Africa Is a Country

Photography: 'New Men'

Photography: 'New Men'

By
Sean Jacobs

[slideshow]

From new work by Cape Town-based photographer Araminta de Clarmont. A photo series on ikrwala (young Xhosa initiates) posing in new clothes–symbolizing their status as “new men”–after returning from initiation school. De Clarmont photographed the young men, who all still attend high school, in the classrooms where they get a formal education: “… As their suits demand instant respect – so too do the men wearing them. Yet what may be the validity of believing in a fresh start, when one’s surroundings have not changed as one has oneself?“

Further Reading

Writing while black

The film adaptation of Percival Everett’s novel ‘Erasure’ leaves little room to explore Black middle-class complicity in commodifying the traumas of Black working-class lives.

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.