This week in #AfriFAIL

October 19, 2013

#AfriFAIL WTF?

Wronging Rights has WTF Fridays, Africa as a Country has The Bullshit Files, so I think reviving my long ago abandoned #AfriFAIL is the only option possible.

The reason that I couldn’t resist doing this is because there is just way too much ridiculousness out there when it comes to Western pop culture trying to cash in on the rising continent that we collectively call Africa. Or rather continuing the ages-old (almost subconsciously embedded) tradition of talking down on the continent.

1. Amazon Fails
Amazon UK flat out fails cultural sensitivity as Halloween arrives. Anyone planning on going out to trick or treat as a “Realistic Black Kenyan Man“?

2. KLM wants to take you to the Dark Continent

Africa as a Country caught KLM marketing flight sales to “the Dark Continent.” In 2013. And they were serious. I am wondering if Henry Morton Stanley would have been proud to see this gaffe. KLM was quick to apologize and immediately removed the wording from their site.

3. Back to Black Africa Without a White Tour Guide
I couldn’t bring myself to actually read this article by Brett Fenzel, who bills himself as a “Memoirist.” But that title though. What editor at Huffington Post thought that was a great idea? I should write a memoir titled, “Back to Texas without a Republican racist cowboy tour guide” to see how well that would be read. Hat tip to Niti Bahn for nudging me towards this piece.

Got some AfriFAILS? Send them to me on Twitter.

Jared Purdy

October 19, 2013 at 9:10 pm

“Good” post Teddy. 😮 Likely, Stanley, Conrad and Kipling would be waxing poetically about how their keen cultural observations of the day have lived to fruitition.

chief_doodle
October 19, 2013 at 9:11 pm
Oh to be the flu on that wall of colonial ceremony…

DChehab

October 22, 2013 at 4:19 pm

Having read Brett Fenzel’s post, I found it to be a sensitive post, and the TX analogy doesn’t quite match–it would be “Back to Texas without a Democrat guide”!
He says that too many movies, at least the ones we see in the USA, about Africa are not told from an African’s viewpoint, or that they often have a Euro “savior”. He speaks of discovering Sembene Ousmane’s movies. Personally I’d remove this title from #AfriFAIL, but then maybe I am biased ;-). The others should stay up, for sure!