Libya’s Race Problem
Colonel Gaddafi's alleged use of "black mercenaries," has put the question of race in Libya's revolution front and center.
Politics
The Murder of David Kato
This statement, signed by a group of African bloggers, including this site, was published a month after Ugandan LGBTQ activist David Katu's murder.
Luanda is Expensive
Those who pay the highest price for the high cost of living in the Angolan capital are not expatriates, but Angolans.
The Uprising
Dylan Valley talks his film revisiting violent events of September 2010 when Cape Town municipal police waged war on poor black residents of rich, white Hout Bay.
Photography: Yamandú Roos
Security Guard, World Cup, 2010, Soweto, South Africa.
A ticking time bomb
Will the slow pace of land reform in South Africa, be the undoing of the ANC government?
Tit for Tat
As the dominant narrative about Paul Kagame began to change, some Western journalists failed to catch up. They get mad when that's pointed out.
Deafening Silence
Why the deafening silence from African artists and musicians following the murder of gay activist David Kato?
Hosni Mubarak has a macabre sense of humor
We know that the Egyptian dictator has a macabre sense of humor: I am fed up. After 62 years in public service, I have had enough. I want to go [but] if I resign today, there will be chaos … I don’t care what people say about me. Right now I care about my country. […]
White History Month
Writer and journalist Gary Younge in a 2007 column in “The Nation”–that’s still worth repeating–on Black History Month (that’s every February here in the US). … So much of Black History Month takes place in the passive voice. Leaders “get assassinated,” patrons “are refused” service, women “are ejected” from public transport. So the objects of […]
This is not an accident
The pernicious belief, is founded on ignorance and prejudice, that certain women, including those with HIV, have no right to have children.
People who have lost the habit of ruling themselves
Africans are like the man in the Igbo proverb who does not know where the rain began to beat him and so cannot say where he dried his body.
Against the Values of the Market
Johnny Issel, who has died at age 68, was a prominent activist for leftist social movements in 1980s South Africa.
South Africa’s Glorious Moment
it is a testament to the hosts that my young daughter insists South Africa won the 2010 World Cup.
Well deserved
Before we close out the year we have to give a nod to the Centre for Development of People (CEDEP) in Malawi, has won the 2010 AIDS and Rights Alliance for Southern Africa (ARASA) HIV, TB and Human Rights Award. ARASA is a partnership of over 50 civil society organisations working together to promote a human […]
T.I.A. (Nollywood Edition)
Nollywood film posters in a store window on Nostrand Ave. in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn. Photo: Boima.
Pushed to the Limit
Political economist Hein Marais’ 1998 book, “South Africa Limits to Change: The Political Economy of Transition,” is a classic of the late 1990s. I have described Marais before, on this blog, as “… one of the trenchant critics of South Africa’s [political and economic] transition,” and the book “a masterpiece.” This past week Marais’ follow-up […]
Shameless Self Promotion: World Cup edition
Look out for a a special issue of African Journalism Studies on “The Fifa World Cup 2010 in the News.” I guest edited. While you’re contemplating whether you’d pay to read the opinions of academics on the greatest sporting event in the world, here’s the relevant parts from my introduction to the special issue: It is […]
Short Films: The African Immigrant Life in New York City
For the final assignment of a class I teach on Media and Africa at The New School I asked students to make short video profiles of African immigrant experiences in New York City. Most, if not all, of the students had never blogged before, nor filmed, much less edited something for public viewing. None of […]
Akon makes no sense
The Senegalese-American R&B singer, Akon, imagines himself some kind of African political leader and regularly opines on comparisons between African countries and the US. We wished he didn't.