The western media has focused so hard on the idea of African failure that it has somehow managed to equivocate two vastly unequal realities. By Michelle Chikaonda Even in the era of COVID-19, the West and its media are unable to cease salivating for African failure. Early on in the pandemic, when Europe was quickly...
Tag: Africa
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Colonizers Were and Are The Real Looters
Colonialism and settler-colonialism rely upon the consistent theft, resource extraction, and looting of Indigenous people’s land, goods, bodies, and lives. When you hear pundits moan and whine about the immorality of looting, what they’re usually referring to is people breaking into stores and taking goods from inside during a protest or riot. A recent example...
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The History of Consumption and The Cannibalistic Nature of Whiteness
Europeans devouring Egyptian mummies. The Donner Party cannibalizing their Indigenous American guides. White people have consumed the Other in many ways. TW/CW: This essay discusses cannibalism, murder, lynching, suicide, and bodily mutilation Mercy Brown was not the first to die. Her mother and sister had already gone, nearly a decade before her. Still, Mercy would...
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Voluntourism Is Colonialism Wrapped In The White Savior Complex
Through voluntourism, the white savior complex repackages and presents notions of the primitive African that white people use to further colonialism. Trigger warning: sexual assault against and surgical procedures on Black children. By Naila Aroni So there I was browsing Tinder when I came across something awful and disturbing. I’d like to immediately establish that...
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White Supremacy, Colonialism and Fatphobia are Inherently Tied to Each Other
“People are so enamored with white mediocrity they think I should be grateful to sit at a table I’m probably overqualified to be at.” – JerVae By Hess Love Everything that we know about “obesity” is an indictment on white supremacy, and everything about who we listen to regarding it is bullshit. The centering of...
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Words Mean Things: Understanding Colonialism
Colonization is the act of forcefully stripping sovereignty of a country through acquisition of land, resources, raw material, and governmental structures. My turn to state an equation: colonization = “thing-ification.” – Aimé Césaire The use of social media as a powerful tool for free education on various topics continually rises, with definitions, experiential narratives, and...
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If Rihanna Wants To Be Styled As Nefertiti, Y’All Can Keep Your Shady Remarks In The Trash Where They Belong
Perhaps Rihanna is a descendant of Nefertiti and this Vogue cover has some divine purpose. The truth is because of the genocide that was the slave trade, we’ll never know. When I first saw Rihanna’s November cover for Vogue Arabia I found her eye makeup mesmerizing. It’s quite possible the makeup artist used her limited-edition...
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Busting the Myths of Santeria — And Their Anti-Black Origins
Cuba was the first country I visited where I was able to blend in. Despite my modest Spanish skills, as long as I kept mum, locals assumed I was Afro-Cuban, and other tourists gravitated to paler, more familiar faces for translations and directions. For the first time in my life, I was able to enter...
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Want to Fight Trump’s Hate? Read These Books About Refugees.
Books about refugees are popular right now, and reading them will make you more empathetic. And then you can begin to fight back. People are hungry for stories about refugees, especially since President Donald Trump introduced an immigration ban on seven Muslim-majority countries including the ones embroiled in war. In response, fiction and non-fiction publishers are increasingly opening their doors to...
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Texas Students Walk Out After Hearing Humans Came From Africa Because of Course They Did
For (white) students at Texas State University, the truth about human origins was just too much. The truth hurts. Undergraduate students at Texas State University in San Marcos discovered that fact recently after they sat for a lecture from their professor, John McGree, in which he told students that all humans originated on the African continent. Well, apparently,...