The Postcolonial Commodification of Gloria Huang’s Black, Disabled Body: A Case Study in Media Ethics

Abstract

Eight-year-old Gloria Huang, a native of Ghana, suddenly and unexpectedly passed away in Qatar in January 2013. Gloria, a special needs child with a severe eating disorder, had been adopted from an African orphanage at age four by an American couple of Asian descent, Grace and Matthew Huang. Intercultural misunderstandings and miscommunication, coupled with media sensationalism, quickly compounded an already tragic situation when Gloria died. Grace and Matthew were arrested, tried, and detained by the Qatari government, which, when unconvinced of Gloria’s disability status, accused the couple of complicity in their daughter’s death. The subsequent media coverage surrounding Gloria’s death revealed vestiges of colonialism and the commodification of African bodies. Although many of the descriptions of the incident centered around the injustices leveled against Grace and Matthew, Gloria herself, as an individual human being with a disability, received much less attention. Rather, much coverage focused instead on her body as the object of the controversy. Media outlets further disputed her disability status. At one point, Gloria’s adoptive parents even faced false accusations that they had murdered their daughter in order to sell her organs. Building on a meta-analysis of sources including print and online newspapers, media websites, televised news segments, social media, and published interviews, this chapter is grounded in postcolonial theory and its influence on media ethics in the coverage surrounding Gloria Huang’s disability and death. The chapter is ultimately about Gloria, and it is dedicated to her memory and dignity as a person of African heritage with a disability.