You know, I love promoting Nigerian music, especially if it's Hip-Hop or R & B. Hope you enjoy this new song by Nigerian megastar, Wande Coal.
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Open for business
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| Aerial view of Somalia's capital, Mogadishu. The city recently reopened it's national theater. |
For Nigeria, this looks like the beginning of the end of several power outages in a day, which, despite it's steady economic growth in the past decade, has pretty much crippled it's full economic potential. In Mogadishu, notorious for being a failed city in a failed nation, maybe this marks a cultural revival (theater culture, that is). Looks like in both countries, a lot more open signs will be up.
Post-Racial My ***!!
One unarmed black teen is shot dead by a neighborhood vigilante. Two white teens make fun of their black peers and post it on YouTube. One black student is told to read a Langston Hughes poem "blacker." These are just a few of the things that have happened in the past few weeks and yet we're in a post-racial society. What the hell is post-racial? Let's deconstruct.
Post is a prefix meaning "behind, after or later," according to Dictionary.com. Racial means "pertaining to, or characteristic of, one race or the races of humankind." We can deduce that post-racial means "after things pertaining to race" or that "race is in the past." Really? Watch the video below and tell me that race is something of the past.
After the death of Whitney Houston, a high school coach from the Chicago suburbs called her the N-word on his Facebook wall, according to Chicago Sun-Times. In the article, he's quoted saying he didn't even realize what he wrote. So, is he saying that he's innately racist? Well, he stated that he's not racist and now he can't get a job anywhere. Too bad.
In the highly publicized Trayvon Martin tragedy, this is apparently one of a string of racially charged incidents between the black community and the police, according to Huffington Post. So, this is not the only and probably won't be the last.
All of these racial incidents make this post-racial society seem very, well, racist. Pretty much, it looks like nothing has changed since a black president has been elected. And many of us know that a good portion of the white people that voted for Obama voted for him for one reason alone; they didn't want to be called the white man's n-word - a racist. So, no, we have not entered a post-racial society. Instead, we're still in a very racist society.
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Two Twitter trends, one continent
Twitter seriously has become my number one social media connection, especially since I have decided to phase out my Facebook page (which I seriously have found to be the hottest mess of ads and unnecessary "improvements"). What makes it even easier to use - the trending topics. Two kind of stood out to me this week - Kony 2012 and What I Love About Africa.
The Kony 2012 trend was started by Invisible Children, a very well known activist group famous for it's work in Uganda to end the abduction of children that are turned into soldiers by the infamous leader of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), Joseph Kony. It looks like Invisible Children (also the name of their first documentary that revealed the atrocities of the Lord's Resistance Army) have created another film titled Kony 2012. You can watch it below (yes, it's on YouTube, legally, by Invisible Children).
Overall, this is well done, well marketed and well targeted. This is a movie for disenfranchised white middle class people who only think of Africa in the sense of war, famine and disease. This is for them to give their money and other kinds of support to end Joseph Kony's power in Central Africa. This is, again, another failed opportunity to educate people about an African nation (in this case, a region) that has some issues but also has some serious strengths. This is why Ugandans are generally upset and disappointed with this film.
Before I continue and before someone sends me some hate mail, let express that I do support the efforts of Invisible Children. What Joseph Kony is doing to innocent children in Central Africa is a grave crime against humanity and he must be stopped. Anyone reading this SHOULD support this cause. Secondly, not all white middle class people are disenfranchised from what's going on outside of their white bubble, but a lot of the ones in the United States are (let me not get started on why). I am also not saying that Ugandans shouldn't be upset. Hell, they need to get mad to make it standard to show the world what Uganda is REALLY about.
This was what the What I Love About Africa trend was all about - showing the realities of a continent that sadly is the most misconceived. The trend was started by Diaspora African Women's Network (DAWN) founder and executive director, Semhar Araia (Twitter ID: @semhar).
What I love about Africa is people don't play passive aggressive - they're assertive aggressive. Kony 2012 (the film, not the movement) pissed them off because they know that there are many more layers to the story that the film did not address. There are stories from many people in Uganda and neighboring countries that have lost family and children to Joseph Kony's nonsense. They want them to be heard. I'm also sure that those who have watched the movie in the United States do not know that humongous oil reserves have been found in Uganda and the country's economy has seen substantial growth in the past decade like many other African nations.
Other things I love about Africa: innovation seems to never stop, having a conversation face to face is highly revered and opportunities seem to be endless (the European colonizers and the United States noticed that and currently so does China). I'm glad so many people hashtagged this trend and celebrated the many great things about such an amazing continent. I also like the people that treated the hell out of those ignorant fools that said the loved that everyone in Africa is black. NEWSFLASH: not everyone in Africa is black. Go read a damn book.
Both of these trends brought some buzz to Twitter and hopefully opened some eyes to the good, the bad and the ugly in Africa.
The Kony 2012 trend was started by Invisible Children, a very well known activist group famous for it's work in Uganda to end the abduction of children that are turned into soldiers by the infamous leader of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), Joseph Kony. It looks like Invisible Children (also the name of their first documentary that revealed the atrocities of the Lord's Resistance Army) have created another film titled Kony 2012. You can watch it below (yes, it's on YouTube, legally, by Invisible Children).
Overall, this is well done, well marketed and well targeted. This is a movie for disenfranchised white middle class people who only think of Africa in the sense of war, famine and disease. This is for them to give their money and other kinds of support to end Joseph Kony's power in Central Africa. This is, again, another failed opportunity to educate people about an African nation (in this case, a region) that has some issues but also has some serious strengths. This is why Ugandans are generally upset and disappointed with this film.
Before I continue and before someone sends me some hate mail, let express that I do support the efforts of Invisible Children. What Joseph Kony is doing to innocent children in Central Africa is a grave crime against humanity and he must be stopped. Anyone reading this SHOULD support this cause. Secondly, not all white middle class people are disenfranchised from what's going on outside of their white bubble, but a lot of the ones in the United States are (let me not get started on why). I am also not saying that Ugandans shouldn't be upset. Hell, they need to get mad to make it standard to show the world what Uganda is REALLY about.
This was what the What I Love About Africa trend was all about - showing the realities of a continent that sadly is the most misconceived. The trend was started by Diaspora African Women's Network (DAWN) founder and executive director, Semhar Araia (Twitter ID: @semhar).
What I love about Africa is people don't play passive aggressive - they're assertive aggressive. Kony 2012 (the film, not the movement) pissed them off because they know that there are many more layers to the story that the film did not address. There are stories from many people in Uganda and neighboring countries that have lost family and children to Joseph Kony's nonsense. They want them to be heard. I'm also sure that those who have watched the movie in the United States do not know that humongous oil reserves have been found in Uganda and the country's economy has seen substantial growth in the past decade like many other African nations.
Other things I love about Africa: innovation seems to never stop, having a conversation face to face is highly revered and opportunities seem to be endless (the European colonizers and the United States noticed that and currently so does China). I'm glad so many people hashtagged this trend and celebrated the many great things about such an amazing continent. I also like the people that treated the hell out of those ignorant fools that said the loved that everyone in Africa is black. NEWSFLASH: not everyone in Africa is black. Go read a damn book.
Both of these trends brought some buzz to Twitter and hopefully opened some eyes to the good, the bad and the ugly in Africa.
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