I dunno, the wording you use ("The photos are of her with animals, mostly,") is a little misleading, since it could mean anything from three photos (3/5 of the total is "mostly") to the actual twenty-two photos (22/24 is a lot bigger of a difference). Precision in description would be handy, especially since your argument is partially based on the presence of these two photos.

Also, one of the two photos that had no animals in it is ostensibly of hunting (although I admit that it could have been staged). Arguably, though, wild animals are the target of hunting -- or the eventual goal of hunting practice. That there is no animal in the screen doesn't change that the composition of that photo deals with animals. That would make it 23/24 photos that have animals (or hint at animals), which then places only one out of twenty-four.

Also, you may be throwing a little too much emphasis on a single meaning of "with". True, "with" does mean to be in a common place with other things, but it also can mean a more generalized interaction. For example, when I say to someone who asks me out, "Sorry, but I'm with someone," that doesn't mean that my girlfriend is standing next to me at the time, but that I already am engaged in a specific social relationship (the physical lack of my girlfriend at that instance notwithstanding). Similarly, if I am asked if I have my bag with me, I can (depending on the setting) answer in the affirmative, even though my bag may not be in my immediate proximity (i.e., not in the same "picture" as I am). Therefore, depending on where you draw your boundaries (in space and in time), one could argue that the child did grow up with wild animals... as well as her parents and the people who make that particular region home.

Sorry, but I'm thinking that you're stretching it here when you berate (kindly admittedly) the blog's authors and the editor of the Telegraph. Now, if you had, instead, commented on the problem of conflating African nations into a single pan-African country, and used the opening line of the post at Silly Village ("This French girl, Tippi, was born in Nairobi, Africa in 1990.") or the Telegraph's conflation of different regions of the former European empires as effectively interchangeable (references to Mowgli, who grew up in India and not Namibia), then I would be on board with you on this one. But, as I said before, I think that you're stretching to make the point you want to, instead of the more obvious ones in front of you.

Humans are animals too.

I "liked" Umlud's comments because I believe that it's possible for writers and bloggers to make minor mistakes.

It seems to me that labeling a series of photos "The Real-Life Mowgli who Grew Up with Africa’s Wild Animals,” and including in that series photos of Tippi in hunting stances with other African people* is a mistake. But I don't think that mistake is particularly egregious. I don't think the writers/bloggers meant that the Black Africans were animals. So yes, in this instance, I considered what I believed the intent was.

However, if the blogs or newspaper animals had said something about "wild Africans" or referred to Africans as monkeys, I would have no doubt that those comments would have crossed what I consider to be an obvious line.

Apart from that subject, in regards to the Telegraph article, I would have preferred to read comments from now 18 year old Tippi about her life as a child rather than all the comments about her coming from her mother. 

*A sentence from the Telegraph article reads [Tippi's mother] "Sylvie added: "Tippi believes she is African and she wants to get a Namibian passport. She wants to become an ambassador for Namibia".  Hence my sentence about "Tippi with other Africans.

Why is there a "mistake" anywhere here?! 

The African humans are ALSO "growing up with animals."  This is really the same as saying, in a photo series called "Jane Doe in Paris," a photo of the Eiffel Tower is "misleading" or a "mistake" if Jane Doe doesn't appear in it.  Or a photo of in front of a car in a series called "My Motorcycle Journey" is a mistake...

If you grew up with animals... are you ALWAYS with animals?  You travel by bus... do you never walk? 

Like Umlud said, you're seriously stretching to see something you *want* to see. 

How many animals have taught you how to use a bow and arrow?!

Umlud's interpretation seems a little more reasonable to me. It's a stretch because the colonial-narrative is a systemic problem here. I'm not sure it would solve the article's problems by leaving out the wild animals and instead, directly suggesting that there's something noteworthy about a French girl growing up with a group of Mowgli. In fact, making it a story about conflicts between wilderness/society, rather than Mowgli/French, might make it easier to interpret humanism as the primary theme of the article.

Comparing her to Mowgli is just jaw droppinly insane - if that's the same tribe in all photos, she's not only grown up with her parents, but within a fully fleged society. That girl is no closer to Mowgli than anyone who's grown up on a farm

People getting up in arms over this post would do well to look around at more than just this single photo shoot and notice that in media, black people, as a rule, tend to be depicted less as individual members of society, and more as exoticised props. Everything from modelling shots to photos of humanitarian work feature masses of shiny, loincloth-clad black people as a backdrop to one or two (civilized) white people who are always the intended focus. So while you may be able to rationalize this specific shoot, it has to be remembered that nothing in culture occurs in a vaccuum, and that this is part of a larger whole that dehumanizes POC for the purpose of glorifying a white subject.

Another example of "negroes and other animals" here:

http://eurasian-sensation.blogspot.com/2010/08/h-is-for-horse-n-is-for.html

Have you ever noticed that when people move from a developing country to another country, they are called immigrants? Yet when people move from a developed country, they are called ex-patriates? I think that is what is going on here. The images are supposed to be interesting because we wouldn´t expect a white girl to be performing the activities of Namibians. But would the opposite imagery work? A Namibian child in France, doing «typically» French things? There are many Africans and French Africans in France - and there are many White people in Namibia, Afrikaaners and also ex-patriates, like Tippi´s parents.

Why is this imagery supposed to be interesting? Why is there a market for it? I can understand why the pictures would be cute for her parents, family, their friends. But what are they selling to the public? It is exoticism.

Wow, so much derailing in this conversation. Frustrating.

The Telegraph article talks ONLY about Tippi's relationships with animals and how Tippi was raised in "the wilderness."  Of course, there were human beings living in that wilderness, and undoubtedly also developing relationships with the elephants etc living around them, but they are not mentioned by Tippi's mother, who was interviewed for the story, or by  the Telegraph reporter. Since the story was triggered by the release of Tippi's book about her experiences, it's very possible that Tippi is equally responsible for this characterization of Namibia as wild and uninhabited (and thus, perhaps, uninhabitable except by the "primitive.")

We also might talk about who gets to write about and receive recognition for these experiences. What about the surely numerous black Namibians who live in the "wilderness" and interact with various "wild" animals? Where are there stories? What role do exoticism, wealth, white privilege, and a Western history of colonialism play here?   

I just want to know what's up with her hair. She looks like either an action figure or a l'oreal model.

If you want to see conflation of native peoples with animals, look at the final cutscene of the new Lego video game for Pirates of the Carribean.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8lch53tkp4

if you go to 6:20 you'll get the after credits cutscene.  I just played the game to get to that point, and thought of this post immediately after the shock wore off.  

From these examples, she's a very young girl out with 'the men and boys', too, with no restrictions or limitations it seems.  Does that say something about the status/privilege/opportunities of white males, white females, indigenous men and indigenous females...?

... you do know humans are animals, right?

i think you are all missing the forest for the trees. in fact, i think you are not even seeing the trees, you are too busy looking in the microscope at the microbes fitching around in the soil. i'm not being offensive, i'm just saying that when i read this article and the comments, valid as they may be, i did not see a single word of wonder or fascination with the subject matter. somewhere in all those sociology courses, perhaps you lost the capacity to see something beautiful.