Page 56 - Msingi Afrika Magazine Issue 6
P. 56
BUSINESS
The Defamation of
Afrika
Chioma Phillips race of Africa.’
How ironic that this is exactly
what the world did to Afrika.
The basis that Europeans used
ccording to which means ‘to blacken or
to justify their colonial domina-
etymonline.com defame. ‘Nigr’ in the word den-
the word ‘deni- igrate is from the stem of niger tion over Afrikans was that the
grate’ originated which means black. To make people they were subjugating
around the 1520s. black the reputation or char- to inhumane rule and practices
were sub-human. European
AThe word means acter. Black or Negro which,
‘thinking’ had for many years
to ‘sully or stain’ the reputation figuratively (according to the
or character. It originates from same website) means ‘gloomy, before colonialism character-
the Latin denigratus which is unlucky, bad, wicked’. Negro, ized the Afrikan as a bi-product
the past participle of denigrare ‘member of a black-skinned of the reproductive act between
humans and animals, their
56 | heal . restore . rebirth . Afrika
