Highlights from the last month in news from around the world that we can relate to. With our ratings.
The new Black Panther trailer (Good—I hope)
That’s the second trailer for the movie Black Panther if you haven’t already seen it. If you have already seen it, watch it again. I don’t think it can get blacker than that. I can’t help fearing for the movie though. From here, the action scenes look too much.
Too much like, I’m going to be expecting a lot more than what I have seen now when the movie comes out next year. We all saw what happened to Batman vs Superman. Yes, I know it’s DC vs Marvel. But, these things happen. Am I the only one thinking this?
African residents in Flora Damansara (Not good)
Sometime in the last month, a video made the rounds about a guy—identified as the resident’s rep—issuing living terms and conditions to some Africans in Flora Damansara. He alleged that the “African residents in Flora Damansara” he was referring were misbehaving, consuming alcohol in public, taking drugs, while the women wear revealing clothes.
If the people he was referring to do those things, then they’re embarrassing themselves and they deserve what they get. Drinking in public and taking (illegal) drugs are illegal almost everywhere in the world where there’s working legal system. Malaysia should not be different.
However, I don’t understand the part about the revealing clothes. The country is indeed a secular country with more than one ethnic group, like the former police officer, SN Nair pointed out. Show respect for everyone, but also understand that you should not bend everyone to see everything from your perspective.
Art exhibit in China compares Africans to animals (Horrible)
I really don’t know what to say to this. The Hubei Provincial Museum’s This Is Africa exhibition in Wuhan city, China, paired the face of an animal with that of a person. Like how do you decide that you want to celebrate the relationship between your country and African nations, and their cultural heritage by comparing an entire race of people to animals?
How did that play out in the artists heads? Like, “Africans’ minds are going to be blown by this shit right here! See this one? He’s like a cheetah! GRRRRAAAAWWWLLLL!” (I’m not sure that’s the sound a cheetah makes, but it’ll have to do)
Dove’s racist ad. Again (Bad)
It’s not the first time Dove has done something like this. I’m not sure if it’s the same person or if whoever they replace that person with doesn’t go through the old ads and ask, “Did anyone get fired for this?” Perhaps, the problem then is that no one got fired for any of the racist ads they’ve made so far.
Lola Ogunyemi, the African model in the recent Dove ad, explained that the ad was supposed to “use our differences to highlight the fact that all skin deserves gentleness.” Clearly, they missed the mark on their portrayal by a wide margin.
