Adventures in Tab Closing #1

I have a very bad habit of abusing the tabs function of Firefox; I have the tendency to open up new tabs for everything and keeping them open, causing my computer to slow down and Firefox to crash often.  I can't be the only one who does this, right?  ^_^;  So right now, I have a huge backlog of links that I think are interesting and want to post here, but instead of dumping them all at once (which I realize can be annoying), I'm going to do six at a time.  I'll try to post six new links, selected at random, every day (or whenever I feel up to it), in addition to the 30-day music meme.  Hopefully y'all won't get annoyed by all the spam.  XD

Binyavanga Wainaina: "How (Not) to Write About Africa"

Always use the word 'Africa' or 'Darkness' or 'Safari' in your title. Subtitles may include the words 'Zanzibar', 'Masai', 'Zulu', 'Zambezi', 'Congo', 'Nile', 'Big', 'Sky', 'Shadow', 'Drum', 'Sun' or 'Bygone'. Also useful are words such as 'Guerrillas', 'Timeless', 'Primordial' and 'Tribal'. Note that 'People' means Africans who are not black, while 'The People' means black Africans.

Never have a picture of a well-adjusted African on the cover of your book, or in it, unless that African has won the Nobel Prize. An AK-47, prominent ribs, naked breasts: use these. If you must include an African, make sure you get one in Masai or Zulu or Dogon dress.

In your text, treat Africa as if it were one country. It is hot and dusty with rolling grasslands and huge herds of animals and tall, thin people who are starving. Or it is hot and steamy with very short people who eat primates. Don't get bogged down with precise descriptions. Africa is big: fifty-four countries, 900 million people who are too busy starving and dying and warring and emigrating to read your book. The continent is full of deserts, jungles, highlands, savannahs and many other things, but your reader doesn't care about all that, so keep your descriptions romantic and evocative and unparticular.

Make sure you show how Africans have music and rhythm deep in their souls, and eat things no other humans eat. Do not mention rice and beef and wheat; monkey-brain is an African's cuisine of choice, along with goat, snake, worms and grubs and all manner of game meat. Make sure you show that you are able to eat such food without flinching, and describe how you learn to enjoy it—because you care.

I tried to find a good quote or two to post here, but the more I tried the more I realized I'd end up quoting the whole piece anyway. So the first four paragraphs will have to do. 8D

RELATED:
--Actor and GQMF Djimon Honsou doing a reading of an abridged version of the above
--Chimamanda Adichie: "The danger of a single story"  (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED)
--William Easterly: "How (not) to write about poor people"

( Five more under the cut... )