wtf?

[ratcreature]

Okay, the phrasing in this BBC article is really awful. It talks about the Andaman islands, and an isolated indigenous tribe. And it has this sentence (paraphrasing an argument for creating some sort of buffer zone between the tribal area and the rest of the island): "[...] the Jarawas should be totally isolated from human habitation and no commercial activity be allowed near their habitat." Seriously, that article talks about these people like giant pandas, as if they weren't humans as well.

Comments

[lanning]

Wow. Yeah, that's blatantly offensive. I'm not surprised, though -- it looks like British attitudes toward the indigenous people of the Andamans hasn't changed much since Conan Doyle's day.

[ratcreature]

Yeah. It's one example in a long line of writings casting some people as not quite as human as the rest of us, what with the "human habitation" vs. the "Jarawa habitat".