Some things I missed or could not give proper attention to this week:

* Apparently, “… Marlene Dumas, [the] South African-born artist whose work is sought by important collectors … has long kept a blacklist that prevents those she views as turning over her works too quickly from buying additional works by her.” I know; why am I posting this given that I don’t have money to buy US$6 million paintings? [Arts Beat Blog]

* Kelefa Sanneh on whiteness in The New Yorker: “… It is a delicate race, always on the verge of being overrun or adulterated, dethroned or debunked. The supposed perfection of whiteness makes it vulnerable: every flaw and quirk, every tangled bloodline and degraded specimen, is seen as an existential threat, poised to undermine the whole project.” [The New Yorker]

* The Committee to Protect Journalists has released its latest “Impunity Index,” a list of countries where journalists are killed regularly and governments fail to solve the crimes. Should we be celebrating that only one African country made the list? [Committee to Protect Journalists]

* My first reaction is to welcome the World Bank’s decision to put the wealth of information in its databases available for free on the web. In the past this was only available to subscribers. We’re talking “… full access to data from 209 countries, with some of the data going back 50 years.” [The World Bank]

* Greg Zachary on South Africa’s dominance in science and technology research and development in Africa: “No other African country comes close to matching South Africa in even a single area of research and development (R&D). Based on a survey of recently published research papers, the country accounts for 64% of all research undertaken in Africa.” Yet the South Africans have little to show for this dominance.[Earthzine]

* Nigerians are still looking for their President, Umaru Yar Adua, almost a month since he sneaked back into the country from Saudi-Arabia. [The Economist]

* Marco Roth (in n+1) mourns Jacques Derrida, who, with Edward Said was the last of the “great generation of intellectuals” [n+1]

* Vijay Prashad wonders why he is so obsessed with events in Palestine and Israel as opposed to, maybe, the Democratic Republic of Congo [Counterpunch]

* Toni Morrison in conversation with the South African writer Marlene van Niekerk in New York City on May 1st. I doubt, however, whether anything of worth gets said at such events beyond seeing deities in action and marveling in their presence. Hopefully, there’ll be a video afterward. [Pen American Center]

* At Cornell University, an African professor calls two black graduate students “black bitches.” The incidents and Cornell’s handling of it also opened a whole can of racist invective against Arabs and Africans for running African-American departments. [Cornell Sun]

* Nice. A township school in Cape Town is offering a class in animation. [Film Contact]

* Word from a friend who went to see parts of Connie Field’s “Have You Heard from Johannesburg” at Film Forum on Houston: “… I only saw the third part tonight and maybe you wouldn’t find it as interesting since you lived through it, but I found it fascinating. While the narrative was familiar to me, the details are so intimate (the spraying of protesters with purple-dyed water; what a truly masterful strategist and charismatic man [exiled ANC leader] Oliver Tambo was and [Allan] Boesak‘s defiance [as the effective leader of the 1980s opposition movement, the United Democratic Front), which reminded me that I always assumed he was framed in that embezzlement case.”

* Shameless self-promotion: Broadway World’s announcement of the David Goldblatt retrospective exhibit at the Jewish Museum this summer and a reference to my involvement again.

* Dara Kell, co-director of the new feature documentary, “Dear Mandela,” about a group of squatters in Durban, South Africa, informed me that the film will be done in December. That means screenings next year. Here’s a link to the original short.

* There’s nothing to see here. Keep on moving. Incumbent Omar Al Bashir “won” last week’s elections and will be president of Sudan for life. [Washington Post]

* Naijablog’s Jeremy Weate, who wrote Rough Guide’s 148-page section on Nigeria, speaks on the “challenges and rewards” of travel there. [World Hum]

* Bono (or his assistant) “wrote” another one of those half-baked streams of consciousness presented as the work of a “contributing columnist” for The New York Times last weekend entitled “Africa Reboots.” The solution is less regulation and markets and what reads like a commercial for Mo Ibrahim. Your call. [New York Times]

* Oh, and this is not a link, but a friend who teaches at Johannesburg’s top university emailed me this week: “… By the way, a white student came to visit my office, asking me what kwaito is. This after I had given a full lecture on the topic (!?!) …”