This weekend Chelsea play Bayern Munchen in the European Champions League final. One player whose contribution is likely to be decisive is the Ivorian Didier Drogba. Cup finals always end in triumph or disaster, and Drogba has made a habit of exaggerating those extremes, either scoring the winner or else missing a penalty or getting himself disastrously sent off. Above is a clip of Drogba doing the rounds of English chat shows. [Read more...]
In the first sentence of my recent essay in Harvard’s Transition Magazine, I declared that I did not want to write about Nicholas Kristof because his writing was boringly predictable. But I also did not want to write about him because the fundamental problem my essay tries to explore is not really about him. It remains intriguing to me how he became the spokesperson and even poster boy for a certain kind of development and humanitarian intervention. Perhaps it’s even more interesting to ask why he is so resistant to changing the parameters of his thinking in the face of increasing criticisms. Just in the last few months Elliott Prasse-Freeman published a pointed critique in The New Inquiry, pointing out how Kristof’s advocacy is neo-colonial. Anthropologist Laura Agustín, in her blog The Naked Anthropologist and Counter Punch, used her own scholarship on prostitution to show clearly why the specifics and the particular histories and circumstances of the women Kristof claims to be rescuing actually do matter. But his writing certainly did not create the relationship between Americans and Africans that I find so disturbing.
In the last few days every journalist (or outraged blogger) covering #Kony2012 has been so busy reporting on what the bloggers have been saying and putting together salad after salad of African (and therefore authentic, true etc) opinion, that they have utterly failed to actually do any journalism. That’s right: reporting. Finding out what this thing is actually about. So far as I can tell there hasn’t been much of this. As a result the conversation has either taken the form of handwringing over What Is To Be Done in Northern Uganda (we all think we know more about this than six-year-old Gavin and so we can all speak with great confidence on such matters) or else gawping blankly at the colossal, though suspiciously self-pronounced, power of social media. A big part of the story that is being missed is that Invisible Children and their project are firmly rooted in evangelical Christianity.
I know we’re already seven days into March, but visual artist Michael Paul Britto’s request for ‘an extra day to be black’ in mainstream media outlets, still holds. (For those in the dark, he is ripping into Black History Month.)
Remember Mikko’s post on African Jokes? Comedian Mike Epps, a few days before he threatened his daughter with violence, gets some cheap laughs at the expense of Nigerians on late night US television.* Host Conan O’Brien gently guides him away.
Diamond dealers and mobile phone executives can relax. We’re talking American professional basketball. Josh Smith of the Atlanta Hawks recently dunks the ball on the head of Serge Ibaka of the Oklahoma City Thunder. (Remember Ibaka? The player without a country.) Priceless commentary 38 seconds into the video: “[Smith] just grounded Air Congo.”
Rumours are circulating on various Hollywood gossip and film blogs that Stringer Bell also known as Idris Elba — the East London boy made good in Hollywood — is next in line to play Nelson Mandela. Surfing on the mammoth success of his character in The Wire, his relatively popular series Luther on the BBC (but so shocked were we that he actually has an English accent it was difficult to concentrate on the rest), a brief role in Thor and the excited buzz (and fear) of Ridley Scott’s upcoming Alien prequel Prometheus, Elba is rumored to be the chosen one for an ‘official biopic’ of Mandela’s life. If the rumors are true, our beloved Stringer, the towering be-tracksuited crime underboss turned businessman will join a line of famous black actors who have attempted to incarnate the great Mandela. But do they incarnate, or impersonate? Lets have a look at their efforts. [Read more...]
I am trying to avoid the media blitz on the Superbowl and anybody keen to enthuse about all the “amazing” commercials. But sometimes I can’t look away. One trope gets me every time. It involves The New York Times and Giants linebacker Mathias Kiwanuka. Last week The Times did a profile of Kiwanuka. It recounts his tragic family history back in African: he’s the grandson of Uganda’s first prime-minister, Benedicto Kiwanuka, who was murdered by Idi Amin. Here’s what interesting: Basically the same story was published about Kiwanuka last week, in the Times in 2007 and before that in 2006. Like that’s the only story to tell about Kiwanuka.
As someone who grew up in the leafy suburbs next to the Kafue River, I’m no longer surprised when reporters and tourists exclaim about the tranquility to be found “inside the Real Africa”—with no irony whatsoever.
“Tchip Show” is the first situation comedy show on French TV revolving mainly around characters of Afro-Caribbean and African backgrounds living in Paris. Now in its fourth season, it made its debut as a webseries about five years ago before being picked up by the France Ô TV channel. You can watch them on the web in 5 minute instalments. French TV dramas are notorious for blacking out the country’s black and Arab populations, so we should welcome this effort as a first step in how things can change in the portrayal of Africans on French TV. Five years down the line, Tchip Show is still the only program in its kind. [Read more...]
