My Beauty Best Teacher

Tim Carman writing in the Washington Post:

Image courtesy of Deb Lindsey/FOR THE WASHINGTON POST

“A layer of oil on top of the food is a way of honoring you,” says Osseo-Asare, a sociologist who has been studying Ghanaian foods since the early 1970s. “Somebody is trying to show you respect, and Americans are like, ‘Yuck, get that oil out of there!’ ”

Busted!

This is Osseo-Asare’s gift: She knows the soft, sensitive underside of the Western palate and how to attack it when someone dares to pass premature judgment on West African food. But more than that, Osseo-Asare knows the baggage that Americans can bring to the table. We’re not only averse to oily preparations and extreme heat, but we’re also not afforded a full view of the many cuisines that define West African cooking.

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via Shadow and Act:

Still image from Restless City

“In this intense twist on the American Dream, director Andrew Dosunmu vividly captures the pulsating dynamic of New York city's pan-African community, a robust aggregation that subsists amid an often hostile foreign environment. “Restless City” is a mesmerizing glimpse into a culture and community that is only superficially seen by indifferent New Yorkers.” – Duane Byrge, The Hollywood Reporter

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From Mind of Malaka:

Can I speak plainly, reader? I am SO SICK of Black people and their twisted dogma concerning the “White Savior” Syndrome. Oh, you haven’t heard of it? It’s the belief in certain circles of the Black Intelligencia that because Black folk can’t do for themselves, White people have to come in and do for them, or more specifically, solve our problems for us. In the case of Joseph Kony in particular, one rather prolific individual on twitter summed up the KONY2012 (and implied White savior Campaign) movement by saying “the world exists simply to satisfy the needs – including, importantly, the sentimental needs – of white people and Oprah”. Prior to that, he says that “the white savior supports brutal policies in the morning, founds charities in the afternoon, and receives awards in the evenings.” This message has been retweeted quite a few times on Twitter, and I do see why. At first glance, this all sounds very witty and well thought out until you think about it, at which point you grasp your head and shout:

Oh My GOD, Black people!!

On apathy:

Oh Black people. You like to complain and criticize. But where is the action, eh?? Why are we not staging sit- ins at our Ghanaian embassies around the world, demanding that OUR president take a firm stance on Kony until he’s captured. Why are Nigerians, Gambians and Kenyan’s not doing the same? Why are we not speaking out until our voices are impossible to ignore? Here’s a better question: Why did an AFRICAN not start the Kony2012 campaign? It’s because you people care, yes, but you don’t care enough

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Bibi Bakare-Yusuf of Cassava Republic writing in Open Democracy:

The push to police the way that women dress continues across Africa on the pretext that it causes sexual harassment and violence against women. What really underlies this censorship of women’s expression? asks Bibi Bakare-Yusuf

Women’s dressing has become the site for pernicious policing and debates about social and moral decay in Africa, with calls for intervention within Nigeria’s higher education institutions, by religious organisations, and the media. Over the past decade, some universities have banned the wearing of trousers and any 'revealing' clothes by young women because they are seen as a distraction to male students and lecturers. The argument is that revealing attire has made sexual violation and harassment a marked feature of university life in Nigeria, and therefore imposing a strict dress code on female students is the only way to stop it...[continue reading]

An Adafruit highlight:

If you’re interested in education (which means you’re thinking abou the future), you should watch JSB’s keynote from the DML conference this week. “Entrepreneurial Learning isn’t about creating entrepreneurs. It’s about people having an entrepreneurial way of learning.” “Entrepreneurial Learners are Makers and Tinkerers.” Tinkering is a way of dealing with constant change.

In Global Voices:

Untitled from Coalition Films - Projects on Vimeo.
New York-based producers of a documentary called “Death Metal Angola”, about the emerging metal scene in Angola and a rock festival in the city of Huambo, are raising money for post-production costs on crowdfunding platform IndieGogo. The film's tagline: “The hardest hardcore is Angolan hardcore.”

An Open letter to Africa's Academics, Scholars and Intellectuals from George Ayittey:

Upon reviewing the current upheavals in North Africa and elsewhere on the continent, I felt it is necessary for us – African academics, scholars and intellectuals – to take stock and a fresh look at ourselves: What role have we played in advancing the cause of liberty and improving governance in post colonial Africa. Our record is not very good. Sometimes, self-criticism is necessary in order for us to make progress. You do not have to agree with what I am going to say – diversity of opinion is healthy. There have been outstanding individuals among us who risked death to champion the cause of freedom in Africa. However, as a group we have let Africa down badly by not providing intellectual leadership to the democratic struggle.

“He who doesn’t know where he came from doesn’t know where is going,” says an African proverb. We of the intellectual community are lost; we don’t know where we are going. The recent upheavals in Africa caught us completely off guard. We did not see it coming because we were pre-occupied elsewhere. It seems we are way behind the curve, late to the struggle for democracy in Africa and are now only playing “catch-up.”...[continue reading]

From African Digital Art:

Dawn Okoro is an African visual artist who specializes in pop art. Based in Dallas, Dawn is international known for her strong portrayal of black women. She works across several mediums experimenting with various techniques in order to communicate the effect of popular culture in society.
The Art Trade Presents: Dawn Okoro from TheArtTrade on Vimeo.

Malcom Fabiyi writes:

Nigeria’s followership is loud and ineffective because all that it does is talk. Loud, boisterous, garrulous and banal talk – that is all we do. In Newspaper editorials, internet chat rooms, on twitter, facebook, in beer parlors, market squares and bus stop libraries, our voices loudly bemoan the state of the country. We blame everything under the sun for our problems - from a colonial experience that ended over 50 years ago, to the poverty of leadership & ideas that currently afflicts us and our ethnic & religious differences.

We are blessed with a marvelous ability to convince ourselves that we are the victims of circumstances that we conjured into existence. We talk as if these leaders that we denounce at every turn were dropped on us from outer space, forced on us by malevolent beings intent on seeing our national tragedy extended. We conveniently forget that we voted them in ourselves, with our very own hands. We seem to forget also that national growth has roles not just for those who lead, but for those who follow as well.

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Jonathan Dotse in IEET:

A 3bute graphic piece

Imagine a young African boy staring wide-eyed at the grainy images of an old television set tuned to a VHF channel; a child discovering for the first time the sights and sounds of a wonderfully weird world beyond city limits. This is one of my earliest memories; growing up during the mid-nineties in a tranquil compound house in Maamobi; an enclave of the Nima suburb, one of the most notorious slums in Accra. Besides the government-run Ghana Broadcasting Corporation, only two other television stations operated in the country at the time, and satellite television was way beyond my family’s means. Nevertheless, all kinds of interesting programming from around the world occasionally found its way onto those public broadcasts. This was how I first met science fiction; not from the tomes of great authors, but from distilled approximations of their grand visions.

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via Boing Boing

Joshua Hammer in the NYTimes:

Image of Vodun dervishes courtesy of fortunecity

Vodun practitioners worship a pantheon of gods and lesser deities that inhabit objects ranging from stones to waterfalls. They believe that the spirits of their ancestors dwell among them, and they employ talismans, or “fetishes” like dried animal parts, for spiritual and physical rejuvenation as well as for protection against spells cast by malevolent sorcerers. “Le vodun is Africa. It is the faith of our ancestors,” I was told by Dagbo Hounon Houna II, the spiritual chief of vodun in Benin, where 20 percent of the population, or a million people, practice pure vodun and another 40 percent embrace a form that incorporates Christian iconography.

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"He who doesn’t know where he came from doesn’t know where he is going”- African Proverb
George Ayittey writes in SeunFakze:

Image via wikipedia

The political structure of the Yoruba Kingdom in the 18th century when it was in its heyday, resembled that of the Asante and Zande Kingdoms. Its development also bore a close resemblance to that of the Zulu kingdom as well, suggesting strong similarities in the constitution of African kingdoms.

According to Yoruba traditions, the original founder of the kingdom, Oduduwa, settled in IleIfe at some time in the 14th century. Before his arrival, about 13 semiautonomous settlements had organized themselves into a loose confederacy. Oduduwa settled among them and subsequently subjugated them, imposing his authority over them. The preexisting groups organized themselves into a resistance group known as the Igbo and harassed Oduduwa and the new settlement until accommodation was reached around the middle of the 14th century.

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Karo Akpokiere on his work:

I love to draw and I am deeply interested in how these drawings can be applied to different surfaces as a way to make them accessible and visible facilitating connections with and inspiring people in the process.

The drawings I make are created using traditional and/or digital processes and are indicative of my desire to combine different 'cultural' elements in other to create art that is universally appealing and reflective of my interests in textile motifs, the graffiti aesthetic, t-shirt graphics, sneakers, advertising, character design and geometry.

In Shadow and Act:

Although the Nollywood film industry is one of the fastest-growing film markets around, it still contends with a "poor quality films" perception often attached in describing the industry but filmmaker Obi Emelonye hopes to change that with his new big-budget thriller.His hit film The Mirror Boy was a huge success, critically and financially, in the UK and throughout Africa last year. His latest production, Last Flight To Abuja, is the first-ever Nollywood disaster film and, with a budget of $500,000, will become one of the most expensive Nollywood films made.

He realizes there's skepticism but thinks that can change telling The Voice..."I know there is a little bit of doubt about how would we compare in terms of quality of production values and storyline to Hollywood. But that argument is being won right now. Film-makers like myself are trying to use the conventions, the visual narrative style and the technology of the West in a very unique African way, to tell our own stories.”...[continue reading]

Arab Spring pop culture continued...M.I.A mocks the ban on women drivers in the Saudi Arabia:

In the Daily Beast

Taiye Selasi, a young Ghanian writer talks to the Daily Beast from the Jaipur Festival about the challenges of the young African novelist and the unique connection she sees between the Indian readers & African literature.

via Bombastic Elements

CNN reports:

Residents of Kano in Nigeria are struggling to keep alive their centuries-old tradition of hand-dying delicate cloth a deep indigo blue, with their trade under threat from the realities of modern commerce.Kano's pits are said to date back 500 years and were once the center of a bustling Saharan trade in dyed cloth.There are still over 120 pits in Kano but only 30 of them are functioning. Many of them have been filled in, often because families have moved on to other businesses, but sometimes because they're waiting for their children to grown up, dig out the pit and reclaim their tradition.

From Chika For Africa:

Igbo Ukwu pot courtesy of Chika for Africa

Fifty years after Independence, Africans have refused to deconstruct and reconstruct the foundations of its colonially bequeathed knowledge. There is no one for Africans to blame, but themselves. The blame goes to African intellectuals who would rather write in ways that would please the West. To African medical doctors who despise indigenous medicine and healing systems, opting completely for Western medical knowledge – the origins of acupuncture, yoga and other acclaimed Eastern medical practices notwithstanding. To African historians bent on analyzing and presenting African history to their students from the Euro-American point of view. To African graduate students unconcerned with applying themselves to objective and critical studies and research on African issues. To African parents who refuse to speak their native languages to their wards, constricting their children’s world, their thoughts and their expressions to the limited vocabulary of the English language. To African religious leaders who have not espoused Africans to love themselves as Africans, before loving their European and American neighbors, just as the Holy book admonishes. Yes, all Africans are to blame for the situation of Africa today. Not one person is exempt, not one.

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In Design Magazine:

We Changed Egypt by Hossam Hassan

The recent popular uprising and resulting democratic revolution in Egypt inspired many people around the world. Many visual artists who’s work focus on the everyday living conditions in transforming societies have actively participated in the historical evens and through their creative work ensured that it was captured for generations to come. One such artist is Hossam Hassan who took to the streets and documented the trying and tense moments of the revolution...[continue reading]

From Mind of Malaka. A bracing must read for everyone who cares about Africa:

They call the Third World the lazy man’s purview; the sluggishly slothful and languorous prefecture. In this realm people are sleepy, dreamy, torpid, lethargic, and therefore indigent—totally penniless, needy, destitute, poverty-stricken, disfavored, and impoverished. In this demesne, as they call it, there are hardly any discoveries, inventions, and innovations. Africa is the trailblazer. Some still call it “the dark continent” for the light that flickers under the tunnel is not that of hope, but an approaching train. And because countless keep waiting in the way of the train, millions die and many more remain decapitated by the day.

“It’s amazing how you all sit there and watch yourselves die,” the man next to me said. “Get up and do something about it.”

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