“You did not only cut me out of the photo, but you erased a whole continent,” Says Ugandan climate change activist who was removed from a photo she took with Greta Thunberg and other climate change activists.
Vanessa Nakate, who is 23-years of age, is a Ugandan climate activist. She attended the World Economic Forum 2020 at Davos along with Greta Thunberg and others but however was disappointed to see that she was cropped out of a photo published by popular news agency, Associated Press (AP). Venessa with sadness and disbelief took to Twitter to address the issue.
The photo was taken on Friday, January 24. and Nakate was part of a news conference on climate change. She sat with four other passionate climate activists which include Thunberg, Luisa Neubauer, Isabelle Axelsson and Loukina Tille. At the end of the press conference, they had a group photo taken. But when the photo got published online by the Associated Press, they cropped Nakate out of the iconic photo.
This caused an outrage and AP is slammed racist because Nakate was the only African activist at the conference.
Reacting to being cropped out of the photo, Vanessa took to Twitter to write: “I was cropped out of this photo! Why?”
She also shared a ten-minute long video on what it means to be cropped out of a photo. Sobbing in the video, Vanessa Nakate explained how the experience was the “hardest thing.”
Share if you can
What it means to be removed from a photo! https://t.co/1dmcbyneYV— Vanessa Nakate (@vanessa_vash) January 24, 2020
In another tweet, Vanessa posted the original photo with her face in it and wrote: “You didn’t just erase a photo You erased a continent But I am stronger than ever.”
Greta Thunberg too responded to Nakate and said “I’m so sorry they did this to you… you are the last one who would deserve that! We are all so grateful for what you are doing and we all send love and support!! Hope to see you soon again!!”
Following the criticism, Associated Press responded saying that there was no ill intent on their part and that a number of images have been published of Nakate from the conference.
