Happy New Year! Happy Friday! I pray 2008 brings you lots of laughter, great health, love, God's blessings, quality friendships and borrowing one of the slangs from a very Ladybrille woman we know, Yetunde aka Stacy Taiwo, a "rawking" cosmopolitan, extra chic, sexy fashionable year. We look forward to an extraordinary year with you filled with some amazing personalities including some from Africa and the Western fashion industries. We are also setting our sight on complete integration and transition as we launch Ladybrille, the Magazine, by the end of this year. This is the time to let us know the changes, additions and things you would like to see with our coverage and also be a contributor. Email comments or inquiries to info@ladybrille.com.
Still on the topic of change, hope and change is in the air! I could not help but be glued to my screen yesterday watching the primaries. As you know, by now, Republican Mike Huckabee and Democrat Barack Obama won the Iowa primaries. Oh what a night! What was interesting for me was what Obama represents. Besides the positive change he can provide in Africa-US trade relations [think the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act benefiting Africa's textile & apparel industries, among many], Obama is the son of a Kenyan father and an American mother. He appears to embrace both cultures and is what one might loosely call an "Afropolitan." Just last year, Obama visited Kenya to see his grandmother, Sarah Hussein. Although both his parents are deceased, his father who died in "1982 in a car crash left three wives, six sons and a daughter." You can read about Obama's visit to Kenya here. Suffice it to say it would be history in the making should Obama become the next President of the United States of America . . . Have a fabulous weekend and enjoy Obama's victory speech below as we raise our glasses to an exciting and wonderful year filled with hope and positive changes. Happy New Year!
Remain Blessed,
Uduak
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5 comments:
Happy New year you too Ladybrille.I'm interested in knowing why you think he is Afropolitan.
I don't think the term Afropolitan can be applied to Obama - he is American-I guess African American is as exact ass you can go in my opinion. Living 4 or 5 years in Indonesia and having a Kenyan father you saw only once in your life doesn't, in my opinion, qualify him to be Afropolitan.
Marin, thanks! Your point is well taken with the "Afropolitan" label, I find that label quite intriguing because it brings thought provoking questions on identity. Indeed that is why I stated Obama might "loosely" be categorized that way.
I am always fascinated by people that don't quite fit a defined category. Obama is fascinating b/c he doesn't say I am African American. He says he is of American and Kenyan heritage but considers himself American. Of cousre the media and most in society call him "Black." To me the label raises interesting identity issues.
For someone like Obama, who has most of his siblings and extended family in Kenya [father's side] and seeks to connect to his roots, can he be said to be "Afropolitan"? If no, can the Afropolitan definition expand to include persons that are Western born/bred but seek to connect and do connect via doing business in Africa or fostering family relations with their African relatives?
Do we even need an "Afropolitan" label or are persons like that just global citizens caught in what a friend of mine says is the "corridors of culture."
I actually also just got to know of the term "afropolitan" and still trying to make sense of it. So I'm enjoying the exchange thats gone on between marin and ladybrille. By the way I live in Africa...........Sierra Leone.
Now to Barrack Obama and the use of a label on him. Yes the key thing is identity and being in the States whether he chooses to refer to himself as American or not, he will still be referred to as African American and black by the media and will appear to be that to alot of Americans. But yes, I agree he is American.
This blog is dedicated to showing possible "Afropolitan" influences in the Black diaspora:
http://afropolitans.typepad.com
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