
Transnational eugenics
Few works sufficiently recognize the truly transnational character of the eugenics movement, and how colonial Africa served as the launching pad for it.
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Ladan Osman is the author of Exiles of Eden (2019) and The Kitchen-Dweller’s Testimony (2015). She lives in Brooklyn.

Few works sufficiently recognize the truly transnational character of the eugenics movement, and how colonial Africa served as the launching pad for it.

Burkina Faso is finally beginning to do right by the memory of revuolutionary leader, Thomas Sankara.





The policing of black hair often begins at a very young age, in the most subtle and intimate spaces, long before you get to school.

Next time ‘Die Stem’ part of the South African anthem plays, the appropriate reaction is to sit down or take a knee.

It is worth revisiting economic historian Morten Jerven’s book “Africa: Why Economists Get It Wrong” (2015), a refreshing contribution to the debate about development scholarship on Africa.


Dan Magaziner gets to shake the hand of Paul Kagame, a man many consider a dictator at best and a war criminal at worst.


The physical and mental health of a head of state, one assumes, is a basic requirement as to whether they can perform their job adequately. Not in some parts of Africa.

Italy also lacks a fully developed movement against racism led by people of color. It doesn’t help that white activists prefers to racism as xenophobia.

With the passing of the legendary Mozambican-born Eusébio in 2014, Ronaldo is now the undisputed face of Portuguese soccer.

Across Africa, the working poor often end up carrying the burden of raising tax revenue while the multinationals go scot-free. And women bear the brunt of it.

A political culture, often facilitated by social media, has emerged that many people experience as authoritarian and bullying.

Journalism on and about the continent tends to veer between the extremes of neglect or stereotype on the one end, and touristic exoticism on the other.


In Zimbabwe, the leap from online conversation to citizen protest has followed the same path as other protest movements around the world.