North Dakota’s disappearing rural towns and “emptied” prairie were featured in this piece in National Geographic and the backlash has been very interesting. A lot of people here are outraged by the narrow perspective on North Dakota and by, for example, the lack of mention to ND’s growing economy, metropolitan/culture centers like Fargo, and more. It caused such a controversy that abc news made all of North Dakota its person of the week. This abc news clip gives a great summary of what has been happening. Be patient through the commercial that comes on first and just watch it. Do it. And try to be an anthropologist: notice how “the people” of ND are addressed and who responds. Think about who might be left out of these pictures. And more importantly, who is left of out of the critique of who’s being left out?

National Geographic makes its living by printing overly romanticized portrayals of people that may be considered by others as less civilized, more pure, closer to nature, very exotic, etc. Most portrayals of such people are narrow, extremely narrow. When that portrayal hits too close to home, i.e. white people in the U.S.A., then people are outraged! If you think the above clip was interesting, you should read some of the letters to the editor around here (don’t worry, I saved them). As I mentioned on Graeme’s post about this topic, when the portrayal focuses on seemingly very different, exotic people of color from other cultures, especially those with bare breasts and big jewelry, then it’s considered an educational piece. I beg to differ and so do many people in “those” cultures that are being narrowly portrayed though some might not take their outrage as seriously, or even hear about it.

I would love to hear your comments and questions about this. Hit the comment button. Go on, do it. Tell me what your perspective of North Dakota is…