Spectra Speaks
Last week, I had the pleasure of participating in the West African Civil Society Institute (WACSI)‘s Social Media Experts conference in Accra, Ghana. The conference brought together African social media experts, enthusiasts, and activists from across the continent, which got me thinking about ways we can strengthen “digital activism” across the continent.
I recently published a personal reflection of my accidental, non-linear career trajectory as a writer and a media activist. In addition to my philosophy about using media for change, I wanted to share a few tangible new media tips, tricks, and strategies that have been helpful to me as well. So here are 10 tips, in no particular order, and a quote from Spiderman that summarizes it all.
My career path in media hasn’t been linear or conventional by any means. I went to MIT to study Mathematics, before realizing that I was really an artist. My parents are still in recovery. But everything will work out. It always does. Don’t drive your career with someone else’s rear view mirror. Don’t tailgate an externally constructed ambition or let someone else’s version of success distract you the most important driver on the road… you.
Are you affiliated with a college, university, or high school who’s seeking speakers for the upcoming academic year? Are you a conference in search of an inspirational keynote speaker? A loyal reader of my blog? :) Check out my latest talk, “The Power of Storytelling: LGBT Rights, the Media, and the African/Black Diaspora” and help bring my love revolution to as many spaces as possible!
The Femisphere is a blog series in the popular Ms. Magazine that highlights the many diverse corners of the feminist blogsphere. Their latest installment focuses on African feminism, and I’m honored to have been featured along with two other African feminists, Ms Afropolitan and Lesley Agams. But, given that we’re all Nigerian, have lived abroad, etc, what assumptions will readers make of African feminists? In fact, what does an African feminist look like?
Despite the richness, diversity, and complexities that shape the landscape that is my homeland, Africa is often depicted as one big safari (or war zone). Why is that? Because Africa’s stories are rarely told by Africans themselves.
I’ve compiled a list of responses from African women responding to Kony 2012, a controversial campaign launched recently by Invisible Children to raise awareness of child soldiers in Uganda. I’m amplifying their responses because almost overnight, the web became flooded with so much commentary from western media on the erasure of African voices that it became challenging for me to even locate African voices. Go figure.
In order to address the dearth of women’s histories — our stories, and voices being undocumented, under-valued, and falsely represented without reprimand — women must begin telling their own stories. We must essentially write our way back into history.
How about we — as global gender justice advocates — subvert the idea that women are perpetual victims by covering our collective resistance? How about we cut back on the sensationalism — the shock tactics and controversy we once deployed to get mainstream media to pay attention to issues important to us — and now spend time amassing a historical archive of positive happenings that could inspire legendary bed time stories of the many feminist heroes and heroines that have been paving the way to our liberation?
About Me
Meet Spectra: Queer Nigerian Afrofeminist Writer and Media Activist. Social Entrepreneur Nurturing Principled Diaspora and Women's Philanthropy in Media and Tech. Self-Care and Self-Love Evangelist. Idealist Warrior Woman. Big Dreamer. Big Thinker. Big Doer, Too.
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