Review: The Hearts of Darkness: How White Writers Created the Racist Image of Africa
(Black Star Books. Second Edition, 2016. Paper back: $20)
Available In Bookstores soon.
Available Now: GoFundMe https:
Author: Milton Allimadi
Reviewer: Kathryn Barrett-Gaines, Ph.D.
I am not alone in being tired of White people telling us about Africa.
In this delightfully brief book, Milton Allimadi does more than be tired of it. In tracing a story of White people telling us about Africa, Allimadi exposes long entrenched roots of the racism that recent events have shown us is not letting up or going away.
Allimadi rereads back through centuries to find specific evidence of White people, in and out of Africa, deciding that Black lives do not matter. Many people will see the roots of their own racism in these writings. Allimadi exposes a ground zero of racism in Samuel Baker, Henry Morton Stanley, Frederick Lugard, Joseph Conrad, Charles Gordon, and Keith Richburg that has infected most White people, and many Black people as well.
The only cure for racism is knowledge, and Allimadi mines a deep deposit of racism and its practitioners in the archives of the New York Times, Time magazine, and National Geographic magazine. In talking to retired editors and reporters from these publications, Allimadi reveals himself as researcher activist.
He describes publishers afraid of his book, uncovering layer upon layer of racist thinking by editors and Writers in England and the US. Racism against Africans is the root of racism against African Americans. This is why The Hearts of Darkness will be the first book my students read in my History of Africa courses. Anti-racism is as good a reason as any to consider African history from African perspectives.
Read African authors, and start with Milton Allimadi.
The reviewer Kathryn Barrett-Gaines, Ph.D. is Associate Professor of African and African American History University of Maryland Eastern Shore,
Princess Anne, MD 21853
Editor’s Note: What Others Are Saying About The Hearts of Darkness: How White Writers Created the Racist Image of Africa.
Molefi Kete Asante, Professor and Chair, Department of Africology, Temple University. Author of The History of Africa. “Milton Allimadi has written a perceptive and enlightening book that will resonate with those who have examined the current conditions and challenges in the African world. I am certain that Allimadis book will take flight with its illuminating messages. This is a profound work.”
Dr. Joyce Watson, Educator. “The world now eagerly awaits the book’s sequel, addressing motives/rationales/intents behind the perpetual historic negative depictions of Africa/Africans by American and European Powers!”
There are two upcoming Book Readings:
1. Saturday, August 27 from 4pm to 6pm @ Nicholas Brooklyn 570 Fulton Street, Brooklyn, N.Y., 11217. Please RSVP on the event’s Facebook page
2. September 7, from 7pm @ at the world famous AMARACHI Restaurant @ 189 Bridge Street, Brooklyn, NY, 11201
Copies of the Book will be available at the book signings
To Order The Book In U.S.: $20 per copy.
Money Order Payable: Black Star Books
P.O. Box 1472, New York, N.Y., 10274
(646) 261-7566
You can also order via GoFundMe
www.theheartsofdarkness.org
To reach the author for book signings or readings: [email protected]
