TweetIn the lead up to the short list announcement for the Nobel Prize in Literature on 30 May, headlines this week brought to the fore the problematic obsession that some people have with the Nobel Prize in Literature being awarded to the late Chinua Achebe. For years, the pre-announcement period has seen speculations demands as to whether [...]
TweetThe world has never been as patriarchal as it is today. I’m not claiming that individual societies don’t treat their women better than they did previously, but in the globalised, interconnected world we live in, we can no longer consider issues in an isolated fashion. So as we now consider the situation of women everywhere, [...]
Tweet When it comes to places, the affection that I have for my hometown, Lagos, is matched only by a sort of nostalgia that I harbour towards Tampere, the Finnish city I’m from, which shapes many of my memories but in which I’ve never lived. Yet, my being Scandinavian feels like a secret. Not from anyone, [...]
TweetSpike Lee did the right thing in publicly taking issue with Django Unchained, the latest Quentin Tarantino movie about a freed African slave who embarks on a violent journey to save his wife. The wife character, Broomhilda, played by Kerry Washington is monotonous to discuss for hers is a shockingly flat role. Her character serves [...]
Tweet I have a post at Black Feminists UK today, Results of the 2011 census were published in the UK this week revealing that the number of mixed-race people in Britain has almost doubled in ten years. As a result, several journalists distributed what I’d call “unwarranted postracialism”, suggesting, for instance, that thanks to people like Jessica [...]
TweetBBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour is to publish a Power List to rank the 100 most powerful women in the UK at the start of 2013. The list will answer – Which women have the biggest impact on our economy, society, politics and culture? Who has the ability to inspire change as a role model or [...]
Tweet This is the last in a series of posts discussing intersectionality. Read the previous two here and here. In this clip of The Actors, Denzel Washington speaks about the advice he has given to his daughter. He explains that as a black person, a woman — and a dark-skinned one at that – she is likely [...]
TweetThis is part II of three blogs about intersectionality. Read the first post here. “Woman is the Nigger of the World” and “The Black Man’s Burden” When Kimberlé Crenshaw coined the term intersectionality in 1989, she was criticising work that treated race and gender as exclusive parts of human experience and that as a result [...]
TweetMy next three blogs are going to be about intersectionality, a theory that originates from the black feminist struggle and that has since truly revolutionised academic thought and even state policy. Following dishonest and misleading claims that feminism has always been a white middle class movement by Vagenda Magazine, publications such as the New Statesman, the guardian and The Independent among others have [...]
Tweet On this your certain journey Do you ever doubt you have a beauty to match the strength of those of us who carve a strength to match your beauty? ~Abena P.A. Busia Images of Zoe Saldana at the shoot of the Nina Simone biopic have emerged. Her casting is creating so much anger. Resentment. Sadness. [...]
Tweet Why write about gorillas and Africa? Because there is an alarm about Gorillas in the midst of Congo conflict /////// One ~ Tourists will generally shy away from unstable regions but this is not the case when it comes to regions with gorillas so I was wondering about touristic ideas of Africa and its [...]
TweetTwenty-five years ago Black History Month was officially launched in the UK with an aim to “Promote race equality, equality of opportunity and good relations between persons of different racial groups”. The premise was that it would eventually be eliminated when black history became fundamental to general history. Since then, year after year, come October, black [...]
TweetIn my view, if Kimathi Donkor‘s painting of Queen Nanny of the Maroons was an antique, precious Tarot card, she would be ‘The High Priestess’, standing as a veil between life and death, her arms outstretched; one mercifully forgiving, the other holding a deadly sword, reminding us that when it comes to life, she both [...]
TweetWhen people ask me what I do, and I respond that I’m a blogger, and that I blog about topics that primarily concern African women, quite often they proceed to either tell me about an humanitarian or developmental cause they are involved with or have read about. Sometimes they ask me how my blog reaches [...]
TweetI submitted the below post to the Huffington Post editors before the racist and sexist cover image of Michelle Obama as a nude slave appeared in one of Spain’s biggest newspapers, El Mundo’s, supplement. This morning an interview with Gabby Douglas went live revealing that her teammates called her a slave. Unfortunately, the constant tending [...]
Tweet Firstly, it is important to say that when it comes to theory, it’s more accurate to speak of African feminisms than of one almighty African feminism. Not all African feminists agree with each other–luckily, I’d add, as this would hinder deep reflection of issues such as those listed below–yet respecting differences whilst recognizing a common [...]
Tweet Beyonce was crowned most beautiful woman in the world by People Magazine this week and that resurfaced the skin colour topic with many debating whether the light skinned Beyonce is an accurate representation of “Black Beauty”. The skin colour conversation is important, crucial even, for similar reasons that I think we should upkeep the hair [...]
TweetCross-Post with Black Feminists UK and Honestly Abroad We the undersigned women of African /African descent and our supporters, which include anti-racist activists, scholars community leaders and Faith leaders wish to address the Swedish Venus Hottentot Cake Incident. First, we commend our Swedish friends and colleagues, and those from the African-Swedish Diaspora for their substantial contribution to [...]
TweetI don’t tend to get surprised about racist acts, at least not when it’s so stereotypical as this whole tragic ordeal with the Swedish culture minister eating a cake of what is supposed to be a mutilated African woman. As a mixed race person I’ve experienced racism from the places where it possibly chafes the [...]
TweetUpon hearing the term African feminist, many African men and women will say, we as Africans don’t need feminism, we just need to return to our roots to see that there was harmony between the genders. The first problem with such a statement is that Africa is not that simple. African pasts are complex and [...]
Tweet Starting with the words of Indian professor Homi K Bhabha who said: Our existence today is marked by a tenebrous sense of survival, living on the borderlines of the ‘present’, for which there seems to be no proper name other than the current and controversial shiftiness of the prefix ‘post’: postmodernism, postcolonialism, postfeminism… Another post-prefix that [...]
Tweet Occasionally I worry I’ll hurt my mum with some of the stuff that I write about white people, or that my dad will be offended by my criticism of African men. Then I visit them in Lagos and I’m reminded of how, and why, my concerns are completely unnecessary. They expected, and are pleased, [...]
TweetI’d hate for my experience on earth to be lived with a heart containing animosity towards fellow human beings. We may act like different races are different species due to the irrational inventions of some power hungry ancestors of the human race, but I don’t want that confusion to make me equally disillusioned about our [...]
Tweet Being black is not a matter of pigmentation being black kis a reflection of a mental attitude - Steve Bantu Biko I am participating in an upcoming collaborative project by Africana Studies scholar Yaba Blay, Ph.D. and award-winning photographer Noelle Théard. (1)ne Drop, as the documentary is called, is going to be a thought-provoking [...]
TweetHow can someone who propagates themselves as a chosen messenger of god advocate such divisive, confused and love-lacking opinion as Pastor Tapiwa Muzvidziwa? “God”, he says, disapproves of mixed marriages as these are “wrong” and detrimental to the children born of such relationships. Doesn’t he understand that the whole idea of banning interracial and interfaith relationships is deep [...]
TweetThis is a cross-post On the second day of the UK riots I boarded a flight from Finland to London where I live. Before take off I went through tweets containing the #londonriots hash tag. I then tweeted my shock over the amount of racist comments to do with the riots. Three hours later when [...]
Tweet Mark Duggan This is the picture the media is using to remember the man who unawarely, post-mortem, instigated the UK riots. Some see what is intended – a dangerous black man making gun gestures. To others, this is a picture of another ‘cheap’ black life taken unjustly and irreplacably. Duggan’s family say, “We don’t [...]
TweetThe Black History Walks website has a useful list of ways to help combat negative media portrayal of black people. Some of the suggestions are: Go out of your way to attend events, prove there is demand Buy original dvds with positive images direct from source Check out www.colourfulradio.com and www.voxafrica.com Read Frantz Fanon Wretched of the Earth and [...]
TweetMsAfropolitan is taking part in Friday Late: Afropolitans at the V&A, the world’s largest museum of art and design. In “MsAfropolitan presents – The rise of Afropolitan Fashion” myself with the help of creative director Ola Shobowalewill conceptualize the contemporary creativity and beauty of Afropolitan fashion for women. Visitors will be able to experience the fusion of bold African patterns and [...]
TweetToday marks the 100th celebration of International Women’s Day (IWD). It’s striking that the centenary should fall on the same year in which women world-over find themselves at the forefront of significant political and social events. For example, 2011 has seen the launch of UN Women headed by former Chilean president, Michelle Bachelet. Also, Brazil’s [...]
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