Check out this brilliant article written by Carolyn Edgar about celebrity backed campaigns set up to “save Africa”.
After returning from a trip to South Africa earlier this year Carolyn wrote,
I rolled my eyes at Alicia Keys’ “I Am African” campaign when I first saw the photos. I rolled my eyes at the idea of Alicia Keys repping “Africa” by letting her hair go curly and poufy and wearing random tribal paint on her light skin. I rolled my eyes at photographs of other celebrities wearing sincere expressions and the same vague tribal face paint. I rolled my eyes at celebrities once again saving “Africa,” as if Africa were a school in the South Bronx that could be saved by restoring music programs. Continue Reading…..
Your thoughts please…
Categories: News
MAD NEWS UK 
she raises good points!!!
no matter how good the intentions are.. there is still a little bit of a misguided understanding of what africa ACTUALLY IS?!!! very true…
HMMMM……I have a lot of mixed feelings about this article …
I’m confused, yes I’m game when Tyson Beckford is strutting his ass in mud and/or whatever generic artistic nakedness pose, but what the frell is this with the war paint & weird faces?! Elijah Wood is killing me drastically with his softness, while Lucy Liu’s confused expression is giving me a new lease of life. Richard Gere…no.
Unless, if they’re going through the “Africa is the birthplace of mankind” phase…just frakk it…
Sidebar: J, are you going to comment on the theatrics during the 2 day state funeral of KJ-il? To everyone else, don’t ever what BBC News 24 for 3 days straight, it’s depressing as hell.
Some very good points. I think one of the things she is trying to say is Africa is a very big continent and she is tired of just seeing tribal painting to represent Africa. If there was a campaign saying I am European how would you represent it?????? you wouldn’t be able to, Germans are different to Spanish etc, it’s the same in Africa Congo is very different to Nigeria, yet Africa with all it’s countries and cultures is represented by tribal painting. A big reason why there are so many problems in Africa is because Europeans created countries and put people of different ethnicities together