Who Gets To Be African?

How do we feel about this campaign, by Keep A Child Alive, to encourage people to donate money to Africa on the basis that we are all African? (Apparently we only care about ourselves, so if we suggest that Africa is ourselves, then we'll donate?)


Dp Americans, many of whom are white people with privilege based in race, class, and nation, get to claim Africa as theirs? Do white people now get to have blackness too? Is this insulting? Some people think so. Here is a larger version of the poster with Gwyneth Paltrow (scroll down for a response):



I borrowed this image from Blackademic.

Posted by Lisa Thursday, March 6, 2008 at 3:56 PM Labels: , , , , , ,  

4 comments:

  Anonymous

March 29, 2008 at 5:05 PM

Way to miss the point- The illustration here is that we are all part of one big world, and we should care for each other as we would ourselves. Why must people find sexism and racism in EVERYTHING?

  Anonymous

March 30, 2008 at 4:54 AM

What kasai said. Stop f-cking over-interpreting everything. It is like you HAVE to find something to pick on.

  Anonymous

April 16, 2008 at 6:04 AM

Where to begin?
(i) How are we being encouraged to donate money to Africa? I am being encouraged to "Help us stop the dying. Pay for lifesaving aids drugs ..." Are these drugs only going to Africa? Great! As an ex-aid worker from that continent, God knows ARVs are needed there.
(ii) Why is the text in the response so disproportionate to that in the original campaign. Obviously people do give a shit about what GP is doing/supporting, otherwise she wouldn't have been chosen for the campaign. If I kiss your black ass then that gets us nowhere. If I donate $100 to a campaign to buy and distribute ARVs, then that gets us somewhere.
(iii) Both posters are stupid, though, this is pointless: GP isn't Africa and that African Women isn't GP.
(iv) As a white South African, what about my blackness?

  Anonymous

April 25, 2008 at 1:13 AM

I'm also a white South African, and it pisses me off that people nitpick at this ad for something that black Americans do all the time. Black people in America insist on being called "African American", yet how many of them have ever even been to Africa? How much of their lives are similar to those of their black 'brothers and sisters' actually living in Africa? What connection do they have to Africa besides a racial distinction and geographical origin? But I'm white- if I were to move from Africa, where I was born and have lived my whole life, and live in America, I would never be allowed to call myself an African-American. I think the ad campaign in its gimmick is just that- a concept like any other. It's not brilliant, but it's good enough to make a point, but hardly worth this breed of criticism. Claiming a right to a modern connection with an entire country based on such long past lineage is bull, plain and simple.

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