Whose Queen? Netflix and Egypt Spar Over an African Cleopatra. – The New York Times
For all its diversity, Egyptian society often prizes light skin and looks down on darker-skinned Egyptians. But many Egyptians and historians say the racist slurs hurled online at Ms. James, while abhorrent, distract from the real issue. The show is dragging an ancient queen into the middle of contemporary Western debates in which she has no real place, they argue.
Slavoj Žižek: The difference between ‘woke’ and a true awakening — RT Op-ed
While criticizing the PC canceling culture, we should thus always bear in mind that we share their goals (for feminism, against racism, etc.), and that we criticize their inefficiency in reaching these goals.
Fela: The Beatification of an Embattled Saint: Taking a Glance at “Fela: This Bitch of a Life”
His charismatic charm drew in many, but charisma would never be enough to promote solid ideologies except it is backed by intelligent, well-researched, objective ideas. In Nigeria, this is however not the case. Since there are, and have been, very few people who stand up to defend our rights, many Nigerians love the outspoken, and more so, those who speak for them. However warped their ideologies, these speakers usually gain cult followings. In Nigeria, when a man’s name is said too often, he becomes a god. Odumegwu Ojukwu, Nnamdi Kanu, Naira Marley, Sunday Adeyemo, Omoyele Sowore, Hush Puppi, etc, all rose to prominence because they had the loudest voices or raised the most dust. Fela falls somewhat into this category, too. His ideology was humane and even strangely prophetic but stifled by the very miseducation he sought to correct.
Mo’Nique Reveals Why She Still Wants a Public Apology From Oprah Winfrey.
When you are good on the inside, I believe it shows up on the outside. It’s a new chapter, but not because of Hollywood,” she says. “It’s a new chapter because my babies are graduating high school. It’s a new chapter because my grandson will be going to kindergarten next year, and my granddaughter to the fifth grade. Those things, for me, are the priority.” When you are good on the inside, I believe it shows up on the outside. It’s a new chapter, but not because of Hollywood,” she says. “It’s a new chapter because my babies are graduating high school. It’s a new chapter because my grandson will be going to kindergarten next year, and my granddaughter to the fifth grade. Those things, for me, are the priority.”
Tibetans Say the Dalai Lama’s ‘Suck My Tongue’ Viral Video Is Being Misinterpreted
“I’m sure that the Dalai Lama had no bad or evil intentions, and that it came, to some extent, from the naivete of how such gestures might be interpreted in our modern, hyper-sexualised society,” he said.
“I am who I am. I can’t pretend to be somebody who makes $25,000 a year.”
Gwyneth Paltrow verdict: Why she divides, and fascinates.
Her avatar of privileged white womanhood – inconceivably wealthy, hyper-fixated on things that most have never thought about (vaginal steamers, anyone?) – is a curious mixture of generational influence.
Gwyneth Paltrow’s Trial Is Her Best Role in Years.
But, at a time when so many mainstream figures seem obsessed with appearing of-the-people despite being anything but, there is something admittedly refreshing about Paltrow’s cards-on-the-table approach. (As the hosts of the culture podcast “How Long Gone” have noted, she’s taking us back to “a different era of celebrity,” when stars didn’t bother acting as if they were just like us.)
Onyeama, who was banned from returning to the school after writing the book Nigger at Eton in 1972, which detailed the abuse he suffered, said he was surprised by the attention his story had received, and by Eton’s apology. “My attitude is that it is not necessary. It was neither solicited nor expected, it was not fought for. There’s no obligation on the part of Eton college to apologise for anything. So really, to me, it is a non-issue.
Eton College: Nigerian author recalls racist abuse
“My grandfather had no rudiments of any form of education at all and he knew nothing beyond the ‘kill or be killed’ way of life in those days,” Onyeama said. “It wasn’t done as a means of oppression. It was a means of livelihood and a demonstration of power and might. It was the way of life in the old Africa before the white man brought civilisation, so to speak,”
Harry and Meghan: Seven takeaways from their Netflix series.
Meanwhile Harry and Meghan, if they have any sense, will put it behind them and move on to the next chapter of their lives
If in doubt, be a victim, that’s the mantra of the modern world. Your parents, your employer, your siblings, some poor old biddy who got the wrong end of the stick…
Resilience, fortitude, loyalty and common sense: they belong to another era. The revolution is here, and you had better get with the programme – or face a long and harrowing march to your newfound ‘freedom’.
Dave Chappelle’s SNL monologue was clever, but insidious
Dave Chappelle is, undoubtedly, a comic genius. But he’s not the only comic genius, and he’s one who, unlike many of his colleagues, hasn’t recognized that a different generation expects comedians to abide by certain rules. The first is: Don’t punch down. Chappelle can’t obey this dictum, because he embraces what scholars sometimes call a “standpoint epistemology.” Not without warrant, he regards his identity as an African American male as the most disparaged and degraded of identities. Hence, by definition, he is always punching up.
Four Uncomfortable Truths About Dave Chappelle and The Jews – U.S. News
There is a tacit dogma today that if something is funny it must also be morally good, while if something is morally bad it cannot therefore be funny. A whole lay taxonomy of comedy has arisen that insists jokes are good and funny only when they “punch up” — i.e., aim their barbs at the powerful — but bad and unfunny when they “punch down,” mocking the powerless.
But this just isn’t true. What makes something funny has nothing to do with what makes something good. In fact, it’s often the contrary. Humor is anarchic and impious. It draws its power from ridiculing whatever a society holds sacred, by saying whatever a society insists must not be said.
Netflix’s ‘Harry & Meg’ is beautiful propaganda
One can’t help but be moved in moments and it helps draw the viewer into a David and Goliath narrative. So much so, one almost forgets that any strife within the royal family is in fact, a Goliath and Goliath narrative
Uju Anya and the dangers of deliberate half-education, By ‘Tope Fasua.
The history of the world could as well be written as the history of plunders, from one society to another. Every nation on earth was formed by a group of oppressors, plunderers, enslavers, conquerors, whether from within or without. The history of Europe could be considered to be particularly bloody – perhaps simply because it was documented and made available for all to see and read.
Is it time to gatekeep Afrobeats?
“I feel gatekeeping is ridiculous, and it’s people outside the game that usually make statements like that because, at the end of the day, music is a business”, says Ini Baderinwa, an entertainment consultant and co-founder of TXT Mag.
Having children is “an amazing experience” for some, but added that “for a lot of people it isn’t, and the idea that we can’t talk openly about why that might be is a problem.”
JK Rowling sees through her enemies.
The critics rail away about her narcissism, her ignorance, her refusal to listen. But this book makes it clear that they’re badly mistaken: she has always been listening. Not with the empty-headed deference of the obsequious ally, but in the way that all good storytellers do, as a fly on the wall of the discourse, a keen observer of human affairs. And it is this — not her fame, not her money, but her ability to imagine an internet troll in all his sharp-edged human complexity — that ultimately makes Rowling uncancellable.
10 habits to stay grounded in life, according to Iyanla Vanzant
“Vanzant said during difficult stages of life, she reminds herself who she is, of her past triumphs and of her village who unconditionally support her. She said there’s one metaphor in particular that always encourages her during a rough patch.”
An open letter: why I’m leaving the cult of wokeness by Africa Brooke
If there’s one thing I’m NOT afraid of, it’s being ‘cancelled’.
‘If being cancelled means me living in integrity as a human being who thinks for themselves, CANCEL ME TODAY!
She believes that exaggerated complaints about the toxicity of men—their mansplaining and manspreading and so forth—have become a kind of tribal habit among women. In addition to eliminating much of the pleasure and charm of everyday male-female interactions, the constant demonizing of men has led us to lose sight of what is valuable and generative in male and female difference.
As a celebrity on the internet, Merchant admits that he’s “quite dull”, a result of being skittish about causing offence. He remembers once being about to tweet about New Zealand, but then being unsure if the term “Kiwi” is problematic. “When you’re policing yourself in that way, because you don’t want the headache of it [if it goes wrong], it’s absurd to me.” Writing television, he adds, you have numerous people figuring things out behind closed doors and having the space to be thoughtful. The speed and brevity of Twitter, meanwhile, leaves no such room.
“I’ve become more and more cautious because I don’t want to get into a debate,” he says. “I don’t want to have to defend a tweet from 10 years ago. It’s not interesting to me to spend time defending a point of view or a glib joke that I made at 2am.”
