A power crisis
Andre De Ruyter, the former CEO of Eskom, has presented himself as a simple hero trying to save South Africa’s struggling power utility against corrupt forces. But this racially charged narrative is ultimately self-serving.
Race
The meanings of Heath Streak
Zimbabwean cricketing legend Heath Streak’s career mirrors many of the unresolved tensions of race and class in Zimbabwe. Yet few white Zimbabwean sporting figures are able to stir interest and conversation across the nation’s many divides.
Victorious
After winning Italy’s Serie A with Napoli, Victor Osimhen has cemented his claim to being Africa’s biggest footballing icon. But is the trend of individual stardom good for sports and politics?
The two Africas
In the latest controversies about race and ancient Egypt, both the warring ‘North Africans as white’ and ‘black Africans as Afrocentrists’ camps find refuge in the empty-yet-powerful discourse of precolonial excellence.
Where is Amazigh studies?
It is burgeoning field that intersects with Arabic, Francophone, Middle Eastern and African studies. But why is Amazigh Studies absent in Anglophone academia?
With respect
A new film by French-Senegalese director Alain Gomis uncovers how American jazz giant, Thelonious Monk, was disrespected by French media at the end of his European tour in 1969.
The Africanness of North Africa
As xenophobic attacks and anti-black rhetoric ramp up in North Africa, it is useful to highlight (or remember) the fluid, intertwined histories of the Saharan region.
No one should be surprised we exist
The documentary film, 'Rolé—Histórias dos Rolezinhos' by Afro-Brazilian filmmaker Vladimir Seixas uses sharp commentary to expose social, political, and cultural inequalities within Brazilian society.
This is what they don’t want you to know
A new film on the life of Walter Rodney gives a glimpse of his radical solidarity politics and centers on his family, who struggled and suffered with him.
The ways of South Africa’s cricket establishment
In South African cricket, almost three decades after white rule ended, “local talent” means “local white talent,” even if you’re the national team captain.
Why is Egyptian social media against black pharaohs?
The notion that black people were kings in Ancient Egypt is generating a social media backlash. Understanding the racialized legacy of Egyptology can explain why.
Ignore and rule
What do Europeans do when they hear the war waged by the government of Ethiopia has killed more people than the war in Ukraine?
Forms of woundedness
The intergenerational traumas of an anti-Black world in August Wilson's Fences are only too familiar to South Africans.
“Black African” may be oxymoronic
For many African immigrants in the United States, being seen as Black doesn’t necessarily equate to seeing oneself as Black.
Stop paying attention to Jonathan Jansen
The South African professor is under fire for suggesting life under apartheid was better than life under democracy. Stop giving him so much airtime.
The humiliating weight of Frenchness in Tunisia
Tunisia had sought to Arabize itself since independence and failed. It's relation to France still very much defines the country's character.
The limits of the cop drama
A bleak new television drama, ‘Donkerbos,’ explores secrets in small town South Africa, but fails to offer alternatives to the tropes of good vs evil.
Small rebellions
Anti-blackness is on the rise in Ayiti. But Haitians and Dominicans are resisting, in ways big and small.
The Managers of Brazil
In the wake of the insurrection in Brazil, an Afrobrazilian reflects personally on the entanglement of race and class in the country, and on what needs to be done to unravel it.
Writing whiteness, writing America
What happens when black and brown authors write about white people? Although novels by Chinelo Okparanta and Mohsin Hamid tread into this risky unknown, they do not go far enough.