like Ms. Cochran's phrasing was quite innocent, if dated.

[misanthrope]

7. Why were you embarrassed? Did you explain to your daughter...

...that it was she who was operating from a point of cultural ignorance? "Black humor" or "black comedy" is a viable term with absolutely no racial connotation and just because someone else isn't aware of it, that doesn't change it.

[silverweb]

9. She's very aware of modern culture...

...and extremely sensitive to any racist or homophobic language. I've seen her do things like stop a group conversation because someone used the term "gay" to mean "lame." Perhaps the fact that she is of mixed heritage herself has something to do with it, but I think it's more that she's just adamant about treating all people with equal respect. And words count.

I was a bit confused at first when she corrected me, but once I understood her point I wasn't surprised. Apparently, "black humor" does not always equate these days to l'humor noir, so my vocabulary got updated a bit. The wry grin from our nearby observer made me think that the point was well made, and I certainly didn't take any offense at being corrected.

The only reason I told that story, though, was to illustrate that sometimes "offensive" language really is innocent, simply outdated and not known to be offensive.

[misanthrope]

10. See below...

...enlightenment goes both ways

[TreasonousBastard]

6. Absolutely not! it's about time someone stood up to...

phony and manufactured outrage fueled by basic ignorance. I learned in grade school in the 60's that the "Dark Continent" was the unexplored one and there was nothing racial at all about the term. The complainers hould be educated, not pandered to.

This isn't even a question of political correctness. It's as stupid as past outrages over the Scandinavian word "niggard" or "water buffalos," the rough English translation of an old Yiddish insult. The outrage over the children's book "Nappy Hair" was mind boggling.

Similar otrages over imagined sexist and homophobic slurs abound, but I can't think of any off the top of my head. Fewer make the headlines.

Besides all of us having to walk on eggshells when making essentially innocent comments, this manufactured outrage disguises the real problems that do exist.

[Mugu]

11. Hear, Hear. n/t

[Berry Cool]

12. While I agree with you over silly whipped-up offense based on false folk etymology,

I would argue that "Dark Continent" is indeed potentially offensive because of the perspective it assumes.

In other words, if Africa was depicted as a dark continent on maps because "so little was known about it," who were these mapmakers who knew so little about it? White people who didn't live there, obviously. Right?

Africa was not a dark, unknown continent to those who lived there. At least not their own part of it. They might not know the whole continent, but they knew their part of it. And maybe they didn't even find its jungles that "dark" because they knew how to get around in them. In other words, they had "explored" it, all right. Maybe they hadn't "explored" North America or Europe. Maybe those were THEIR "dark continents."

And let's be honest. Africa is not all dark jungle. What about the Sahara Desert? Is that "dark"?

It's kind of like the statement "confined to a wheelchair." It describes wheelchairs from the perspective of an able-bodied person who can get around without one, and would thus look upon being forced to use one as a confining experience. To the person who has never been able to go anywhere without a wheelchair, however, the chair represents mobility and freedom, not confinement.

It's for these reasons that for the most part, Columbus is no longer described as having "discovered America." Not only because he was likely not the first white man to find it, but because he was not the first MAN to find it, period. We're now respectful of the fact that people were living there long before any Europeans were aware of its existence.

Sometimes, avoiding offense is just a matter of asking oneself, "Am I speaking to the majority alone here?" and "If so, to what majority am I speaking?" And if there is someone who is offended by what is said, it isn't always phony outraged fueled by ignorance. (Save that for the people who think "picnic" is a racist term because it once referred to lynching parties...which it didn't.) Sometimes, it's real upset fueled by not being part of that "majority audience" assumed by the speaker.

[kittykitty]

8. "Heart of Darkness"

[Iris]

15. That was my first thought.

[KharmaTrain]

13. It Is Dark...Most Americans Are Clueless About Africa

Look at how people laugh when they see a native tribal dance and how "primitive" these people are. Our lack of understanding of foreign cultures is what's the in dark. Many still have impressions of Africa as some big jungle where people are cooked in pots by scary black people with bones in their noses.

Racist? What about Europeans relations with Africa hasn't been? It's still going on as colonialism has been replaced by the World Bank and resource slavery that keeps many of these countries desolate and dependent on the "west" for their survival.

I think the concept of a "dark continent" is more along the lines of how little we know about the people of Africa.

[Berry Cool]

14. Maybe so...but then the question becomes

"What do you mean, 'we,' Kemosabe?"

Some would argue that every time a person uses the word "we" and, by doing so, means only people who are like himself or herself, forgetting that his or her audience includes others who do not share the same background or experiences, it's offensive.

When a term like "The Dark Continent" is used, it can be seen as assuming that everyone who reads it or hears it thinks of Africa as an unknown, unfamiliar place. If your audience includes people to whom Africa is NOT mysterious and unknown, well...

[KharmaTrain]

16. Very True Masked Man...

I used the a generic "we" in the view of an observer of the American media and culture...the collective experience many of us grew up with that have manifested stereotypes and other misunderstandings that some of us have attempted to overcome them and see the world in a far different perspective.

I surely don't speak for others here...I can barely speak coherently for myself and am one of the first to disassociate myself from groupthink or value judgements.

Yes, there's a varied audience here...but also a very educated and engaged one...the major reason I am a member...as through discussions we communicate and learn.

[UALRBSofL]

17. People on GD-P got upset when Bill Clinton

used the word URBAN. I about lost it when I read the posts. I hear commentators use the word urban on CNN and MSNBC all the time referencing voting districts and how the urban areas count for more delegates. And in the MW dictionary it's meaning was a heavy populated city. As compared to rural.