A few images of pre-colonial West African women They have awesome hair, and that's just the beginning.

Saving the Timbuktu Manuscripts "The manuscripts provide a written testimony to the skill of African scientists, in astronomy, mathematics, chemistry, medicine and climatology in the Middle Ages."

The 25 Most Influential Black American Leaders ( Read more... )

How did I not know about this essay? SF and Technology as Mystification.

The following excerpts may be relevant to your interests. ( Joanna Russ wrote the internet! )

Short version: one Independence Day is nice but not quite sufficient. It's an ongoing process, and there's other gains in freedoms to celebrate ( Read more... )

Heh, the reasons Star Wars sequels would be worse than the prequels is excellent. Now, #5 I can quibble with. Needing to finish cleaning up after the Emperor died makes sense, as the article admits, and that might take a few years. As long as it eventually works and we actually get that galactic peace we were promised, it's all good. But the other ( Read more... )

So, you may have heard that Gerard Depardieu donned blackface to play Alexandre Dumas in a movie. The moviemakers of course insist that they weren't looking at color, they just picked the best actor which must mean they think there are no black actors good enough to play Dumas in ALL OF FRANCE. Surely Depardieu could have played the white best ( Read more... )

Teen Barista sues Starbucks over boss's demands for sex Starbucks says she and the guy concealed the "relationship," so it's totally not their fault. Apparently even McDonald's handles this sort of thing better (not that that's saying much, mind... "But everyone knows he's a pervert, so don't be upset if he gropes you!" is not a good start).

Why ( Read more... )

Justine Larbalestier brings some common sense to the table in her post Online versus Offline behavior. To sum up, if you act like a jerk "only" online, you are acting like a jerk. There is no magic internet shield that makes things you say online not count just because they're zapped through the ether instead of through vibrating air molecules.

Feminist SF - The Blog! has posted their list of the top 11 obscure works (as voted on by users). This list is a response to another list of obscure works which featured mainly straight white males, and focuses instead on people who are not straight white males. Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu's works scored two of those spots, yay! If you're looking for ( Read more... )

Argh. I just finished reading Gods of Manhattan, and all I can say is argh. Okay, I lie; I can say a lot more. But still - argh!It sounded awesome. Everyone and everything that's remembered enough in Manhattan lives on in Manhatta, the magical city unnoticed in the midst of ordinary Manhattan. For instance, tenements torn down long ago linger in ( Read more... )

After discussing the disappointing representation of characters of color in ASoIaF yesterday, I'm switching gears to discuss books I think do it much better. Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu's two (so far) novels are the kind of books that make me say, "Where have you been all my life?" There are so many awesome things about these books.

Brief summaries: in ( Read more... )