Sean Jacobs's Blog, page 400

Definition: “Scrounger”

Salma Yaqoob confronts Conservative MP Iain Duncan Smith on poverty, austerity and the government’s labelling of those on benefits as “scroungers” | BBC Question Time, 12 June 2014:

So glad that Yaqoob said this. Like so many, I’ve been disgusted by the vilification of poor people under the current British government, and the political impunity the Lib/Cons have enjoyed as they wage their war on the British welfare system and the people it used to assist. Lord knows, back in 2012 that was basically all my tumblr was about.

I’m elated that Yaqoob says what she came to say despite being interrupted by three different white men in under two minutes. See how they flail about trying to shut her down? Trying, and failing to close ranks. Their language intends to belittle her intelligence, accuracy and question her political maturity. “What a lot of nonsense” says Iain Duncan Smith again and again, as she backs him into a corner. The dimwit David Dimbleby, whose sole public function is to maintain the status quo, (in a very gentlemanly fashion) orders Yaqoob to answer the question. Surely a person with his journalistic experience knows that politicians reframe the question they’re asked and give the answer they came to give? It’s alright when white men with party backing/influence/money do this very thing, but apparently not when Yaqoob does. I’m sure the question was boring anyway.

But she doesn’t let them to dismiss her! I cannot count the number of times I’ve been talked over and talked down to by white British men. My statements informed by education, research or experience are interrogated, picked apart, evengoogled when similar statements by a white man would be accepted as truths. Apparently, women of colour’s speech is always awaiting verification. I love that Yaqoob refused to succumb to all those familiar silencing tactics, and so quickly articulated a powerful case against austerity.

* This is a version of a post that first appeared on Tumblr

@ChiefBoima World Cup Diary Day 9 – Padrão FIFA

A four day national holiday that kicked off the cup ended on Monday, so the city has been attempting to return to somewhat of its normal routine. Brazilians have gone back to work, and over the past few days in Copacabana and Ipanema, we’ve seen a transition of fans, from a flood of Argentinians to a flood of Chileans. If the crowds in Rio are anything to go by, this cup definitely belongs to Latin America. Mexico, Colombia, Chile, and Argentina have all made their presence felt on the pitch, in the stands and on the streets. I find myself speaking Spanish on the streets here, much more than ever before.

Rio has also hosted the first two of its seven matches, as the famous Maracanã stadium opened its doors to the cup on Sunday. I was lucky enough to get tickets to see Argentina vs. Bosnia-Herzegovina play their first round opener. It was the first real international football match I’d ever attended, and it was quite an experience to see it amongst the throng of Argentinians. I’ve always heard the saying “football is a religion” but never really understood the levels of spiritual devotion that members of the Church of Maradona have. They sang and shook the stadium the entire match like they were being possessed by some kind of football holy spirit. When their Messi-ah scored they hailed their hands to him en masse. When someone from another church challenged the dominance of their very vocal prayers, the response would be swift and even sometimes physical. I saw several Brazilians, sometimes in Bosnia-Herzegovina jerseys, get escorted out of a section after getting physical with riotous Argentina fans. It seemed like the security came to rescue them for their own safety more than anything else. Beyond those few scuffles I witnessed, and a few rolled eyes when groups of singing and jumping Argentinians packed into public transportation (they altered their famous cheer against England to say “el que no salta es de BRAZIL!”), I get the sense the Brazilians have been nothing but gracious hosts to the many visitors from around the world. However, as I hinted at in my last post, the overall impact of the visitors on locals is different depending on where you are in the city.

“Padrão FIFA” or “FIFA standards” is a phrase that has been appropriated by Brazilian protesters to inventively sum up their demands from the government, flipping to say they want FIFA standard hospitals and schools as well as the stadiums they received (several of which won’t really be used after the tournament ends.) Padrão FIFA conveniently merged with an already existing slang here, “padrão gringo” previously used to explain the so-called superior quality of work and products (especially technology) coming from Europe and North America. The appropriation of the world isn’t always negative. There’s a playful Forro song using the phrase, saying my style of singing is of a FIFA standard which is quite funny:

But for the purpose of the World Cup in Rio, the phrase perfectly illustrates the consequences of a neoliberal development model, as the FIFA standard clearly extends beyond the stadium to reflect on the different parts of the city.

Rio is a giant city broken up into hundreds of neighborhoods. The places you feel the direct impact of the Cup, the feel of the above picture, are the ones that received padrão FIFA upgrades or already contained tourist infrastructure. On public transportation, on beaches, and in restaurants and bars is where you run into a diverse international cast of festive visitors. And it’s not like the average football fans are the global elite that you might picture when thinking of the neoliberal model of development. The global elite are definitely here, but they tend to remain in untouchable and invisible spaces. The spaces where you see average fans are often the ones that average Brazilians have to share with the visitors — spaces that control daily life in the city. These spaces are also highly regulated. Signs with arrows, painted with names of places like Maracanã, Copacabana, and Leblon shuffle tourists between high value zones, and keep them on track and away from places with names like Alemão, Maré, and Mangueira. For visitors, such space and infrastructure provide a convenient way to experience and move around the most important places in the city. Locals have to access or contest with such spaces for their daily movement in the city. [One interesting side-note: I’ve noticed that some of the “unruly” behavior of fans has caused even some Cup-supporting Brazilians to question the value of having a padrão FIFA. I’ve seen plenty of rough and tumble fans sleeping on the floors of the main regional bus station, yesterday Chilean fans crashed the gates at Maracanã, and one Brazilian woman commented to me with disgust that she saw Argentina fans sleeping in cars and bathing on the beach.]

The chief symbol of the conflict between padrão FIFA and the Brazilian standard in Rio has become the Maracanã stadium. The blog Rio on Watch has a great post running down its history as a national symbol in Brazil. Today, for many of the city’s most rabid football supporters, some of the most enthusiastic in the world, actually attending a Cup match in their own city remains a pipe dream (one Argentina fan told me, even for him it has always been a life-long dream to watch a match at Maracanã.) The famous stadium was upgraded to padrão FIFA or in the run up to the Cup, but in the process lowered the capacity from 200,000 to 70,000 spectators. With the resulting higher ticket price, and a new roof that blocks the view from surrounding favela covered hills, the temple of Brazilian soccer went from symbol of nationalist populism to a neoliberal temple of corporate consumerism.

When a group of protesters tried to break the ring of security around Maracanã on Sunday, they were teargassed. Apparently one overzealous military police even fired off some live ammunition amidst the crowd:

So when we ask, “who is this cup for?” In Rio, the answer to that question has become clear. This cup is for Zona Sul, Maracanã, and all the arteries that connect these high value areas. And you can’t help but get swept up in the excitement when you’re in these spaces with such a festive carnival-like atmosphere (I’ve commented several times how similar the vibe in Copacabana is to Carnival.) The exciting matches, and high level of play from the teams don’t hurt either. Anyone who passes in and out of that part of the city might tell you that they are definitely enjoying the international camaraderie, the boisterous fans, the party atmosphere. Service workers who commute from many neighborhoods: restaurant workers, tour guides, taxi drivers, all seem to be eating up the excitement — often asking who you’re cheering for. These will also be the workers who will benefit most from the city’s temporary economic boon.

However, in the midst of all this excitement it would be wise keep some perspective. Two hours before the opening kick off between Argentina and Bosnia-Herzegovina, only a few miles from Maracanã, and near the new Bus Rapid Transit — the Pacification Police (the force created to control favelas during the Cup and the Olympics) in Cidade de Deus carried out an action against some local drug dealers. A 12 year-old boy was killed by a stray bullet during the confrontation. The morning before the Brazilian national team played, neighbors and activists from across the city staged a march for the boy’s funeral and shut down most of the traffic in that part of the city. Partying visitors in Zona Sul would have been oblivious to all of this, and the fact that public safety for residents in communities like Cidade de Deus isn’t yet up to the padrão FIFA.

We ́re not Monkeys or Panthers: The Rap of Z’Africa Brasil

Race in Brazil has never been simple. In the midst of the protests leading up to the current World Cup, all eyes turned to Brazilian soccer players as yet another object lesson in blackness, racism and Africanity in the former Portuguese colony. The polemical fallout under the banner “We are all monkeys,” which emerged from the viral clip of Daniel Alves eating a banana a Spanish fan had thrown at the Brazilian soccer star, demonstrates the complexity of race and persistence of racism in the country that prides itself on being a “racial democracy.” What about the vanguard of another segment of popular culture, Brazilian rappers? Do these masters of the word, street and idea have anything to contribute?

“Back in the day, quilombos, today periphery,” “Periafricana Brasileiroz” and “Black Eldorado.” These are just some of the Afro-Brazilian neologisms of Gaspar, rapper and leader of an enigmatic group called Z’Africa Brasil. The “Z”s refer to Zumbi, the legendary 17th century warrior of the Palmares quilombo, one of the hundreds of maroon, Afro-Indigenous communities established during Portuguese colonialism. Quilombos continue to be a source of political tension and cultural expression. Z’Africa Brasil is composed of rappers Gaspar and Funk Biu, DJ Tano and producer Pitchô. The group’s name also refers to the famous 1976 album of Brazilian soul star Jorge Ben Jor, “Africa Brasil.” Finally, Z’Africa is a salve to the pioneer DJ of São Paulo’s baile black era during the 1970s and 80s, when sound system crews mixed James Brown and Parliament with Brazilian funk, soul and samba-rock stars, such as Gerson King Combo, Trio Mocotó and Black Rio, along with Afro-pop icons Fela Kuti and Miriam Makeba.

As the phrase, “Black Eldorado” indicates, Gaspar enjoys juxtaposition, in this case between the generative culture of blackness and the colonial Latin American myth of endless riches. He continually provokes his audience that one can be militant about Africanity and embrace crossover. At a certain level, Gaspar, a nickname that refers, in part, to his light, “ghostly” skin color, needs to preach crossover. But, his philosophy is more complicated than convenience. Z’Africa Brasil’s negritude moves away from strategic essentialism of the pantherism of MNU (Unified Black Movement) and pitches blackness as mixture, always from the perspective of the poor, working-class suburbs called periferia.

For Gaspar, all humanity begins with Africanity, which he interprets as a truth based in the encounter. The encounter bridges difference and is motivated by the escambo, the deal or barter. On Z’Africa’s most recent album Rapsicordélico (2014), a neologism composed of “rap,” the Northeastern folk literature of “cordel,” and “psycholdelic,” Gaspar raps, “I come from the mocambo to make a deal (escambo). When the police comes, I switch it up and return to the quilombo.”[1]

While the great majority of Brazilian rappers have tried to distance themselves from national popular music and folklore, Gaspar has always considered rap as part of a something larger. His father was born in Ceará, a large, poor state in the Northeast, and was a sanfoneiro (accordionist) in various forró musical groups before and after migrating south to the fundão, the way down periphery neighborhood of Capão Redondo in the mega-city of São Paulo. Gaspar explained that his upbringing with such strong roots in not only forró but also coco, baião, maracatu, embolada along with the handcraft literature of cordel impressed upon him that hip hop had to include more than just timbres of boom boom pa and straight ahead 4/4 time signatures. “Rap is one kind of canto, a manner of creating lyrics and exchanging ideas. This is where the beauty of Brazil, the northeast, Afro, and indigenous beats come in. I am more than just a rapper. All of this is me.”

Until recently, Z’Africa’s style of hip hop and Africanity found greater appreciation among rappers and folk musicians from France, Italy, England, the US and Burkina Faso than with the orthodox Brazilian rap market. Z’Africa has found a musical alternative to racist/racial democracy monkeys and myopic black panthers. The encounter of the quilombo is the key.As Brazil’s hip hop scene matures and new spaces for multiple Africanities emerge in global pop culture, Z’Africa Brasil perhaps is on the brink of new audiences and a deserved recognition of being ahead of the curve.

[1] Mocambo and quilombo are synonymous with the former from the Umbundu language and the latter from Kimbundu.

* Image: Wiki Commons.

Discovering Prophets Of Da City

One late afternoon while milling about at the University of Cape Town’s main campus, I ran into Adam Haupt, the Associate Professor of Media Studies who’s authored books such as Static: Race and Representation in Post-Apartheid Music, Media and Film, and Stealing Empire: P2P, Intellectual Property and Hip-Hop Subversion. I had known of Adam (or Dr. Hip-Hop) through the work he’d done with the influential hip-hop collective Prophets Of Da City (P.O.C). I thought to corner him to talk about how their relationship begun, and possibly get invaluable first-hand information about the Cape Town hip-hop scene in general. I got way more than that! We spoke of POC; of Die Antwoord; and of his feelings about the current state of hip-hop in South Africa. Below is an extract of the conversation in which he speaks about the first time he discovered P.O.C.

Who is Adam Haupt and what’s your background in relation to hip-hop?

Initially, I didn’t think of myself as someone who was interested in hip-hop. With my first degree, I was very interested in blues and jazz and African/African American literature – how you use art to mobilise critical mindsets. I was quite aware of what was going down locally with hip-hop; I was aware that Prophets Of the City were doing interesting work. But also, informally through friends of mine who were aspiring hip-hop artists, I learned that Shaheen of POC specifically was very generous in helping young people, advising them, [and] basically being a mentor figure. [Him] and Ready D were well-liked by young people.

How far back is this?

That was the early 90s. When I was doing an Honours degree in English in 1993, I started to become more interested in hip-hop as a voice – does it confirm the status quo, or does it challenge it? That was the big question.

Was this change influenced by anything or any one particular situation?

It was just me following friends. My interest in African/African American literature was really about race, class, and gender politics. We were emerging out of Apartheid, so anything that was political in some way, that was engaging people critically, interested me. My honours dissertation, believe or not, focused on Ice T’s Body Count album, that’s what I looked at. There’s not just a lot of race [issues]; politics come in, [and] gender… it’s hectic, over-the-top!

Do you still have a copy of the dissertation?

Yes, this is before I had a computer, so I had to hand-write everything and then type it out. So the version I have is a typewriter version with all of the tip-ex and the scary, scary quality!

Had you already learnt how to type in high school?

No! Finger, finger, index finger, thumb…and then tearing the paper out, starting over because there [are] errors on it. But I was excited; this album was provocative! And I could see the links between hip-hop and my interest in jazz, my interest in the blues, my interest in African orature…that’s the kind of stuff I was learning in English. I could see the connection, it was clear: here was a new form of oral culture which broke with literature, which was consistent with the blues and with jazz, I could see it! But there were gender contradictions in there. I mean, what do you do with a song like “KKK bitch“?!

That’s what I was going to ask: as much as you were embracing that side of hip-hop, were you already aware that there’s something fishy happening?

I was like ‘wait a minute’, “She sucked my dick like a motherfuckin’ vacuum?!!” What the hell do you do with that? It’s textbook feminist stuff here, straight out of first-year gender politics! He was as exciting as he was problematic. With the race stuff, there was some interesting stuff that was coming through, but he was [also] confirming a lot of dodgy race and gender stereotypes at the same time. So he was great material for a young scholar to unpack because he was so messy. [While working] on this dissertation, [I was] watching a lot of the ‘youth culture’ programmes. The Toyota Top 20 [a program on the state broadcaster morphing at the time into a public broadcaster--ed.] would play this video, and I realised that this is gonna be banned because there’s so much material in it that normally you wouldn’t have access to as a journalist–you couldn’t broadcast that on TV at the time [because] we didn’t have media freedom. So I knew I had to get a hold of this album (their third album, …).

So until that time you weren’t …

I was aware of [them, POC]. The first two albums were okay, I thought that they were cute, you know?! The first rap crew to make a splash, to get recorded, to get onto TV. Shaheen was a nice guy, as a live act they were phenomenal! I remember this New Years’ Eve gig with Black Noise and POC together on the same stage – man, as a live act with the dancers, Ready D on the decks – already then, he had it locked down. I can’t believe it, this is everything you [wanted] in live show, a show! Everything, the experience! It’s not just the music and what they’re rapping about; it’s Ramone, the dancer; it was everybody! They didn’t just [go like]: “yo, yo, yo, we’re gonna drop some knowledge on your ass!” They were playing with the audience; they were talking; there was a lot of fun; it was interactive!

Where were these shows?

Around the city, at a club diagonally opposite the Good Hope Centre - it doesn’t exist anymore. And I’m told they didn’t get paid for that. No surprise there, the story of artists getting ripped off goes way back. But it was an electric gig! I was like “I cannot believe these guys, they’re awesome!” So I had that knowledge of them, but it wasn’t until this music video on TV1…I ran out, I had to get this album. I couldn’t find it, it was very hard. And already, the whole payback for what they did was kicking in. There’s a story about how they recorded at BOP studios, and [when the powers that be] discovered how revolutionary, how incendiary the lyrics are, they tried to put the lid on it. [POC] stole the DATs and ran from BOP. They thought they’d won; they got the album out. And then what happened is they got cut off, they got banned from all (SABC) radio/TV. Gigs that they were gonna get booked for, they got shut down, organizers were cancelling on them. So, they were being shut down on all levels. I knew, when I saw it; I knew that this is what was gonna happen. And I’m told that this is only the second time the video was played. The first time was on breakfast TV, that’s even worse! I knew that was gonna be a Masters dissertation; I needed to find out the material before there was a lockdown on it. And that was, for me, from being aware of Public Enemy [and] being aware of what Prophets were doing – knowing that they were good guys who were helping kids in the community; they were using hip-hop to teach, they weren’t in it from themselves. That was my introduction, I knew that this was gonna be it! By the next year I had chased them down, interviewed them, shot that interview on VHS. And they were angry!

*Adam maintains a website called Staticphlow. Check it out here.

**This article is part of Africasacountry’s series on South African Hip-Hop in 2014. You can follow the rest of the series here.

A review Dak’art 2014 (II)

Halfway through my visit to the International Exhibition of this year’s ambitious edition of Dak’art: the 11th Biennale of Contemporary African Art, a tray of fragrant Thieboudienne, the classic Senegalese dish, was brought out into the courtyard of the Village de la Biennale, located in former television studios on the busy Route de Rufisque in Dakar’s industrial northern district. A few days after the close of the biennale’s well-attended opening week, the Village – the festival’s central hub – was nearly empty, save for my traveling companion and me and a host of biennale employees. As the midday sun beat down, we were delighted to be invited into the shade to share this meal of rice and fish communally from one platter. Given the theme of this year’s biennale, “producing the common,” you could be forgiven for assuming that we were participating in yet another edition of contemporary artist Rikrit Tiravanija’s Untitled (Free), in which a shared meal of Thai curry and rice becomes an artistic intervention. Our meal, instead, more spontaneously manifested the biennale’s mission to invite artists and the public to actively and collectively reflect on the values of the common.

In their inclusion of art that engages aesthetics and politics, curators Elise Atangana (artists from the Diaspora), Abdelkader Damani (artists from North Africa) and Ugochukwu-Smooth Nwezi (artists from sub-Saharan Africa) took inspiration from theorist Michael Hardt’s conception of the common as “the scene of encounter of social and political differences, at times characterized by agreement and at others antagonism.” They hope the diversity of voices and opinions inherent in the artworks come together to form what Édouard Glissant called a “Whole World” (Tout-Monde) in which all participate as equals.

Click to view slideshow.

The International Exhibition joined a constellation of other official installations spread out across Dakar. These included tribute shows to three historically significant Senegalese artists Mbaye Diop, Mamadou Diakhaté and Moustapha Dimé. In addition to this, the Musée Théodore Monod hosted an outdoor installation of contemporary African sculpture and an exhibition, “Cultural Diversity”, curated by Massamba Mbaye, which brought together the work of both African and non-African artists in order to promote dialogue and exchange rather than exclusion. Finally, the “Green Art” exhibition at the Université Cheikh Anta Diop invited international and Senegalese artists to revitalize an abandoned garden, creating a meditative, communal space within a dynamic campus that often serves as the site of student protest.

The exhibitions themselves brought together familiar works by internationally renowned artists including Wangechi Mutu, Candice Breitz and Simone Leigh alongside a range of exciting new discoveries. While much of the art was overtly political in its topical criticism of failed leadership and democracy, such as Léopold Sédar Senghor prizewinner Tunisian artist Faten Rouissi’s Le fantôme de la liberté (Malla Ghassra) (2012), I preferred quieter work. Olu Amoda – an established Nigerian artist who shared the biennale’s first prize with Rouissi – created Sunflower (2012). Using nails recuperated from the shipping containers that import luxury goods into Lagos for a consumerist elite, this work appeared to be a subtle commentary on Nigeria’s neoliberal tendencies and lack of industrial agency. London-based Ghanaian filmmaker John Akomfrah’s poetic film Peripeteia (2012) moved me with its ethereal imagery and enthralling narrative recuperating and imagining the lives of an anonymous black man and woman immortalized in 16th century engravings by Albrecht Dürer that resonates as a contemporary meditation on displacement.

Paris-based Algerian artist Kader Attia’s Indépendence Tchao (2014) responded to the architectural fabric of Dakar itself. In a work created specially for the biennale, the artist created a model of the modernist Dakar Independence Hotel using metal lockers reclaimed from an abandoned building in Algiers, in order to create a monument to failed revolutionary projects across Africa. While the biennale suffered from the expected mishaps of such a large-scale project, including non-functional video projectors past the opening week and undelivered artwork (Ethiopian-American artist Julie Mehretu’s work never showed), an improvisatory attitude contributed to a pervasive sense of community involvement. American artist Radcliffe Bailey created an installation from local coal when his work failed to arrive on time.

The Senegalese government has historically played a critical role in Dak’art’s conception and funding, a robust program of 266 independently organized ‘OFF’ events and exhibitions throughout Dakar, nearby Saint Louis and other locations around Senegal help to decentralize the biennale and bring it further to its goal of “producing the common.” This multiplicity of voices has new significance in light of last week’s shut-down of Raw Material Company, the internationally renowned contemporary art space in Dakar. Raw Material’s contribution to ‘OFF’ was a groundbreaking exhibition co-organized by Koyo Kouoh and Ato Malinda called “Precarious Imaging: Visibility and Media Surrounding African Queerness” exploring homosexuality in Africa. The government of Senegal, where homosexuality is prohibited, suspended all other Dak’art exhibitions dealing with the subject. As this edition of Dak’art draws to a close, we are reminded of the real controversies that art brings to the surface.

* Image: Mehdi-Georges Lahlou, “72 (virgins) on the sun” (2014), sculpture /installation, mixed media, variable dimension, Village de la Biennale.

Why we made a film about the images and myths that cast a continent as a victim

We’re making the documentary film, FRAMED, because we recognize a lot of Americans want to do good in Africa, with the best of intentions, but the way they go about it often doesn’t play out well for Africans. In western pop culture, we’re still seeing images of Africans as helpless, hopeless and without any ideas about how to change their own societies. Yet Africans are politically, socially, culturally engaged in and out of government and they are telling their stories about what they are doing through writing, art, music, political action and social media. FRAMED turns the lens on how the status quo of Africa in need works for westerners.

In the film, Zine Magubane, an educator at Boston College, investigates the motives and rewards of the humanitarian impulse: “unfortunately it’s not establishing a relationship between two people as humans, but rather as a savior and a victim.”

Featured in the film are writer Binyavanga Wainaina (How To Write About Africa; One Day I Will Write About This Place) and Boniface Mwangi, the young Kenyan photojournalist turned activist who shatters the stereotype of the passive aid recipient.  FRAMED has never been about speaking on behalf of Africans but about finding ways to open up Americans to recognize that if they really want to do good in Africa they need to partner with Africans or support their initiatives or work in the US on policies that impact Africans.  We want the film to speak to young people who have a sincere energy for change, but haven’t considered the questions FRAMED is raising.  We filmed with a young writer named Pippa Biddle who made waves when she wrote a provocative blog piece titled “The Problem With Little White Girls (And Boys): Why I Stopped Being a Voluntourist” about her experience as a volunteer.

It has been hard to narrow the story down but we believe that showing how Africans like Boniface engage with their own political spaces as well as how they represent their homes to Americans while also, we hope, showing how Americans are learning new ways to be activists in Africa and at home can push us out of the critique phase into a constructive one in terms of development and humanitarian interventions.

Here’s a link to the film’s Kickstarter page.

A Bronx Story: Ghana vs USA

The fate of World Cup draws has fostered an unlikely rivalry between Ghana and the United States. In 2006, Ghana dispatched the U.S. in Germany. Four years later, in South Africa, the Black Stars sunk American hearts in the first knockout round, courtesy of an extra-time goal from Asamoah Gyan. Passion runs so deep for Ghana’s national team that, prior to their latest bout with the U.S., the government in Accra rationed electricity carefully so the country’s power grids could handle the nation-wide viewing. In the Bronx, home to about 16,000 Ghanaians, according to the census data, a strong contingent of die-hard Black Star supporters flooded Papaye Restaurant, an unassuming Ghanaian eatery on the corner of Grand Concourse Road and 183rd Street.

Confidence was high within the packed crowd. “We have the whim, the power, the stamina,” said Kwadwo Appiah, who watched both previous encounters against the U.S. at Papaye.

Papaye’s manager, Kwame Bonsu, however, remained pragmatic. “We’re just targeting qualification from the group, and we’ll take it from there,” he said.

Many, like Kingsley Adarkwah, a tech specialist who moved to New York in 2007, consider the venue fortuitous when Ghana faces the U.S. “The place is good luck – absolutely,” he said. Draped in his national colors with a souvenir Ghanaian flag in each hand, he explained that Papaye’s traditional food and communal nature have made it a hub for his community.

But Papaye’s luck dissipated within forty seconds of the kick-off as Clint Dempsey slotted inside of the far-post, sealing the fifth fastest goal in World Cup history. That silenced all but one fan–an American serviceman of Ghanaian birth. “I don’t leave my country behind,” said U.S. Army Specialist Donkor Carven (in picture below), who immigrated to the U.S. at age five, to light-hearted jeers and whistling.

The largest roar of the evening thus far came when Kevin Prince Boateng, a German-born Ghanaian attacking midfielder, entered the fray. Boateng could have chosen to play for Germany like his brother, Jerome, but sided with Ghana, to the continued adoration of his countrymen.

With expectation rising, a slick piece of build-up and combination play put Ghana on level terms in the 82nd minute. Papaye erupted. Supporters took their glee to the streets. Carven, at this point, literally had egg on his face, as Ghanaian supporters playfully cracked an egg on his head.

But only four minutes later, John Brooks converted a set-piece, sealing a 2-1 victory for the U.S. Ghana now require at least one victory over a rampant Germany or an equally-desperate Portugal to advance from what has largely been billed as the “Group of Death.”

“There’s no hope,” Appiah said. “We’re not going to get a result against Germany.”

But some disagree, and remain upbeat. “There’s still room for improvement,” said Isaac Sam, a nine-year New York resident. “We can still make it.”

* Images by Joao Inada, a recent graduate of Columbia Journalism School with a focus on multimedia storytelling.

“How was Africa?”

“Welcome back to civilization,” a family member said, slapping my shoulder. “How was Africa?”

That was the refrain I encountered most frequently upon returning to the United States after conducting a year of fieldwork amongst northern Malian internally displaced persons and refugees. I’d been away for all of 2013. During the first six months I went to the “hearts” of internal displacement in southern Mali, and to refugee camps in Burkina Faso. During the second six months, I went to Timbuktu—where I’d also conducted fieldwork in 2010—to work with displaced individuals and families as they returned home following the French-led military intervention.

This was my third time to the continent. So, I consciously attempted to preempt some of the problematic and ignorant queries that I had received following my first two. I regularly sent updates to my family and close friends. In them, I acknowledged the events surrounding the occupation of northern Mali, the displacement of most of its residents, and the subsequent military intervention, while simultaneously historicizing and complicating them. I insisted that my family and friends consider the widespread ripple effects of colonialism and decolonization, global capitalism, the international “war on terror”, etcetera. Further, I expressed that as the anthropological discipline itself can create distance, we should challenge the self-other binary. So, I told stories of my Timbuktian friends working, hanging out; just living their lives.

I remember one email, for instance, where I described Timbuktu during Ramadan last year. Many fasted by day and prayed at sundown. Everyone—fasters and non—dined together on dishes sent by neighbors and family in the evening. And at night, the youth partied, dancing to American and West African hip-hop and reggae, posting photos on Facebook and calling friends and family outside of Timbuktu with their cell phones.

Nonetheless, “Welcome back to civilization. How was Africa?” Despite attempts to educate through my correspondence, ignorant and exoticizing notions continue to fuel some of my family and friends’ questions and statements relating to the African continent and its peoples:

“What was the craziest thing you ate? Bugs? Monkey brains?”

“What tribes live in Africa?”

“Did you become one of them?”

“Did you ever see any lions? Do they attack people?”

“Did you know that for Muslims, a woman’s word means nothing?”

Such questions were disappointing, as I had expected a more sophisticated degree of inquiry. Unfortunately, I have been similarly disappointed in the classroom. One of my courses this past semester was “Africa: Society and Culture.” I taught the same lessons I attempted with my fieldwork correspondence. Only this time, I was able to approach it in a much more structured, much more formal way with an audience that had registered and agreed to listen and learn. We discussed the deep history of the continent, the diversity of its peoples, and the problematic ways in which Africa has been and continues to be represented. Nevertheless, one day in the middle of a discussion of Fanon, a student’s hand shot up, asking me:

“Do you speak African?”

A few classes later, while interrogating recent waves of urbanization and other effects of global capitalism, another student interrupted:

“Why are Africans always fighting?”

In response, I attempted to ask other students what they thought of the question and guide the conversation in a way that would reveal why the proposition was problematic. Nevertheless, yet another student—albeit hesitantly—queried:

“Do you think Africans were better off under colonialism?”

Reflecting on my “welcome home” and some of my students’ continued questions, I wonder where I—and perhaps, where many of us—are falling short in our endeavors to educate about Africa. I wonder what kinds of intellectual and ideological battles we are really engaging. And I wonder what the product of our educational attempts really is. Am I—are we—really changing minds? Or, are we just teaching political correctness? Indeed, on more than one occasion, I have had what I’d thought was a solid chat about Mali. After returning to the room, though, I would overhear one mutter to another, “Oh, Andrew’s back, you can’t say stuff like that anymore.”

I do notice some improvement in my students’ discourse concerning Africa. And, political correctness or not, I suppose that that is a step in the right direction. At least they recognize the problematic ways in which the continent continues to be represented, and perhaps they even recognize their own complicity in reproducing such representations. Further, they recognize that outside of private settings, some of their comments are ignorant and offensive. However, it’s clear that I must go further in my attempts to disrupt some of the entrenched and privileged positions that many of my students maintain and push them to rethink contemporary processes that continue to marginalize much of the continent. In my view, though, my current focus on history, power relations, social construction, and even everyday African lives remains insufficient. Superficially, such instruction disrupts discourse, but seems to fail to undermine years of ideological social distance and apathy. Therefore, to join the chorus of educators of global inequality, in addition to providing information and challenging presumptions, I contend that we must also attempt to teach something considerably more complicated: empathy.

* The images were taken during my time in southern Mali and Burkina Faso.

Trouble in the Village: A Review of Dak’ Art 2014

Dak’ Art 014 is an art exhibition showing over 120 artists of African descent. It opened on 9th May, with a main international showcase at the Village de la Biennale, a television studio along Route de la Rufisque in Dakar’s industrial area. While it is the only art biennale of its scope today with a mandate to include all artists of African descent, a critical tour of the international exhibition at the Village revealed a daunting diversity of artworks, styles and traditions that made one ask questions about what exactly defines contemporary African art, how contemporaneity might be defined amongst artists of African descent at the Dakar biennale, and whether living on or away from the continent of Africa influences the contemporaneity of the art one produces.

While great emphasis was placed on the Village–an ironic title for an international exhibition–where three curators were invited to select artists, respectively, from North Africa, sub-Saharan Africa, and the diaspora, the biennale had several other “main” events, including an exhibition of guest artists dedicated to cultural diversity at the Musée de l’Ifan, a clearly unfocussed exhibition with selected artworks reflecting no central theme; the African sculpture park. There was also tribute exhibitions to three Senegalese artists: Mamadou Diakhaté, Moustapha Dimé and Mbaye Diop. In addition, an epistemological exhibition titled ‘Green Art’ on the campus of Cheikh Anta Diop University. These latter exhibitions seemed to have a separate, and specific, focus on the local.

A press release on the biennale website from July 3rd, 2013 summarizes a wish by past and present biennale general-secretaries to achieve autonomy for the art exhibition. During some research on the biennale’s history, I found a report in Nka Journal from 1992 written by Octavia Zaya, revealing that the biennale’s financial woes existed from the very beginning, when artists, after failing to settle differences with the biennale office, threatened to boycott the exhibition. These financial disputes emerge directly from the fact that the biennale is registered under the Ministry of Culture and Heritage. This bondage to a government ministry inevitably creates problems. As the art critic Sylvia Sankale articulated in the July 3rd 2013 press conference, “according to the law of public finances, any money given to a department of the state is automatically transferred to the Ministry of Finance and redistributed as needed.”

Financial woes aside, I was concerned by the curators’ settling on a theme whose aim was to “link politics and aesthetics in a vigorous and engaged way” (this, according to the 014 press release), knowing full well the long historical disparities between Senegal’s politics and the art biennale since its inception in 1992. In addition to this, the curators’ decision to present a curatorial statement that spoke above the heads of journalists and the general public–in a highly academic and theoretical language that quoted Eduard Glissant: “our universe that is ever changing yet remains the same”–made it clear that they were not interested in extending an invitation to a specific kind of local: the kind that did not read Eduard Glissant, nor one that (perhaps naively) still believed in the developmental vision of globalization.

The streets of Dakar, today, abound in a frenzy of infrastructural development: outside of the CBD, the city is a cornrow of half finished buildings. Here, the difference between Wolof and French speakers is a marker of class. Evident here, also, is the difference between contemporary artists shown in galleries and the large scale highway murals of graffiti artists, as well as that between the villages of Ouakam and the new imperialist and seafront La Corniche neighborhoods.

In the spirit of placing contemporary African art within the political discourse of Pan-Africanism and Black Consciousness, the outstanding showcase at the Village (international exhibition) was the installation, “72 (Virgins)” in the sun by Mehdi-Georges Lahlou, which captured a universality: parading white flags, each standing freely in the courtyard of Le Village welcomed the audience to envision a post-nationalist world which neutralized nation states into one unknown. Each metal flag pole and the attached piece of cloth, placed on a wooden platform (about seven by five meters in diameter) was painted entirely white, bleaching out national colors and effectively deconstructing the national sense of self. However, some of my close friends and colleagues who saw the title of the work and the Algerian nationality of the artist envisioned the fabled (and scripturally not really accurate) 72 virgins that members of Boko Haram or any other so-called “Islamist” terrorist group in Africa claim that they would receive in paradise.

In the courtyard of Le Village, the photography installation “As god wants and devil likes it” (or O.R.G.A.S.M. Symposium) by Kiluanji Kia Henda redesigned the European Union emblem as a circular twelve star arrangement with the African continent in its center. The artist went on to juxtapose his low-resolution self portraits as the crowned Blessed Virgin Mary with photoshopped images of E.U. Heads of State (notably, an afro-sporting Nikolas Sarkozy made an appearance in one of the portraits). Yet for all his punchy humor, Henda stereotyped all African leaders as “traditional”, illiterate, one-dimensional stooges.

Faten Rouissi’s ceramic toilet basins, wooden microphones and toilet paper installation, “Le Fantome de la Liberté” (Ghost of Freedom), exhibited in the Studio B space inside Le Village, was designed like a conference table that evoked a sense of shared commonality by coloring every object mustard yellow. The piece alluded to, and simultaneously obliterated, the memory of Africa’s partition at the 1900 Berlin Conference. However, one close reading of the art work’s description, as a representation of the Tunis parliament, shows that the artist was not alluding to a global Black consciousness, but was, rather, interested in shaming the local political ironies that enabled civil unrest in Tunisia during the Arab Spring of 2011.

In this way, the show reflected the complications that result for those curating in a global framework: by selecting artworks for their radical politics, the artist’s embedded local context is subsumed. However, the exhibition did successfully convey the themes of unification and edification. According to co-curator Smooth, Glissant’s ideas about “rethinking the values of communality and sacrifice devoid of idealism” came through here. The works, in their whole, redefined contemporary artists of African descent: they could no longer be seen as artists who are disinterested in representing the local, or as artists who solely use radical political methodologies that inevitably subsume their own local context.

Neymar and the Disappearing Donkey

By the time you read this, it’s possible that every single person on the planet will know who Neymar da Silva Santos Júnior is.

The image above is of Neymar from five days ago.

This is Neymar from one year ago:

This is Neymar from three years ago:

This is Neymar from five years ago:

This is little Neymar with his family:

You could come to any number of conclusions from Neymar’s remarkable transformation. For instance, you could conclude that race doesn’t exist in Brazil, which is the favourite line of a specific tribe of Brazilians – impeccable liberals all, who just happen to be upper-class, white and at the top of the heap.

Or you could conclude that everyone in Brazil is indeed mixed – which is, incidentally, the second-favourite line of the selfsame tribe.

Or you could wonder what happened to this boy.

***

It’s too easy to condemn Neymar for pretending to be white: judging by the images, he is partly white. It’s silly to accuse him of denying his mixed-race ancestry, because the simplest search throws up hundreds of images of him as a child, none of which he seems to be ashamed of. There is this: when asked if he had ever been a victim of racism, he said, “Never. Neither inside nor outside the field. Because I’m not black right?”

Actually, the word he used was preto, which is significant, since, in Brazil, when used as a colour ascribed to people – rather than things, like rice or beans – it is the equivalent of the n-word; negro and negra being the acceptable ways of describing someone who is truly black. (And moreno or morena being standard descriptors for someone dark-skinned, as well as, occasionally, euphemisms for blackness). Technically speaking, however, his logic was faultless – and even kind of interestingly honest: the Neymar who made that statement was an unworldly eighteen-year-old who had never lived outside Brazil. And in Brazil, Neymar is not black.

***

In 1976, the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics ran a household survey that marked a crucial departure from other census exercises. The Pesquisa Nacional por Amostra de Domicílios (PNAD) did not ask Brazilians to choose a race category among pre-determined choices; instead, researchers went out and asked people to describe the colour they thought they were.

This is what was returned:

 

Acastanhada
Somewhat chestnut-coloured



Agalegada
Somewhat like a Galician



Alva
Snowy white



Alva escura
Dark snowy white



Alvarenta
(not in dictionary; poss. dialect) Snowy white



Alvarinta
Snowy white



Alva rosada
Pinkish white



Alvinha
Snowy white



Amarela
Yellow



Amarelada
Yellowish



Amarela-queimada
Burnt yellow



Amarelosa
Yellowy



Amorenada
Somewhat dark-skinned



Avermelhada
Reddish



Azul
Blue



Azul-marinho
Sea blue



Baiano
From Bahia



Bem branca
Very white



Bem clara
Very pale



Bem morena
Very dark-skinned



Branca
White



Branca-avermelhada
White going on for red



Branca-melada
Honey-coloured white



Branca-morena
White but dark-skinned



Branca-pálida
Pale white



Branca-queimada
Burnt white



Branca-sardenta
Freckled white



Branca-suja
Off-white



Branquiça
Whitish



Branquinha
Very white



Bronze
Bronze-coloured



Bronzeada
Sun-tanned



Bugrezinha-escura
Dark-skinned India



Burro-quando-foge
Disappearing donkey (i.e. nondescript) humorous



Cabocla
Copper-coloured ( refers to civilized Indians)



Cabo-verde
From Cabo Verde (Cape Verde)



Café
Coffee-coloured



Café-com-leite
Café au lait



Canela
Cinnamon



Canelada
Somewhat like cinnamon



Cardão
Colour of the cardoon, or thistle (blue-violet)



Castanha
Chestnut



Castanha-clara
Light chestnut



Castanha-escura
Dark chestnut



Chocolate
Chocolate-coloured



Clara
Light-coloured, pale



Clarinha
Light-coloured, pale



Cobre
Copper-coloured



Corada
With a high colour



Cor-de-café
Coffee-coloured



Cor-de-canela
Cinnamon-coloured



Cor-de-cuia
Gourd-coloured



Cor-de-leite
Milk-coloured (i.e. milk-white)



Cor-de-ouro
Gold-coloured (i.e. golden)



Cor-de-rosa
Pink



Cor-firme
Steady-coloured



Crioula
Creole



Encerada
Polished



Enxofrada
Pallid



Esbranquecimento
Whitening



Escura
Dark



Escurinha
Very dark



Fogoió
Having fiery-coloured hair



Galega
Galician or Portuguese



Galegada
Somewhat like a Galician or Portuguese



Jambo
Light-skinned (the colour of a type of apple)



Laranja
Orange



Lilás
Lilac



Loira
Blonde



Loira-clara
Light blonde



Loura
Blonde



Lourinha
Petite blonde



Malaia
Malaysian woman



Marinheira
Sailor-woman



Marrom
Brown



Meio-amarela
Half-yellow



Meio-branca
Half-white



Meio-morena
Half dark-skinned



Meio-preta
Half-black



Melada
Honey-coloured



Mestiça
Half-caste/mestiza



Miscigenação
Miscegenation



Mista
Mixed



Morena
Dark-skinned, brunette



Morena-bem-chegada
Very nearly morena



Morena-bronzeada
Sunburnt morena



Morena-canelada
Somewhat cinnamon-coloured morena



Morena-castanha
Chestnut-coloured morena



Morena-clara
Light-skinned morena



Morena-cor-de-canela
Cinnamon-coloured morena



Morena-jambo
Light-skinned morena



Morenada
Somewhat morena



Morena-escura
Dark morena



Morena-fechada
Dark morena



Morenão
Dark-complexioned man



Morena-parda
Dark morena



Morena-roxa
Purplish morena



Morena-ruiva
Red-headed morena



Morena-trigueira
Swarthy, dusky morena



Moreninha
Petite morena



Mulata
Mulatto girl



Mulatinha
Little mulatto girl



Negra
Negress



Negrota
Young negress



Pálida
Pale



Paraíba
From Paraíba



Parda
Brown



Parda-clara
Light brown



Parda-morena
Brown morena



Parda-preta
Black-brown



Polaca
Polish woman



Pouco-clara
Not very light



Pouco-morena
Not very dark-complexioned



Pretinha
Black – either young, or small



Puxa-para-branco
Somewhat towards white



Quase-negra
Almost negro



Queimada
Sunburnt



Queimada-de-praia
Beach sunburnt



Queimada-de-sol
Sunburnt



Regular
Regular, normal



Retinta
Deep-dyed, very dark



Rosa
Rose-coloured (or the rose itself)



Rosada
Rosy



Rosa-queimada
Sunburnt-rosy



Roxa
Purple



Ruiva
Redhead



Russo
Russian



Sapecada
Singed



Sarará
Yellow-haired negro



Saraúba
(poss. dialect) Untranslatable



Tostada
Toasted



Trigo
Wheat



Trigueira
Brunette



Turva
Murky



Verde
Green



Vermelha
Red

 

Lilia Moritz Schwarcz, an anthropologist at the University of São Paulo, has a range of astonishing insights around this historic survey; her paper, Not black, not white: just the opposite. Culture, race and national identity in Brazil, from which the table is reproduced, is a gem. (She also has a book that examines the early history of the subject: The Spectacle of the Races: Scientists, Institutions, and the Race Question in Brazil, 1870-1930).

Schwarcz’s work is filled with thoughtful, original analysis, and is characterised by an unusual fearlessness. (Unusual, that is, for a subject so complicated). Reading her is a revelation; it turns out there is a real place hiding under that avalanche of clichés. If you’ve ever wondered how crushing racism can flourish in a country where, apparently, race itself has been crushed, consider that everything Brazil is defined by – from its “we-are-all-mixed” anthem, to feijoada, capoeira and candomblé, right down to samba and soccer – is the result of an insidious, revisionist, far-sighted political manoeuvre of the 1930s, courtesy the combined skills of popular intellectual Gilberto Freyre and populist dictator Getúlio Vargas. The battered body of slave culture was abducted by national culture in order to renew white culture.

Among the many eye-popping results reported in the PNAD survey, the one I am most drawn to is burro quando foge. You’ll find it up there in the table at No. 34. Google inexplicably translates the phrase as “saddle”, which is awesome, since it means that Lusofonia still keeps some secrets beyond the reach of the behemoth. Burro quando foge is translated by Schwarcz, within the constraints of a column slot, as “the disappearing donkey” and explained as a humorous phrase that denotes a nondescript colour.

Which it is – and then some. The metaphor is unique to Brazil, and signifies a colour. That colour could be nondescript, ill-defined, elusive, or ugly – and, just to make things really clear, also fawn, beige, or a tricky shade of brown. The sentiment conveyed in the phrase is just as interesting. Used between friends, it could pass for a joke. Otherwise, it almost always denotes something unpleasant. It’s usually used an insult, although – oddly enough, given the colours and sentiments – it’s not specifically a racial insult.

Of all the one hundred and thirty six colours of race in Brazil, this is my favourite. It’s flippant and factual and fictional all at once, and as such, suits me perfectly. Race is not a term that has much currency in India, where I live. It is, however, a central feature of Johannesburg and São Paulo, the two cities I occasionally work in, and as much as I’m aware of how privileged I am not to be wholly subject to it, I feel curiously bereft of race in both places. Certainly, I grew up with colour: being a dark-skinned child in a uniformly light-skinned family meant that I had to regularly contend with well-meaning relatives who’d pinch my cheeks and chide me for “losing my colour” – as though my skin tone was something I had brought upon myself in a fit of absent-mindedness. To choose a race then: Indian might work for some people, but it is both my passport and my residence, and that’s quite enough. Brown is too generic, and black, a bit too unbelievable, all things considered. Given that I spent my childhood reading Gerald Durrell and dreaming of donkeys, adopting their colour seems right in so many ways.

***

And where does that leave our boy wonder?  We might start with the Estado Novo, Vargas’ authoritarian reign between 1937 and 1945. Only a few years earlier, Freyre had published the crowning achievement of his career, Casa-Grande e Senzala, (“The Big House and the Slave Quarters”, released in English as The Masters and the Slaves), and the book was catching fire. Freyre’s central theory was something he called Lusotropicalism. It told a soothing story of the past (by casting the Portuguese as a kinder, gentler breed of imperial slaver), offered a handy solution for the present (by turning the mixing of races into a virtue) and held out an appealing conclusion, namely, the idea that Brazil was a racial democracy.

Upon publication, Freyre’s work immediately attracted the ire of the Portuguese nation for suggesting her citizens were prone to miscegenation. At home, however, it became Vargas’ blueprint for the country he had seized – and his strategy for political survival. Three quarters of a century later, Freyre’s big think remains the enduring idea of Brazil, an idea whose appeal grows in leaps and bounds across the globe and, to be sure, often escapes the clutches of its creators to dazzling effect. Still, consider the irony: the country’s sense of itself as a racial democracy was smuggled in to its soul by an autocracy.

The term Estado Novo refers to a few different periods of dictatorship, and it literally translates as “new state”, which is prophetic, since the words also describe a peculiar duty that is incumbent upon at least half the Brazilian population. That duty, of course, is the business of branqueamento – of whitening – of transforming, quite literally, into a new physical state. (For all his pro-miscegenation advocacy, Schwarcz notes in The Spectacle of the Races, Freyre was as keen as his critics on keeping the structure of Brazil intact: as a hierarchy with whiteness on top). In that sense, Neymar is only the latest in a long line of celebrities and Brazilians of lesser value who get it. Who get the fine print on the contract; who understand that national identity rests on racial harmony, which, in turn, rests on a kind of potential access to opportunity. Not the opportunity to be equal, mind you, but the opportunity to be white. We may gawk at him all we like, but in straightening his hair, extending it out and dyeing it blonde, Neymar was fulfilling his patriotic destiny in exactly as much as confounding the Croats and leading his team to victory last week.

***

I’ll venture that the disappearing donkey colour fits Neymar to a T. After all, he is both undoubtedly and elusively brown. Yes, there is the matter of his blonde ambition. O burro fugiu, we might well ask: has the donkey left the room? I’d really like to think not. For one thing, the boy’s only twenty two. He’s got a whole lifetime to change his mind – and his hair. For another, I’ve got a whole World Cup to watch. Have a heart. I spend hours every week learning Brazilian Portuguese, I’m devoted to the country, and I come from Bangalore, a city in which Pelé is god. I do not mean this metaphorically. In a neighbourhood called Gowthampura, around the corner from where I live, residents have erected a lovely shrine to four local icons – the Buddha, Dr. Ambedkar, Mother Teresa, and the striker from Santos.

So there you have it: my hands are tied. I’ve got my own patriotic destiny to fulfil, and it involves rooting for Brazil, which means I’m going to need to love Neymar a lot.

I can do it.

Anyway, donkeys are famously stubborn animals. They’re good at waiting.