Three Myths about Mandela Worth Busting
The Nelson Mandela encountered by former antiapartheid activist Tony Karon in American media is so unrecognizable.
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Golda Gatsey
Golda Gatsey is a freelance writer and customer relationship manager.
Tata Mandela
The Mandela Capture Memorial in Howick, Kwazulu Natal speaks eloquently to the essential truth: that in South Africa, some families mattered more than other.
Madiba: I Remember
The writer, originally from Cape Town, remembers Nelson Mandela’s impact on his life.
10 excuses Dutch people make for blackface
The Dutch can’t hide how racist the “tradition” of the blackface character, Zwarte Piet, is. Here we parody their rationalizations.
The Book of North African Literature
Pierre Joris and Habib Tengou edit a book about the multiple beginnings, traditions and genealogies in the literatures of the many languages of the region, and the region’s diasporas.
Is the Central African Republic on the Verge of Genocide?
Over the last few weeks, the usually unrelenting stream of baby pictures and lose-weight ads in
King of Soukous
An Adieu to Tabu Ley Rochereau, the master rumba singer-songwriter from the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
How much is an African body worth?
An African refugee in Britain seeks assistance. He is thrown behind bars, often shackled. He fasts in protest. He is shackled and shipped out on the next charter flight.
Antiblack racism in Korea
Racist representations of Africans are common in South Korea. Where does it come from? Why do South Koreans behave this way?
Azonto Americana
The Ghanaian dance music craze has finally arrived in the United States after sweeping Europe and the continent. Will it catch on here?
The loser mentality of white South Africans
On the rather extraordinary claim that white South Africans have been politically and economically marginalized since the inception of majority rule in 1994.
Somali Justice
A rare and informative glimpse into a situation and part of the world that normally only receives minimal, lazy, and inaccurate coverage.
Weekend Music Break 63
We kick off our weekly installment of new music videos with OttawaParis-based Mélissa Laveaux riding the
Bombino: Nomad, but much more
Bombino, the Tuareg musician from Agadez in northern Niger, wants to show the world the multiple, and often joyful sides of life in the region.
The Afropolitan Must Go
Is it a good idea to separate African urbanites from the rest of their cohort? How is that even constructive, wonders the writer of Norwegian and Tanzanian descent.
Street Photography in Johannesburg: Akinbode Akinbiyi
I love the way that Nigerian photographer Akinbode Akinbiyi works. I mean his approach to photography and the way that he uses his camera. At least in the video below, he's shooting with a Rollei Twin Lens Reflex (TLR) camera, using the sports finder. That immediately makes him one of my favorite photographers. I adore Rollei TLRs, and it's tremendous fun to use the sports finder. The technique, like the camera itself, went out of fashion in the early '60s, except among fans and eccentrics. (I'm both, I'll admit.)
Before They Resurrect the Noble Savage
Jimmy Nelson’s photographs are deliberately constructed to capitalize on his own vision of these groups.
Wangechi Mutu in conversation with Trevor Schoonmaker
Schoonmaker: When did you start to see work by African artists that you did respond to? Was that in New York? Mutu: In New York, ironically, you know, in the early ’90s. Richard Onyango, one of Kenya’s big painters, was one of the first shows I saw.
My Favorite Photographs: Arnaud Contreras
Since 1999, Contreras has documented, via documentary films, radio programs and photographs, dramatic changes to the Sahara.
The death of Oury Jalloh
One of Germany’s most enigmatic post-war lawsuits will have to be reviewed. This post is both a chronology of what is sufficiently proven and a list of the numerous crudities that remain. What is can't be disputed can be summed up in one sentence: On 7 January 2005, Oury Jalloh, an asylum seeker from Sierra Leone, burned to death in a police cell in the city of Dessau. The narrative about these events that has dominated public dialogue in Germany ever since has followed the official version of events as they were uttered on the very same day by the police. It goes like this: