The Hall of Shame

We couldn't resist including a post with some of the lowlights of 2011.

Dave and Chantal's "colonial themed wedding," pictures of which has since been taken from the website of their wedding photographer.

Before Boima Tucker rides us out this year with West Africa’s best dance tunes, we made a list of ten

First up is the “colonial themed wedding” of a white South African couple,“Dave and Chantal,” who thought “colonial” and Apartheid themes at their wedding in South Africa complete with an all-black waiter staff in red fezzes, would be cool.

And while we’re on the subject of the rainbow nation, what about the white guy who posed with a gun in hand while kneeling over what appears to be a lifeless black child in South Africa like he killed an animal on a hunt. To make things better, he claimed he got “permission” from the parents of the child, who happened to work on his friend’s farm. Yeh, it’s like the new South Africa down on the farm. Then there are people who come up with ad campaigns like this one. In the logic of some white South Africans all their misdeeds are of course all Julius Malema’s fault. He made them nervous and so they did this.

Secondly, is the coverage of the DSK/Diallo case, particularly in the New York Post, and sometimes the New York Times (when it gleefully reported defense leaks) and definitely the French media, which very nonchalantly reported the details of Diallo’s identity long before she came out to do the interview and described her as “not very seductive”/unattractive.

Third is Nicholas Kristof, the New York Times columnist, known for his coverage of Africa. We picked him, because he can’t help himself. Elliot Ross has described Kristof as “probably the most hardline fetishist of the African body in pain.”

Fourth, basically everyone involved in ‘the nude revolution in Egypt” affair, including journalists who reported on it.

Joint fifth is Condé Nast Traveler and CNN. Conde Nast Traveler, because the luxury travel magazine included Libya as a holiday destination in its April edition.  The 250-word blurb proclaims “a door long shut is open again,” and ends with a recommendation to fly Lufthansa from New York’s JFK via Frankfurt to Tripoli, the latter which is subject to a NATO-imposed no-fly zone. They did the same with Egypt in their February issue. Then there was CNN confusing Libya with Lebanon.

Rapper 50 Cent is sixth. For pretending to want to stop child hunger in Africa. The real reason may be the sagging sales of his energy drink.

The Mandela Grandchildren is at number seven.  Three of Nelson Mandela’s grandchildren are getting their own reality TV show. Word is it will also be available on US cable television. One journalist likens the show to something resembling “the Kennedys, with a dash of the Kardashians.” I can’t even imagine what that means.

Number eight goes to Karen Leigh, Time Magazine’s “correspondent for West Africa,” for her parachute journalism on Foreign Policy’s website. She was sent to go write about political developments in South Africa. That’s like covering New York City politics and then flying to Moscow for a week and then claiming to understand Russian politics. Read our takedown here.

Coming in collectively at number nine are Euro-American foreign correspondents and celebrities who have to pose with African children in photographs because the local adults don’t want to.

Finally, to those commenters to this blog who feel compelled to remind us that Africa is not a country: we appreciate you.

Further Reading

And do not hinder them

We hardly think of children as agents of change. At the height of 1980s apartheid repression in South Africa, a group of activists did and gave them the tool of print.

The new antisemitism?

Stripped of its veneer of nuance, Noah Feldman’s essay in ‘Time’ is another attempt to silence opponents of the Israeli state by smearing them as anti-Jewish racists.