# Black climate activist cropped out of photo with Greta Thunberg **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 26, 2020, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-climate-activist-cropped-out-of-photo-with-greta-thunberg/846998 "2020-01-26T15:31:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![orcenio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/orcenio/32/1036_2.png) [@orcenio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/orcenio)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2020, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-climate-activist-cropped-out-of-photo-with-greta-thunberg/846998/21 "2020-01-27T01:06:59Z")
I believe it was Associated Press (not The Guardian) which cropped the kid out. Quite unfortunate, glad Vanessa didn’t take it quietly. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2020, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-climate-activist-cropped-out-of-photo-with-greta-thunberg/846998/22 "2020-01-27T01:22:53Z")
> [@All\_About\_Venice](#): > > one would think that a newspaper like theguardian would think again before editing and cropping a simple news-photo. > [@orcenio](#): > > I believe it was Associated Press (not The Guardian) which cropped the kid out. Right. The OP linked to a story in The Guardian pointing out how the AP cropped the photo. ---
**Author:** ![I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/i_love_me_vol.i/32/521_2.png) [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Love_Me_Vol.I)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2020, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-climate-activist-cropped-out-of-photo-with-greta-thunberg/846998/23 "2020-01-27T01:24:20Z")
> [@Joey\_P](#): > > I’m not going to argue why she was or wasn’t cropped out of the picture, but I’ll note that if that picture was cropped just barely over the top of their heads\*, the building almost disappears . > I didn’t watch the video, but are their photog credits? It’s possible it wasn’t an actual photog that took the picture, just a picture the paper used. It could also have been a somewhat candid shot as they don’t all appear to even be looking at the camera. > > \*[Cropped like this.](https://i.imgur.com/w4qFHBA.jpg) That’s too rectangular–too wide, it would take up an additional newspaper column. Its also too close-cropped at the top for that type of photo. The original crop of the photo (sans Ugandan) makes sense aesthetically and perhaps in a rush a photog might submit images they quickly cropped without much thought for anything other than photographic look. With some photos you need to think at least twice before cropping because the extenuating circumstances are far more important than the aesthetics. ---
**Author:** ![Dallas\_Jones](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dallas_jones/32/3277_2.png) [@Dallas\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dallas_Jones)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2020, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-climate-activist-cropped-out-of-photo-with-greta-thunberg/846998/24 "2020-01-27T01:24:30Z")
It is just not the same narrative without the young white girl crusading alone against the forces of evil to save the world. Greta is now an icon and the image should not be diluted by bringing in others. Stick to the script, it’s Greta that we are paying attention to until she has been all used up and discarded like last year’s Pepsi slogan. ---
**Author:** ![I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/i_love_me_vol.i/32/521_2.png) [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Love_Me_Vol.I)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2020, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-climate-activist-cropped-out-of-photo-with-greta-thunberg/846998/25 "2020-01-27T02:01:41Z")
> [@am77494](#): > > The picture at PBS shows them all as peers, the story reads so too. It’s a picture in the same setting maybe a moment later or before. > > [Greta Thunberg brushes off U.S. finance chief’s criticism | PBS NewsHour](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/greta-thunberg-brushes-off-u-s-finance-chiefs-criticism) The photo at the PBS link shows all five young women, but the caption only mentions the four white women(!) That to me is almost more strange. If the cropped pic (4 people not 5) had only captioned the four I can understand. But in a better photo which clearly shows all five as peers, leaving out one of the captions is not good. It makes me wonder if the caption was left unchanged from a previously cropped image which was later changed to the more complete photo. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2020, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-climate-activist-cropped-out-of-photo-with-greta-thunberg/846998/26 "2020-01-27T12:45:40Z")
> [@Dallas\_Jones](#): > > It is just not the same narrative without the young white girl crusading alone against the forces of evil to save the world. Well the enviromental movement has a big history of racism. Like Madison Grant. So that might be a reason ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2020, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-climate-activist-cropped-out-of-photo-with-greta-thunberg/846998/27 "2020-01-27T13:45:34Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > Well the enviromental movement has a big history of racism. Like Madison Grant. :dubious: If you’ve got to go back to a guy who died in 1937 for your example of racism in “the environmental movement”, you’re not being as persuasive as you think you are. Pretty much **all** white Americans in the Jim Crow era were actively racist, and self-described “conservationists” like Grant were no exception. ---
**Author:** ![Two\_Many\_Cats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8dc957/32.png) [@Two\_Many\_Cats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Two_Many_Cats)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2020, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-climate-activist-cropped-out-of-photo-with-greta-thunberg/846998/28 "2020-01-27T13:52:35Z")
If Little Miss Flavor of the Month hadn’t yelled at a bunch of fat old guys in suits, nobody would give a shit about this picture. ---
**Author:** ![Hamlet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hamlet/32/2818_2.png) [@Hamlet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hamlet)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2020, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-climate-activist-cropped-out-of-photo-with-greta-thunberg/846998/29 "2020-01-27T14:09:40Z")
> [@Two\_Many\_Cats](#): > > If Little Miss Flavor of the Month. Classy. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2020, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-climate-activist-cropped-out-of-photo-with-greta-thunberg/846998/30 "2020-01-27T15:02:50Z")
> [@Two\_Many\_Cats](#): > > If Little Miss Flavor of the Month hadn’t yelled at a bunch of fat old guys in suits, nobody would give a shit about this picture. Not giving a shit about the exclusion and erasure of people of color in activism and reform movements, even if it’s not caused by deliberate racist malevolence, is part of the problem. See, for example, [this recent article](https://www.vox.com/identities/2019/10/11/20904791/young-climate-activists-of-color) on some young nonwhite environmental activists in the US, or [this one](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/oct/05/greta-thunberg-developing-world-activists) about environmental activists in the developing world. Yeah, and referring to Thunberg as “Little Miss” anything is kind of obnoxiously sexist. If you wouldn’t call a 17-year-old sports prodigy “Little Boy”, don’t call Thunberg “Little Miss”. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2020, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-climate-activist-cropped-out-of-photo-with-greta-thunberg/846998/31 "2020-01-27T15:23:00Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > :dubious: If you’ve got to go back to a guy who died in 1937 for your example of racism in “the environmental movement”, you’re not being as persuasive as you think you are. Pretty much **all** white Americans in the Jim Crow era were actively racist, and self-described “conservationists” like Grant were no exception. :rolleyes: Ah, of course. I mean its not like there is a big problem with non-White [activists being ignored](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/oct/05/greta-thunberg-developing-world-activists), or that the [movement long history of racism still affects it today](https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/mbm3q4/extinction-rebellion-xr-is-shaped-by-middle-class-white-people-it-does-not-serve-people-of-color) or that the movement r[emains mostly white](https://www.alternet.org/2007/05/the_unbearable_whiteness_of_green/). And FYI, 17-year old male athletes regularly the “kid” or “boy” or “lad”. Though the posters comment was out of line regardless ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2020, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-climate-activist-cropped-out-of-photo-with-greta-thunberg/846998/32 "2020-01-27T15:37:30Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > :rolleyes: > I mean its not like there is a big problem with non-White [activists being ignored](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/oct/05/greta-thunberg-developing-world-activists), or that the [movement long history of racism still affects it today](https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/mbm3q4/extinction-rebellion-xr-is-shaped-by-middle-class-white-people-it-does-not-serve-people-of-color) or that the movement r[emains mostly white](https://www.alternet.org/2007/05/the_unbearable_whiteness_of_green/). Of course it’s a big problem, as I already acknowledged right there in the post above yours. But it’s a predictable part of the big problem of racism and non-white exclusion in society at large, not any kind of special evilness unique to the environmental movement. You were trying to finger the environmental movement as racist without acknowledging that larger context. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2020, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-climate-activist-cropped-out-of-photo-with-greta-thunberg/846998/33 "2020-01-27T23:42:55Z")
> [@Two\_Many\_Cats](#): > > If Little Miss Flavor of the Month hadn’t yelled at a bunch of fat old guys in suits, nobody would give a shit about this picture. Threadshitting is a form of trolling. Expressing a view dismissing the issue might be acceptable. Using inflammatory language to do so is out of line. This is a Warning to avoid such submissions in Great Debates or Politics & Elections. [/Moderating] ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2020, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-climate-activist-cropped-out-of-photo-with-greta-thunberg/846998/34 "2020-02-01T00:56:08Z")
She wasn’t specifically cropped out of the picture. the version with the 4 girls is cropped below the waste as well so the whole thing can better fill a frame and the subjects are more visible. It’s basic visual editing for whatever sized space their trying to fill. If people think they should have cropped the girl on the right then the remaining image is poorly composed because the girl on the left is standing slightly away from the group. If they just had some boys to crop out of the picture we wouldn’t be in this mess. ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2020, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-climate-activist-cropped-out-of-photo-with-greta-thunberg/846998/35 "2020-02-01T01:28:29Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > She wasn’t specifically cropped out of the picture. the version with the 4 girls is cropped below the waste as well so the whole thing can better fill a frame and the subjects are more visible. It’s \*\*basic visual editing \*\*for whatever sized space their trying to fill. > > If people think they should have cropped the girl on the right then the remaining image is poorly composed because the girl on the left is standing slightly away from the group. > > If they just had some boys to crop out of the picture we wouldn’t be in this mess. …I’m an experienced editorial photographer who has been commissioned and published by international news agencies. “Basic visual editing” always takes second place to editorial integrity. We know the image wasn’t cropped for the sized space it was trying to fill as you posit. They claim it was cropped by the photographer to make the background more visually pleasing. If we believe this claim then the photographer made an editorial decision to remove someone from the photo. Cropping a person out to make the image more visually pleasing was a bad editorial decision made by the photographer that should have been left to the photo editor. ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2020, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-climate-activist-cropped-out-of-photo-with-greta-thunberg/846998/36 "2020-02-01T02:05:16Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > She wasn’t specifically cropped out of the picture. the version with the 4 girls is cropped below the waste as well so the whole thing can better fill a frame and the subjects are more visible. It’s basic visual editing for whatever sized space their trying to fill. > > If people think they should have cropped the girl on the right then the remaining image is poorly composed because the girl on the left is standing slightly away from the group. > > If they just had some boys to crop out of the picture we wouldn’t be in this mess. Do you mean that last line seriously, or are you being snarky? You seem to be saying “Obviously, she wasn’t cropped out with malicious intent, but if there had been boys, they certainly would have been”. You seem to be accusing people of being too sensitive, too quick to take offense about the case that actually did happen, while simultaneously being upset about a thing that didn’t happen, but that you feel sure would have happened, had the whole situation been different. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2020, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-climate-activist-cropped-out-of-photo-with-greta-thunberg/846998/37 "2020-02-01T02:16:28Z")
**Manda JO** , that seemed like snark to me. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2020, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-climate-activist-cropped-out-of-photo-with-greta-thunberg/846998/38 "2020-02-02T04:22:00Z")
> [@Banquet\_Bear](#): > > …I’m an experienced editorial photographer who has been commissioned and published by international news agencies. “Basic visual editing” always takes second place to editorial integrity. We know the image wasn’t cropped for the sized space it was trying to fill as you posit. They claim it was cropped by the photographer to make the background more visually pleasing. If we believe this claim then the photographer made an editorial decision to remove someone from the photo. Cropping a person out to make the image more visually pleasing was a bad editorial decision made by the photographer that should have been left to the photo editor. How do you know it wasn’t made by the photo editor? the image was cropped side and bottom. It increases the visibility of the subject matter. It’s photo 101 to crop an image so the subject represents a sizeable portion of it. who is the subject matter in the picture and what percentage of the image should the subject take up? ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2020, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-climate-activist-cropped-out-of-photo-with-greta-thunberg/846998/39 "2020-02-02T04:32:49Z")
> [@MandaJo](#): > > Do you mean that last line seriously, or are you being snarky? > > You seem to be saying “Obviously, she wasn’t cropped out with malicious intent, but if there had been boys, they certainly would have been”. You seem to be accusing people of being too sensitive, too quick to take offense about the case that actually did happen, while simultaneously being upset about a thing that didn’t happen, but that you feel sure would have happened, had the whole situation been different. I seem to be saying there are all manner of ISM’s that can be applied. With no boys it’s sexism to portray the activists as all girls. You can play that game all day with different classifications. I’m kinda wondering how the op knows the other four were young specimens of fine Aryan youths. ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2020, 8:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-climate-activist-cropped-out-of-photo-with-greta-thunberg/846998/40 "2020-02-02T08:53:31Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > How do you know it wasn’t made by the photo editor? …because (as I said) of the cite provided by the OP. > [@The Guardian](#): > > David Ake, the AP’s director of photography, told Buzzfeed UK that, under tight deadline, the photographer “cropped it purely on composition grounds”. > > “He thought the building in the background was distracting,” Ake said. > **[Outrage at whites-only image as Ugandan climate activist cropped from photo](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/24/whites-only-photo-uganda-climate-activist-vanessa-nakate)** > > Vanessa Nakate was excised from image, which also featured Greta Thunberg, ‘purely on composition grounds’ says Associated Press Now having said that: something doesn’t sound right. A photographer under tight deadlines isn’t going to be cropping on composition grounds. And if they did crop for composition: they would send through more than one image and they would send through both the cropped photo and a wider one for context. So I don’t know if they are throwing the photographer under the bus or not. But like you I would have thought that this was a decision taken by the photo editor: but apparently it wasn’t. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-climate-activist-cropped-out-of-photo-with-greta-thunberg/846998.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-climate-activist-cropped-out-of-photo-with-greta-thunberg/846998.md?page=3)