Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Wariboko's Essay on Majority-tribe Privilege in Nigeria

"It is a tricky situation. Should 

we all start  following the popular rap 

usage of the N word. Should we 

go back to Bushman instead of 

Khoisan or Nama. Tribe is not as toxic

as the N word but it carries

its own baggage - outside of

the inner circle. Perhaps the

 term "tribe"should be confined to 

the "inner circle"and colloquial 

speech, newspaper articles

and so on and not used in scholarly

 discourse unless in exceptional

cases. The battle may be lost in 

popular African culture but not

 necessarily in today's Academy."

~Gloria Emeagwali

I absolutely agree. That's the reason I don't use the term in casual or academic speech/writing unless I am invoking it to critique a phenomenon associated with its colonial semiotics or reproducing it in a quote. That's also the reason I would not accept its use in the formal academic writing of fellow academics unless it is used in scare quotes or reproduced as part of quoted text. In public-facing work geared towards a primary audience of the "inner circle" its use is almost inevitable if one wants to be completely intelligible to that audience. Not ideal but it is what it is.

And while I've not encountered the kind of defiant appropriation and inversion you referenced in regard to the N-word and "Bushman" when it comes to tribe, I believe that the African users of the word have altered the context of its use and have essentially emptied out and replaced its colonial semiotic work of devaluation. They have rendered or remade it into a banal synonym for what we call ethnic group.

Sent from my iPhone

On Nov 6, 2022, at 5:10 PM, 'Emeagwali, Gloria (History)' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> wrote:

It is a tricky situation. Should 

we all start  following the popular rap 

usage of the N word. Should we 

go back to Bushman instead of 

Khoisan or Nama. Tribe is not as toxic

as the N word but it carries

its own baggage - outside of

the inner circle. Perhaps the

 term "tribe"should be confined to 

the "inner circle"and colloquial 

speech, newspaper articles

and so on and not used in scholarly

 discourse unless in exceptional

cases. The battle may be lost in 

popular African culture but not

 necessarily in today's Academy.