I’m Glenna Gordon, an American photographer and journalist, presently commuting between West Africa and Brooklyn. Previously, I lived in Liberia. And before that, I lived in Uganda. I’ve traveled and worked in over a dozen countries in Africa.
2010
This is Africa blogger spends more than a blog post amount of time thinking about and exploring Joburg pre-world cup, and then he writes about it. Worth more than a blog post amount of reading. The story is here, and here’s a quick quote:
In Soweto, the arrival of Tumi is equally anticipated. By the time the rapper takes the stage, he’s two hours late — just on time, if you set your clock to Joburg’s rhythms. The crowd, having long since given itself over to the bar, is in a forgiving mood. The air is kinetic.
Sometimes I think there are two kinds of people in the world: those who like Nick Kristof and those who don’t. While I’ve always been clearly in the second camp, hopefully his most recent column will bring more people over to the other side. Africa is a Country does a nice takedown:
Kristof… finds a Congolese child–it plays well with American readers to focus on children, he has argued somewhere else–whose parents cannot afford to pay his school fees but have cheap cellphones and occasionally have a drink.
And then he brings up Bill Easterly’s favorite economist Esther Duflo to endorse his 19th century views in which Westerners, and particularly white Westerners, decide whats good for poor, third world, mostly black, particularly black people, and then he babbles on about microlending. I am tired
Back in college, I didn’t believe in two kinds of anything. I studied art history and valued the ability of an image or piece of art to say two things at once, whether they are contradictory or complimentary. There’s an amazing sounding art exhibit that almost makes me want to say something like, “Get thee to Detroit!” but for now I settle with reading reviews of “Through African Eyes,” which looks at how Africans have pictures westerners for the past couple of centuries. G. P. Zachary blogs at Africa Works with the kind of anecdote that perfectly summarizes how there’s more nuance to the world that Nick Kristof acknowledges:
In my living room, I keep an old colonial, a Congolese carving of what is meant to be a cartoon-like Belgian soldier. The statue is recent, one of the hundreds, perhaps thousands of retro-colonial representations that Congolese carvers and artists are producing these days. When faced with the conundrum of why we exoticize the other, and are seemingly condemned to do so, I will visit with my Belgian soldier who is dressed in pith helmet, big black boots and sports a pencil moustache. The old soldier says no words but speaks nonetheless.
Steve Bloomfield’s new book Africa United: How Football Explains Africa is listed by the New York Times as a must read World Cup book. I took the photo they used for the cover of the UK edition when Steve and I worked together a bit in Liberia. I’m looking forward to reading it.
Ernest Bazanye lists things he’s learned from TV all of which are of coure hilarious, but here are a couple of my favorites:
3. The news is more factual, accurate and timely if it is delivered in broken English with a fake accent.
4. I now know what to drink if I want confidence.
6. Most animals do not speak. But those which do are hilarious.
11. Meredith Grey would beat John Dorian in a fair fistfight.
12. White People Can’t Dance
13. White People who can dance are black.
