The way we tell stories
Raoul Peck's 'Exterminate All the Brutes' missed the opportunity to engage with the history of colonialism in a way that empowers viewers to imagine a future in which whiteness is not the locus of power and authority.
Culture
العدمية كحالة أفريقية خاصة
تكمن فرادة حالة العدمية في أفريقيا كتاريخ وحضارة وشعوب في ارتباطها المتشعب بواقع دموي عنيف من جهة وصيرورة رؤى طوباوية من جهة أخرى، كما يعبر عنه كل من رواية "ذوي الجمال لم يولدوا بعد" للكاتب الغاني ايي كواي أرما وفيلم "آخر أيام المدينة" للمخرج المصري تامر سعيد.
Three psychologies of Mau Mau
How racialized intellectual outputs placed in just the right circumstances can do the most damage.
The Nigerian and the Lenin Prize
Peter Ayodele Curtis Joseph was a prominent left nationalist in Nigeria’s struggle for independence. Then he was forgotten. How do we commemorate him?
Trapped by history
Mexican American director John Gutierrez new film, set in Cape Town, South Africa, touches on colonialism, displacement, and man’s complicated relationship with nature.
The legacy of French colonial psychiatry
French psychiatry in West Africa saw Black bodies as “alien” to white ones. It hasn't changed much.
The house of migrants
Two brilliant filmmakers and two stunning documentaries creating new narratives about migration.
International thief thief
There can no longer be false justifications for holding Benin Bronzes, and other pilfered materials, in museums outside of Africa.
The making and unmaking of permanent minorities
Mahmood Mamdani’s new book asks how communities that have been enemies can heal. But does it succeed?
The possibility of thought
A Black South African academic in the United States on breaking the silence on Israeli apartheid in US classrooms and on campuses.
A child of the Rwandan diaspora and the longing for home
A film about young Rwandan-Canadian creates more questions than it answers, particularly about identification, belonging, and memory.
Exile is more than a geographical concept
Episode #39 of AIAC Talk is about exile: a new film on a Libyan dissident and a new exhibition on the black experience. Watch it live Tuesday on YouTube.
John Brown had a sick beard
Grégory Pierrot’s searing analysis of the deep roots of white supremacy and black exploitation in hipster culture. He also offers a way out of this.
Silicon Valley in Africa
Western tech companies in Africa often claim to be "social entrepreneurs." But do their models reduce or contribute to inequality?
Writing is a cultural weapon
South African and Palestinian poets on the shared experiences of Apartheid and resistance. This week on AIAC Talk. Watch it Tuesday on Youtube.
The specter of Mannetjies Roux
An encounter on a cross continental flight with white South African men and their ways, by Robina Marks, a black woman and South Africa’s ambassador in Benin.
Another essentializing moment?
Since Stuart Hall wrote critically about race as an analytical category in the 1980s, naturalized accounts of race are back with a vengeance.
Don’t be fooled by a catchy tune
How the international soundtrack to Black Lives Matter critiques the present by reworking the past.
Farther on from Zion
To consider Bob Marley today demands we look back across distance to the place and age that brought him to us.
Movement of Jah people
This week on AIAC Talk, we reflect on Bob Marley, the “last rock star” and the first artist of world music on the anniversary of his death. Watch it Tuesday on Youtube.