PG-Rated Prejudice?

“Only this little teeny bit of Africa is a jungle. All of this is a desert. All this is a whole bunch of beaches, and waterfalls, and fishing places. And these are big cities with buildings and lakes and parks and schools. And up here is oil. (OIL!) And down here, there’s diamonds. (DIAMONDS!). And [...]

Madonna’s Second Adoption

Madonna is back in Malawai with intend to adopt a second child, a daughter. She adopted David Banda from the same country in 2006, the process which recieved wide publicity and international criticism. Back then, Malawi adoption laws did not allow out of country adoption, but the rules were bent a bit, as is usual [...]

Alphabetical Africa

I’m trying to figure out why Alphabetical Africa doesn’t work for me, and I think it comes down to trust in the author. This is really quite ironic, since as Professor Parham was saying in class, no good book shows its form- in another words, it is effectively a trick, yet it is the only [...]

Africa- The New Business Destination

I recently read an article in Time magazine about the 10 ideas that are changing the world today. One of them mentioned how Africa is the new popular business destination. The main investors are the Chinese. What I found most interesting was that the Chinese aren’t coming to Africa to give them aid or save [...]

The Evolution of Celebrity Causes

As described here, George Clooney, after his recent time with the only U.S. journalist doing consistent reporting in Darfur over the past few years, Nicholas Kristof, met with President Obama to talk about the ongoing genocide.  Upon leaving, he announced publicly to the news media that the President’s administration intended to send a special, high-level [...]

The Last King Of Scotland: a Serious and then a More Humorous Take

This was the first time I’ve seen The Last King of Scotland, which is unfortunate because I think that it would have been particularly interesting to compare an earlier, more passive viewing of this film to the experience of viewing it more analytically in the unavoidable context of this class (I say unavoidable because even [...]

The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency

I initially noticed this new series premiering on HBO this Sunday from an ad for it in this month’s Vanity Fair and was pulled in by the kenti cloth the woman is wearing, the afro she is rocking, and the very typical animals grazing in the sunset in the back. After doing some reading on the [...]

Amin as a Signifier of African Corruption

From conducting some quick and dirty research, it is clear that a large enough portion of The Last King of Scotland is fictionalized that the notice at the beginning that it is based on a true story is incredibly deceptive. The character of Dr. Garrigan is completely fictional, albeit loosely based on a British soldier [...]

Chappelle, The Boondocks, and the gaze

A few weeks ago, Dave Chappelle was mentioned, and it reminded me of conversations I’d had in regards to his deciding against continuing the show. The question has arisen in various readings, most recently in the Rogoff, of who is allowed to look, at what, and why. As a result of histories of colonialism and [...]

clip from the Onion

I was digging through old stuff on the Onion the other day, and found this clip about Nigeria:
In The Know: Situation In Nigeria Seems Pretty Complex
Obviously it’s a riff on how clueless Americans actually are about African countries, but I couldn’t help but think back to one of our earliest classes, and Professor Parham’s comments [...]