This story was included in our November 2023 issue, devoted to some of the best writing The Walrus has published. You’ll find the rest of our selections here.
When Lawrence Hill published this essay eighteen years ago, could he have known how long it would keep its contemporary aura? Today, we often hear justifiable critiques of those limited ways Africa surfaces in the global imagination. But it’s critical that the diasporic desire for more positive points of identification not turn into ambivalence toward unphotogenic crises. Among other forms of paralysis, Hill’s essay criticizes indifference among African American political leaders amid the Rwandan genocide of 1994. As of this writing, the war in Sudan has left Khartoum’s morgues at their breaking point; a coup in Niger has further destabilized an already-beleaguered Sahel region; and terrorist groups are spilling into coastal West Africa. Progress has been made in Zimbabwe, which has significantly reduced the number of new HIV infections. But the Black North American indifference toward atrocities in Africa—conflicts directly related to the aftermath of colonialism—cannot afford to continue. Hill lays bare the reasons.—Connor Garel, Justice Fund writer in residence, November 2023 issue
