Time As My Only Measure

Always use the word 'Africa' or 'Darkness' or 'Safari' in your title. Subtitles may include the words 'Zanzibar', 'Masai', 'Zulu', 'Zambezi', 'Congo', 'Nile', 'Big', 'Sky', 'Shadow', 'Drum', 'Sun' or 'Bygone'. Also useful are words such as 'Guerrillas', 'Timeless', 'Primordial' and 'Tribal'. Note that 'People' means Africans who are not black, while 'The People' means black Africans.

Never have a picture of a well-adjusted African on the cover of your book, or in it, unless that African has won the Nobel Prize. An AK-47, prominent ribs, naked breasts: use these. If you must include an African, make sure you get one in Masai or Zulu or Dogon dress.

Apparently identities must be freed of racial identification or racial identity. In other words, white. Because as a person of color, I am not free. I am not an individual. No, I am just a slave to the hive mind. (resistracism)

deepad

You know, in five years of being in the United States, there was only one time I answered the "where are you from" question with "right here", and I felt like a liar and traitor to my country after I said it.

It wasn't worth it for me to try in solidarity with recent immigrants to assert some kind of right to be a putative or aspirational USian, though I had legal residence, filed state tax returns - participated in the daily nuances of being a habitational American.

shweta_narayan

Things got easier as I grew older; the racism grew more subtle. I could go through entire days without my friends reducing me to tears, without having to laugh along with something that was not in the least bit funny to me. I could even, if I did it carefully, watching my tone, making sure that everyone knew in fact it wasn't a big deal or anything, disagree with my friends. I could even, occasionally, change minds. So long as I made it totally clear that I was of course really a "good minority".

la_vie_noire

Endemic extreme poverty, an economy in which even a small US pension makes you a rich man, and a vulnerable and easily exploitable population of women whose education, if there was any to speak of, didn't exactly introduce them to feminist concepts.

"First, I cannot help but wonder if this explains the disconnect between Black women and our bodies – the fact that a large number of us went out of our way to stop paying attention to our bodies because we were too busy trying to make ourselves less appealing to harassers. Furthermore, I notice that there’s a lot of discouragement during the ages where young girls are supposed to be learning about and understanding their bodies… to do exactly that. I wonder if we are, in a roundabout way, encouraging harmful behavior in our daughters because we are trying to discourage male attention… and beyond that, sexual harassment and assault?"