During my speaking tour last week, I was fortunate to enjoy a really interesting conversation with college students about the trials and tribulations of finding safe spaces on their campus. The main tension, is seems, comes from from having to submit to a specific label in order to feel included and welcome in monolithic spaces.
Similarly, on Twitter last week, I ran into a familiar back and forth between two people about the use of the word “feminist” which linked me to an article involving a heated comment debate in which someone thought it would be a good idea to tell people who don’t identify as feminist that they need to be “educated.”
As with many other solidarity labels — women of color, black, feminist etc — I support using common labels to reveal ourselves to others who have shared experiences and perspectives; but my primary identity isn’t pivoted around any of these and I wouldn’t take it too well if someone were to tell me that I have problems, or need to be “educated” because I choose to identify (or not identify) the way I do. See rant against being forced into monolithic blackness here. Read about my views against defining afrofeminism here.
After speaking with students about this issue, I decided to tweet (as I usually do when I need to write about something but am too lazy to work on a post) about “The Culture of Naming.” My main point was that naming can be as powerful as it can be silencing, and that we should consider the purpose of them before blanket use; for affinity groups, naming is essential, but for engagement/education, probably not so much.
Check out my late night thoughts on #thecultureofnaming embedded below.
Thoughts? What do you think about choosing labels based on the mission of a group (i.e. affinity or engagement)? Which labels have caused you to feel excluded or included? Please share in the comments below. I’d love to hear your thoughts!
The suit alleges that Lively’s involvement in anti-gay efforts in Uganda, including his active participation in the formulation of anti-gay legislation and policies aimed at revoking fundamental right from LGBT persons constitutes persecution.
Uganda’s parliament has a pending bill, commonly known as the “Kill the Gays Bill,†that initially demanded the death penalty for “homosexuality,†prison for failing to turn in someone suspected of being “homosexual,†and criminalizes advocacy around LGBT rights. The bill has since been revamped to replace the death penalty with life imprisonment as a maximum sentence.
The official complaint claims Lively issued a call in Uganda to fight against a “genocidal” and “paedophilic” gay movement, which he “likened to the Nazis and Rwandan murderers”. It seeks a judgment that Lively’s actions violate international law and human rights.
In a YouTube video from 2009, you can see Lively speaking against homosexuality to a group of Ugandans. However, he denies his direct involvement with the bill, and has described the legal action being taken against him as “absurd and frivolous.” He said in an email to AP that he has never advocated violence against gay people. He said he has preached against homosexuality but advised therapy, not punishment.  But, Ugandan LGBT activists aren’t buying it.
Said Frank Mugisha, executive director of Sexual Minorities Uganda, “U.S evangelical leaders like Scott Lively have actively and intensively worked to eradicate any trace of LGBT advocacy and identity. Particularly damaging has been his claim that children are at risk because of our existence. His influence has been incredibly harmful and destructive for LGBT Ugandans fighting for their rights. We have to stop people like Scott Lively from helping to codify and give legal cover to hatred.â€
In March 2009, Lively, along with two other U.S. Evangelical leaders, headlined a three-day conference intended to expose the “gay movement†as an “evil institution†and a danger to children. Lively likened the effects of his advocacy to a “nuclear bomb†in Uganda and stated that he hopes it is replicated elsewhere. The Anti-Homosexuality Bill emerged one month later with provisions that reflected Lively’s input
Lively has spoken on the topic of homosexuality in almost 40 countries, and worked with religious and political leaders to that end. In this “Letter to the Russians,” Lively advises that “the easiest way to discourage ‘gay pride’ parades and other homosexual advocacy is to make such activity illegal.†An anti-gay bill that prevents speech and advocacy around LGBT rights was passed and signed into law last week in St. Petersburg, Russia.
Sexual Minorities Uganda v. Lively was filed under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), which allows for foreign victims of human rights abuses to seek civil remedies in U.S. courts. The lawsuit was filed in Springfield, Massachusetts, where Lively currently lives and continues his work. Upon the filing, a coalition of rights groups from Springfield marched from the federal courthouse to Lively’s coffee house, Holy Grounds, where they protested his anti-gay advocacy locally and around the world.
Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG) is a non-profit non-governmental organization that works toward achieving full legal and social equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in Uganda.Â
The Center for Constitutional Rights is dedicated to advancing and protecting the rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.Â
The Kony 2012, a campaign launched recently by Invisible Children to raise awareness of the issues of child soldiers in Uganda in which they propose what they believe to be the ultimate solution — arrest Kony, the LRA rebel leader responsible for over 30,000 child abductions — was met with overnight “success” (i.e. over 50 million views on YouTube) and then heightened controversy; there are critiques that suggest the video promotes a white saviorist approach to humanitarianism, others that applaud the effort but challenge the film’s inaccuracies, and many more that call for the inclusion of more African voices in Invisible Children’s advocacy efforts.
Almost overnight, the web was flooded with so much commentary from western media on the erasure of African voices that it became challenging for me to even locate perspectives from fellow Africans; ironically, African voices weren’t initially just being drowned out by the success of IC’s viral campaign, but by western voices sharing their own take. Fortunately, African voices stepped up to the  plate, offering a wide range of perspectives; you can find a compilation of African responses to the campaign here, and a more general roundup of the Kony2012 issue here.
Nevertheless, I’m (as always) acutely aware of the amplification of male voices on the Kony 2012 campaign. Hence — and in the spirit of women’s history month — I’d like to highlight African women’s voices. The 5 women below aren’t just adding to the conversation, but inspiring critical thinking about how we can be more conscious about the media we consume, more humble in our efforts to provide support to fellow global citizens, and mindful of the gift social media has given us. Africans now have the power to combat harmful narratives about Africa simply by telling our own.
So, here they are: 5 responses from African women to Kony 2012, and westerners seeking to support Africa, ethically and responsibly, now and in the future.
1) Solome Lemma Involve African Leadership, Work with Organizations on the Ground
Soon after I heard about the Kony 2012 campaign (and watched the video), I read “You Do NOT Have My Vote” written by Solome Lemma under her Innovate Africa Tumblr.
Solome is also the Co-Founder of HornLight, a platform to share diverse, complex & nuanced narratives on the Horn of Africa. In this post, she stresses the need for African leadership:
…when your work and consequence affect a different group of people than your target audience, you must make it a priority to engage the voices of the affected population in a real and meaningful way, in places and spaces where programs are designed, strategies dissected, and decisions made.
2) Rosebell Kagumire Respect Africa’s Agency, Don’t Paint Us As Voiceless
While the cyberspace heated up with written critique upon written critique, Rosebell KAgumire, a Ugandan blogger and journalist that covered the LRA several years ago, decided to post a video summarizing her thoughts.
In this video, she passionately asserts the danger of a single story to dehumanize a people:
“How you tell the stories of Africans is much more important that what the story is; because if you are showing me as voiceless, as hopeless [then] you have no space telling my story. You shouldn’t be telling my story if you don’t believe that I also have the power to change what is going on.”
Rosebell also stresses the importance of including African leadership, as well as engaging other political players such as the Ugandan government and other African countries before attempting to implement any solutions.
3) Betty Oyella Bigombe Historical Context is Necessary for Any Future Solutions
Although Betty isn’t currently directly involved with peace efforts for the LRA, nor has she written a formal response to the Invisible Children campaign, she has been quoted and cited several times as a notable Ugandan peace-seeking activist the Kony2012 video erases by suggesting that there’s been limited attention called to the issue. Not only was Betty previously tasked with convincing the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) guerilla rebels –negotiating with Kony himself over 10 years ago — to lay down their arms, following the failure of military efforts to defeat the rebels, her shared experiences working from all sides of the conflict provide counter to IC’s claim that there are just good guys and bad guys. From CSMonitor.com:
Bigombe has seen the LRA’s brutality first-hand. In 1995, when she was a government minister, she was the first outsider on the scene of one of its bloodiest massacres. Rebels attacked a town and captured about 220 men, women, and children. The villagers were marched several miles to a riverbank and all methodically executed.
Yet sometimes Bigombe sees glimmers of humanity, too. Once, one LRA commander grew pensive during a conversation. He wondered how his fellow northerners would perceive him after all the terrible things the LRA has done. He asked plaintively, “Can I ever go home again?”
4) Dayo Olopade Support the Mundane March Towards Progress, Not Just Internet Sensationalism
As a fellow Nigerian, I was thrilled to see Dayo mentioned in this list of Africans commenting on the Kony 2012 campaign. She recently wrote an opinion piece for the New York Times about the gap between what the the Kony 2012 campaign suggests as a solution and what Ugandan people dealing with the daily impact of this conflict actually need. Here is an excerpt (edited for brevity):
In Kampala last month, I met Hadijah Nankanja, the local director of Women of Kireka, a collective of women touched by Kony’s marauding violence… Hadijah and I tried to come up with a way forward. Food production? Tailoring? Hair salons? And so forth. We didn’t come up with a concrete plan, but opening a small restaurant seemed to be the front-running proposition. Our informal brainstorming session took about the same time as does watching “Kony 2012.†I dare suggest that time spent marshaling such reserves of imagination, communion and capital to support jobs for displaced victims is far more helpful than this sort of advocacy. The kinds of problems Hadijah is trying to understand and solve are less sexy than the horror stories trailing behind Kony. But they are the nut worth cracking. The mundane march of progress in poor countries is what ‘awareness’ campaigns often miss. And when, as in this case, success is determined by action from outside the region, cries of a new imperialism should be taken seriously. Few international NGOs working in Africa define success properly — as putting themselves out of business. Invisible Children seems no better.â€
Dayo is a Nigerian-American journalist covering global politics and development policy. She is writing a book about innovation in Africa. You can follow her at @madayo on Twitter.
5) Semhar Araia Use Media to Amplify African Voices, Not Just Your Own
In her opinion piece at the Christian Science Monitor, “Learn to Respect Africans,†Semhar refocuses the conversation on the impact of media on young people thirsty for information:
… young people’s minds are open and hungry. They should be inspired by knowing Africa is empowered, saving itself, and working with partners to remove Kony. That is the real story. Invisible Children must be willing to take their followers on a journey through the Africa that Africans know. They must be willing to inspire – but also to manage – their followers’ expectations. They must be willing to use their media to amplify African voices, not simply their own.
It’s no wonder she started the twitter hashtag, #WhatILoveAboutAfrica. In response to negative portrayals of the continent put forth by western media, and most recently, through the Kony 2012 campaign, Semhar commands that we do more than just critique visions of Africa, but create them ourselves. Follow @Semhar and @DawnInc on Twitter.
So, that’s the word — African women have spoken. If you’re interested in supporting the people of Northern Uganda, but would like an alternative to donating to Invisible Children, consider supporting organizations such as Hope North Uganda and The Women of Kireka. In fact, Invisible Children has recently shared a list of other organizations working on the this issue in Uganda.
Finally, if you’re itching for a new video to share, share this one, make this one go viral. Viva Africa.
Yesterday, countries around the world celebrated International Women’s Day (IWD), a day during which thousands of events — political rallies, business conferences, government activities, networking events, local women’s craft markets, theatric performances, fashion parades and more – are held to inspire women and celebrate achievements in gender equality.
Looking at the colorful collection of images, videos, and blog posts of African women celebrating all across the continent invoked mixed feelings; on one hand, I was proud to see African women, both individuals and organizations, respond in droves to the call, but on the other hand, being so far away from home on IWD made me a tad homesick, causing me to reflect on how it is I came to be so involved in women’s issues.
I attended an international primary school, where International Women’s Day was a chance for all of us to celebrate women from different cultures via music, art, dance, and charity. Often, students would read inspiring facts about women from their home countries, followed by traditional dance and music performances, international food expos, and a myrid of opportunities for students and their families to learn and give back. Yet, global women’s activism wasn’t just tied to my school’s programming.
Growing up in Nigeria, the idea that improving the lives of women was a cause worth fighting for didn’t just come from organizations, or brochures, or formal programming; I had strong women around me who constantly put this into practice in the every day, including my own mother.
As a child of the Biafran war and the first daughter of her family, my mother faced the heavy burden of supporting her family through the loss of a number of relatives, including her own mother who died from sickness. To this day, she credits the support of women’s organizations for her survival. And thus, she committed herself to charity from a very early age. I remember my mother telling me about the one night she’d prayed the hardest to God; it was during a bomb raid. She’d close her eyes and clasp her hands together as she’d recount the promise she made to God that if she made it through the night, she’d dedicate the rest of her life helping people, much like the older women — human rights advocates, volunteers, missionaries — who had risked their lives during the war in order to deliver relief to the region in which she lived — food, clothing, sanitary pads. She’d trek over 10 miles back and forth every day just to deliver food and drinking water to her family, but she never really emphasized the distance; what remains with her is the memory of dedicated women that were waiting to receive her on the other side.
My mother’s life was spared and she kept her promise. Inspired by the circumstances she’d witnessed her own family go through after the loss of her own mother, she founded and led the first program in the country to advocate for the rights of women who had lost the heads of their households and had young children to care for (The Widows Trust Fund).  Later on, she became president of the International Women’s Society, an organization that works for the advancement of women and children in Nigeria. As a social entrepreneur, she founded Garden of Zinnia, an organization that creates holiday gift baskets — a popular tradition in Nigeria — by partnering with local vendors i.e. market women, local artists and craftspeople. Every year, hundreds of people — from the elderly basket-weavers to the young girls who sell the wrapping ribbons — rely on my mother’s unwavering commitment to supporting women who are working to support their families.
As a young girl, I remember accompanying my mother to meetings, fundraisers, award ceremonies and the like filled to the brim with inspiring African women. I witnessed my mother giving awards as well as receiving them. I didn’t understand the word “feminism” when I first heard it, but I watched my mother’s active mentorship of the young women she invited into our home and took under her wing. I didn’t understand the term “economic empowerment” when I first heard it, but I saw my mother apply this principle in her work as a business owner each year she refused to replace local products in her gift baskets with expensive imports from overseas. My family never sat around discussing women’s liberation at the dinner table; my mother never thought to write about her experience as an African woman navigating gender, war, and poverty; she simply lived the principles she believed in. It is because I watched my mother, that I strongly believe in applied advocacy for women’s issues in all its forms — gender equality, LGBT human rights, and women’s visibility in media — not just as a celebration on a single day, but as a way of life; not just as ideas to be talked about, but work to be done.
I appreciate the 2012 International Women’s Day theme — Connecting Girls, Inspiring Futures — for the reminder that women’s contributions to the world don’t always have to come in press releases, or conferences, or non-profit programs to make a difference; that sometimes, the greatest impact is felt within the scope of the every day; that my mother is a woman worth celebrating; and that, I — the first daughter of my family, a proud afrofeminist, women’s and media activist, tirelessly fighting for gender equality — am the future she inspired.
Question to Readers: Did your relationship with your mother — or other parental figure — shape your activism? influence your politics? If so, how?
In the post, I stressed that one needn’t have done something “big” like discovering the cure for cancer, or be as famous as Lady Gaga to share pieces of history about their lives. It is important that ALL kinds of women write, record, and document their lives as a way of writing our way back into history.
To prove that I’m sincere about sharing even the most mundane details — it wasn’t just rhetoric, I promise! — I’m taking my own advice and sharing an ordinary, random piece of information about myself. Here goes…
In honor of women’s history month, a snippet of my own history — a short anecdote from my father about my days as a toddler fighting for food justice:
“You were at age 9 months when your mum started to wean you from breast milk. You stood up in your crib screaming at everybody, demanding your food. You were very aggressive, your body language, your voice… even my mum remembers the episode and started begging us to give in to you!
For two days it was a test of will because you refused to eat the mixed baby food we were trying to introduce to you. Whenever the bottle was brought near you it was swatted away in disgust.
Just when we were about to give up so you didn’t starve to death, you accepted your first bottle. And when you tasted it you just squeezed your face in disgust to let us know you thought it was lousy. You did that for a while before you finally settled in. Such rebellious behavior at age 9 months!
There’s lots more… When you first started to try to walk you would threaten us that you would fall down by saying: “I (will) fall down!†You knew we would be upset if you fell, which happened once in a while on our unpadded carpeting, in our Ilupeju flat with a thud that would reverberate throughout the house! We would have to beg you by saying, “Noo, don’t fallll!†You would do this for a while and when we begged you enough times, you would then reconsider your threat and then smile sweetly. This was your way of getting attention.â€
It seems I was quite the rebel — and strategic protester! So there you have it — long before I knew what the word “activism” meant – I was demonstrating against processed baby foods. How’s that for documenting women’s history?
I’ll leave you with my favorite quote of all time:
“Well-behaved women rarely make history.†— Ulrich
Here’s to misbehaving — and writing! (eh, same thing) — all damn month.
This particular post was inspired by a food and environmental justice activist I admire — Kay Ulanday Barrett, founder and managing editor of Recipes for the People.
Yesterday, countries around the world celebrated 
As a child of the 
Yesterday, I wrote about the importance of 