Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Marta Tveit: "The Afropolitan Must Go"

i was willing to go along with this, am  willing to see what she says, but one line sticks in my throat: "Who speaks for Africa?"
anyone want to stand up, raise your hand???
so, i am thinking, who speaks for america? who speaks for the united states? who speaks, to be more modest, for michigan? or, for central michigan, or lower michigan. all right, in truth, who speaks for east lansing? who? the students? the townies? the science faculty? the english dept faculty? me???
no, i can only speak for myself, alas, and i get in plenty of trouble for that alone.
the minute we turn questions like this, who speaks for africa, who is the real african, we become enmeshed in trivial pursuits.
so, when the health care troubles emerged, where did the reporters go to find the "real" american? to the boonies; to the rural southwest, to some place which is "real typical" america; in french, they'd say, "l'amerique profond."
trouble is, only maybe 10% of americans live outside of cities or suburbs.
who speaks for them? nobody cares, it doesn't make the news
ken

On 11/8/13 10:48 AM, Ikhide wrote:

"... in 'What is an Afropolitan?' Selasi somehow manages to other her own perceived identity, as well as everyone else with an African parent or two – other, that is, against an original (i.e. a Westerner). "The women show off enormous afros, tiny t-shirts, gaps in teeth; the men those incredible torsos unique to and common on African coastlines. The whole scene speaks of the Cultural Hybrid: kente cloth worn over low-waisted jeans; 'African Lady' over Ludacris bass lines; London meets Lagos meets Durban meets Dakar. Even the DJ is an ethnic fusion: Nigerian and Romanian; fair, fearless leader; bobbing his head as the crowd reacts to a sample of 'Sweet Mother'."

Besides from adopting the tone of a National Geographic documentary, the text is clearly addressing a Westernised audience, explaining to them the strange ways and particulars of this tribe of 'Afropolitans'."

- Marta Tveit

Interesting. A new fight brewing among tribes about identity and representation. Who speaks for Africa? Binyavanga Wainana? Taiye Selasi? Dunno... Well, if you replace the term 'Afropolitan" what Marta Tveit just wrote would apply to those African writers now complaining about the new "Afropolitans" that had the monopoly of opinions on Africa, the favored few that traipsed and still do, from Western city to Western city, offering a particular (and mostly single)  narrative to the West. Perhaps people are concerned that a preferred tribe is being replaced by a new tribe, who knows... That is the problem with labels.

As a reader, I appreciate Taiye Selasie's perspective. I think it is an incredibly important perspective, perhaps that is why there is this mounting pushback. I have been studying her book, Ghana Must Go and maybe when I have some time I will sit my butt down and write down my thoughts using her book and several others. We may accuse her of protesting too much, but the reader is astute enough to cobble together all these single stories and come up with a more robust, more nuanced set of stories about Africa. We are the sum of our experiences and quite frankly there is no shortage of the caricature African immigrant living a life of quiet desperation as in Brian Chikwava's Harare North. Folks who want to write essays about this new alleged phenomenon should calm down and think a little bit more about these things. Marta Tveit's piece was too defensive, too dismissive. And I am just a reader,

Oh, and read the rest of Marta Tveit's essay here.

 

- Ikhide

 

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--   kenneth w. harrow   faculty excellence advocate  professor of english  michigan state university  department of english  619 red cedar road  room C-614 wells hall  east lansing, mi 48824  ph. 517 803 8839  harrow@msu.edu