The African Middle Class: Responding to Amber Rose

Amber Rose recently said this on her first visit to Ghana "what I’ve noticed about Africa since I’ve been here is that there’s extremely rich or extremely poor, there’s no middle class at all" she goes on and says "I’ll like to speak to the rich people and be like, what are you guys doing? help out a little bit" (notice she said ‘noticed about Africa', not Ghana, we're back to this notion of Africa as a homogenous block. How ridiculous would it sound for me to visit Portugal and say, 'what I've noticed about Europe is that')

I question her observational skills for one, she’s been in Ghana a few days, observing it mainly from tinted windows of a 4X4, and yet she feels she is in possession of enough social information to make such a statement as that.

But it doesn’t surprise me, I’ve read and heard many westerners make statements like that. I’ve heard people who are about to visit an African country for the first time say stuff like ‘I wanna visit the ‘real’ Africa’, 'real' is just code for poor. I think to myself, “but you’ve never been to Africa before, how do you know what is real and what isn’t” They have a prejudged script of how Africa is supposed to be, and in their heads they divide Africans into ‘authentic’ (a.k.a poor) Africans and 'inauthentic’ (middle class/rich) Africans. Poor Africans to them are the authentic ones, the ones that don’t challenge their views of Africa. When they see an African in a new German car with an iPod they just can’t compute that the wealth could have been acquired in any way but through a direct exploitation of the poor people they see. So the image of a wealthy African becomes offensive to them because they have come with their colonial/charitable mindset and here are Africans living in big houses not seemingly as worried about the poor as they (Westerners) are. Some travel to African countries to (temporarily) relieve their sense of guilt for living in a materialistic Western society, and the image of an African just as materialistic as they are challenges their views in what was supposed to be a trip about moral self flagellation and finding oneself (as you know, you can't find yourself around shiny cars and flat screen TVs, there have to be poor faces around, with flies casually perched on them, only in the midst of the less off can one realise the purpose of life.)

The problem is many Western amateur social critics, like Amber, never ask these questions about their own countries, Amber Rose can say to a rich Ghanaian, "why are you rich? and why don’t you give that naked kid clothes" as though a comparative disparity doesn’t occur in her country, the USA of all places, we all saw Katrina, we saw America’s underbelly, and it could rival this so called brand of African poverty.

So I can understand the frustration a lot of Africans feel when a Western lens goes to an African country and only records destitution, what they are doing is de-legitimizing the African middle-class, de-legitimizing our stories and histories, they are effectively saying we are traitors to our people because we've risen above what they percieve the standard of African living to be.

Dreaming of a White Christmas: The Awkwardness of European notions of Christmas in a Nigerian Setting

I remember when I was about 14, sitting around with some American friends (in school in the Netherlands) discussing Christmas, one of them asked another at what age they stopped believing in Santa Claus. I was taken aback, was this some kind of joke, did people actually believe in Santa Claus. Did kids grow up thinking that a fat guy actually could fit into their chimney unnoticed and leave gifts? I found it unbelievable that at any age, someone would believe such a fantastical story, but I guess I had no idea about the cult of Santa Claus in the west, particularly in America.

See, I grew up in Nigeria, and Santa Claus, or Father Christmas as we call him is well known there, he adorns Christmas cards and Christmas decorations and can be seen all over TV adverts during Christmas time. But as a child I knew of no one like me who actually believed Father Christmas was real, real in the sense that it was he not your parents who delivered your gifts on Christmas day.

Although during Christmas time we were saturated with images of this foreign benevolent gift distributor we just could not identify with him on many levels. Not only is the idea of a white man dressed in winter clothes in the sweltering heat of Nigeria quite strange, but all the iconic apparatus that supported the myth of Santa Claus were very unfamiliar to us, we had no concept of what a chimney was, or mistletoe, or snow, sleighs or even reindeers. All these things were apparently common in Europe and America but they were and are alien to us, and it happened that during Christmas we threw out our cultures and traditions and adopted this strange fitting idea of a ‘White Christmas’ with mistletoe, pine trees, snow and eggnog, for a brief period in the year we were European, we were like those people on the TV with their knitted cardigans around the fireplace. The feeling I have is that we as a culture felt it was impossible to have an authentic Nigerian Christmas.

And this feeling of ‘White is Right’ was subconsciously ingrained into my little-head when I was young. My dad worked at an international agricultural agency, and so he had many colleagues from Europe and North America. At the annual Christmas party, one of his white colleagues was the Santa Claus for the day, and it felt right as a kid, for this white costumed man corresponded with the white Santa Claus from the Coca-Cola adverts and Christmas cards. I remember quite clearly as a kid feeling some sort of superiority over my friends who did not enjoy this ‘white privilege’ and thus had to endure a counterfeit ‘Black Santa Claus’, through a complex media and commercial machinery I had been indoctrinated that Santa Claus could only be white, and any other depiction was vulgar and illegitimate.

And I think to a large extent, these things are still true in Nigeria and other parts of the non-white Christian world today. It’s beautiful to see how other cultures have adapted and adjusted Christian practices to fit their respective cultures. There was once a point when exuberant singing and dancing was frowned upon in Anglican churches in West Africa, now you’d be hard pressed to walk into any Anglican church where dancing and jubilant singing is not part of the service.

This ownership of the Christian religion should also apply to Christian festivals that now have a larger secular meaning; we can create a genuinely Nigerian Christmas without having to borrow strange customs from the west. It’s about time we put our own unique stamp on Christmas.

LeBron James: America in a Post-Racial Society

A World War I US Army propaganda poster and the infamous Vogue Cover

US Basketball star LeBron James is in the middle of a big media storm about his depiction on elite fashion magazine Vogue. This is only the thrid time that a man has appeared on its cover, and the fourth time a black person has appeared on the cover of Vogue which was first published in 1892.
James appears on the cover with Brazilian model Gisele Bündchen, a caucasian. He is clutching her with one arm, while his other bounces a basketball. On his face he has his characteristic grimace after scoring in a game.
The fury by many African-Americans over the picture stems from the depiction of LeBron. Most say the picture is animalistic, by him clutching a white woman he is perpetuating stereotypes of black men lusting after white women. Personally, when I saw the picture I was not impressed. I have an avid interest in both World Wars, and much earlier I had been exposed to the US. Army's propaganda poster, which depicted Germany as a great ape, clutching a female (representing USA, as seen by the clothing resemblance to the Lady Liberty) I noticed that the Vogue cover bore a startling similarity to that poster, and I prepared myself for the furore that was almost certain to emerge.
Now the question people ask is 'Was that similarity to King Kong or an ape done on purpose?' or was it innocent, did they just photograph LeBron in his element and Gisele in hers. Some people will say just that. They say if you look at the picture and see 'Ape and white woman' then you are subconciously racist, as far as they are concerned, the picture is innocent.
Is this true though? Has America genuingly moved on from the stark racism of 40 years ago. Has what happened on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in 1965 faded completely into the past, Has the legacy of Rosa Parks completely vanished? Is America in a Post-racial society? Is race no longer an issue?
The finalizing of the Vogue cover is not a small issue, it is certainly not an issue that is dealt with by one person, several photographers and editors critique and enhance the photograph before it appears in the newstands. Didn't anyone at Vogue predict this backlash by African-Americans claiming Vogue is racist for depicting 'their own' in such an unflattering manner, or, did Vogue think that America has moved to a stage where a black man showing 'ape-like behaviour' should not raise any eyebrows.
Of course, it can also be argued that Vogue, by doing this, is pushing America toward a post-racial society, by 'normalizing' sensitive issues is Vogue saying "Look, black or white we are all the same"
As black people, not just African-Americans, we are constantly trying to put our best face forward when it comes to our depiction in the media. We want to be seen as beautiful, intelligent and articulate, and so often one famous black persons blunder becomes an embarrasment to the whole race. Similarly, one black person's triumph is shared by the race, for example the case of O.J Simpson or even Barack Obama's presidential race.
This attitude is brought about by an inferiority complex, in Afro-Americans due to slavery, and in Africans due to colonialism. We want to show white people that we have progressed to a level of equality, we want to show that their assumptions of us as being inferior were wrong.
So when Lebron James shows up on the cover of what can be described as a 'white magazine' looking unattractive, black people everywhere feel unattractive, we are angered that the 'white magazine' has chosen to show the ugliest picture. The Vogue cover is an important milestone for blacks and whites alike, and with this rare oppurtunity to present ourselves to 'white world'; we have chosen to put a 'terrible' picture of 'our own'- this summarizes the feeling of many people who did not like the Vogue cover.
Of course there's the other side: What do white people really think? When they see a black man screaming, do they really think 'Ape!' When they see a black man holding a white woman, do they really think 'Rapist!'
The sad fact is that even in academia we are taught to expect the worst, not only in terms of race, but also in terms of gender. Nothing is ever 'what it is', there is always an ulterior motive.
Girls are taught that advertising featuring men and women are inherently sexist, and black people are taught that any depiction of a black person displaying a negative trait is an extension of the general view held by white people.
We are in a vicious cycle, on one hand we want to combat racism, but on the other we look for racism in every single thing.
As far as reaching a post-racial society is concerned, I believe we would one day reach it, when black milestones are no longer counted, when we look at Denzel Washington as merely an actor, when Obama becomes just another presidential candidate, when there would be no need for a Black Entertainment Television channel.
Martin Luther King had a dream, and I share that dream too!

Mandingo

My newest poem, on the colonization of Africa and the subjugation of the black man.

Listen
Hear the Drums of the Mandinka
Hear the clapping hands
the naked feet on the dry soil
See the women in frenzied joy
Unbridled emotion
Hail Mandingo

Hail Mandingo
The African warrior
The Slayer of the Lion
with his bare hands
Hail Mandingo
King of the bush

Listen
Hear the Canons of the British
Hear their cocking guns
thier booted feet on the decks
See the soldiers in frenzied joy
Unbridled emotion
Hail Smith

Hail Smith
The British Warrior
The Slayer of the Lion
with his shotgun
Hail Smith
King of Africa