Africa Is a Country

Adopting Africa

Adopting Africa

By
Sonja Sugira

We should talk about American celebrities' obsession with adopting African babies. The mostly unfunny comedian Pauly Shore is not our guide.

A still from Pauly Shore's film "Adopted."

Proving yet again that Africa always comes to the rescue of those Hollywood celebrities in need of relevance, yesterday saw the straight-to-DVD release of a mockumentary on the celebrity African adoption craze from, wait for it, Pauly Shore. Both CNN and The Huffington Post give it the full treatment. Neither is worth your time.

Suffice it to say, this one won’t be getting a review from Allison.

In any case, this has been done before, and much better:

Further Reading

Writing while black

Percival Everett’s novel ‘Erasure’ raised questions about Black middle-class complicity in commodifying the traumas of Black working-class lives, but the film adaptation leaves little room to explore these tensions.

The Mogadishu analogy

In Gaza and Haiti, the specter of another Mogadishu is being raised to alert on-lookers and policymakers of unfolding tragedies. But we have to be careful when making comparisons.

Kwame Nkrumah today

New documents looking at British and American involvement in overthrowing Kwame Nkrumah give us pause to reflect on his legacy, and its resonances today.