Justin, I have a lot of time for your first comment. I think in many ways, you are right to write what you have. But all I might say is that, firstly, I am writing, at the moment anyway, from London. This post was a response to a feeling in London. It wasn’t a global perspective, either literally geographically or of my own overall thinking: I tend to write my posts at speed when something comes to mind. I was on a rage that morning. I could write another post another day that would be much more upbeat.
But I’m also not of the school of thought of positivity for ‘Africa’s sake’: I think it’s a patronising tendency. If you live in a slum with no clean water and crap transport and no job, the last thing you want is people (from abroad) patting you on the head and saying how much they lurve your country’s music and the colourful clothes etc. ‘Africans have so much hope’ is a phrase that makes my stomach turn. Of course there’s loads of positive stuff – as there is anywhere – but this post was a particular venting about a particular attitude that comes out of London (and elsewhere). And it’s one I hate. Less and less am I of the school of thought that Africans need ‘help’, as you suggest. The place that I have been ‘helped’ most in my life is Angola, where I believe I gained a proper education on the world. I don’t think Africa needs help; I think the world needs to fight for economic justice. (Reading your second comment just now, though, makes me think you probably agree, yes?)

Siddhartha, your comment made me laugh. You’ll be pleased to hear that I was actually thrown out of that ‘posh dinner party’ in Islington for my views and my outrage. I have never been back. I realised, as I marched up Upper Street, still having the argument with myself in the rain, that I was wasting my energy with these people and why, oh why?, had I ever bothered in the first place. So the energy, believe me, is being conserved! I love your final line: ‘A bit of measured, tactical, non-dogmatic separatism can be essential for staying focused and sane.’ I wish I’d learned that a bit earlier: but I kept on hoping I could help the buggers! (Not the Africans, Justin: the North Londoners!)

KonWomyn: I don’t think I said that Black Brits are too removed from Africa to write about Africa. My point is more that if you are a black writer in Britain – born of African parents perhaps, but perhaps not – the industries you work for (the publishers, the media etc) tend to essentialise you, insisting that because you are black you must write about ‘black stuff’, which to many in the industry (the kind of white liberals who live preciesly in North London etc), is writing about Africa to some extent.

I strongly believe that you should write about what you want to write about: Africans living in the UK shouldn’t be stuffed into a box of only being able to write about Africa or about being an African in London. And I personally know some black British writers whose publishers have asked them to please put a bit more of the dark continent into their work. What if they don’t want to? What if they haven’t lived there ever and feel they simply dont know enough? What if they’d rather write about discos in Manchester? What I really despise is the way that black British people and people of African descent are stereotyped to absurd degrees. I’m not going to mention names because the people who told me this are well known writers. You can guess who they are, but take it from me that they are important writers who are sick of being told they have to write about Africa or being black etc etc.. The same does not happen to white writers. I think it’s a form of racism, and reveals extraordinary degrees of ignorance within the industries. The writers must fight it!

Does railing against western depictions of Africa remove “the West” from the center of the conversation?
Of course there is a role for criticism of such depictions. Nor was I advocating engaging in some kind of propaganda campaign to promote the positive side of Africa.
People deserve thick and nuanced stories always.
But.
If you spend the majority of your time fighting the good fight against the white hegemon, in an important sense aren’t you simply “playing his game” by keeping him in your frame of view.
There is so much more going on in Africa (good, bad, or just complex and gray). Why not give it a little bit of attention too?

I complelety understand her passion and how frustrated she is, but she also situates her argument within the very stereotypes she is critical of. She makes some rather sweeping claims abt Black Brits being too far removed from Africa to know how to write about Africa – I’d like to know who are these writers? Are they relevant in 2010? Arminatta Forna? Ben Okri? Or Zimbabwean Brian Chikwava and Petina Gappah, who although based in Switzerland, won The Guardian Best First Book Prize last year.

It’s all well and good to rail against the stereotypes of Africa, but essentialist passion that does not provide a counter narrative and make known the truth is problematic IMO.

I hope when she goes to those high class parties she does the good work of filling in the missing chunks of the feel-good Africa gospel and talks about the African countries she lived in and what Africans really think.

To Justin’s comment, the problem with the “why don’t you present the positive stuff” request is that it keeps the “West” (white people, hegemon etc) in the center of the conversation. It’s all about what information they are being given, etc.

Enough spoon-feeding. A bit of measured, tactical, non-dogmatic separatism can be essential for staying focused and sane.