By Nangayi Guyson
Kampala, Uganda (RTN) - A Ugandan Climate advocate Vanessa Nakate who was inspired by world's renown young climate activist Greta Thunberg to start climate strikes in Uganda was removed from an image taken with her white peers in Davos.
Ms Vanessa Nakate 23, has accused the media of racism and social media users have come out in her support.
The Associated Press news agency removed her from a photograph taken with fellow activists Greta Thunberg, Loukina Tille, Luisa Neubauer and Isabelle Axelsson while at a press conference in where they had been invited by the organisers of the annual World Economic Forum (WEF) whose agenda this a year focused heavily on environmental issues.
Nakate was astonished to find out that she had been removed from the photograph. she rushed to twitter to protest "I was cropped out of this photo! Why?" Nakate asked on her Twitter account on Friday.
"You didn't just erase a photo. You erased a continent. But I am stronger than ever," said the 23-year-old, who posted an almost 11-minute-long video on the social media platform.
Following her post, Twitter users expressed their anger at the news agency's move and urged it to remove the cropped photograph and share one of all the activists.
Fellow activist Thunberg called the decision to crop her peer from the photo "unacceptable".
Following the backlash, AP removed the photo and replaced it with one showing all the activists.
"We regret publishing a photo this morning that cropped out Ugandan climate activist Vanessa Nakate, the only person of color in the photo," Sally Buzbee, the agency's executive editor, said in a statement.
"We have spoken internally with our journalists and we will learn from this error in judgment," the statement added.
The controversy even created a wider debate about how Western media covers climate activists of colour.
Twitter users meanwhile also pointed out that other agencies misidentified Nakate as Zambian activist Natasha Mwansa.
Additional information from AJ
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