True-ly Africa-n

Nyasha Matonhodze- Zimbabwe source

Carmen Solomon- South Africa - source

Ajuma Nasenyana- Kenya source

Ataui Deng- South Sudan source

Liya Kebede- Ethiopia source

Nina Keita- Cote D' Ivoire source

The above stunning beauties are a small fraction of the physical diversity of the African people. The images will hold some relevance to the topic at hand.

(N.B the gender of the above models has no direct relevance to the topic of the post)

In light of some research on the Rwandan genocide of 1994, I could not help but analyse the real reason behind the violence.

A brief lay background:

After the second world war, Rwanda was taken away from its former colonial master, Germany, and was given to Belgium. The Belgians found that the people of Rwanda were living as a common people with one language and one religion. They then used the divide and conquer tactic to rule the land. The division was mostly based on physical traits. From this, the people of Rwanda were divided into 3 main groups. The Hutu, who were the majority, the Tutsi, the second largest group, and finally the Twa. The Belgians were in favour of the Tutsi, whom they believed had similar physical features to them. They were of a tall slim build, had long slender noses, and were described as having a "deep bronze colour, not negro black". The Tutsi were also described as Africa's aristocrats due to their said similarities to their Caucasian colonial masters. The division became more apparent when it was required for the Rwandese people to walk with identification cards that clearly stated what tribal group that they belonged to. Superiority was awarded to the Tutsi when it came to positions of administration.

Below is an article that described the Tutsi favouritism:

source

source

   According to this source, the Tutsi and Hutu genetically share common ancestry and it was a shame that their disparities were largely magnified and highlighted only for the worst. Expectantly, this kind of nitpicking sourced a series of events that eventually resulted in the bloody 1994 Rwanda genocide.

   As much as the Rwandese have overcome and are still recovering from their unfortunate history, a lot of remnants tracing back to the causes of that incident are still evident in present day Black/African society. Debates on the Tutsi, and other African populations having Caucasoid ancestry or anything other than African origin, are currently going on everyday.  Unfortunately, most of these kind of debates do not stem from a positive place. Most of the time it becomes about undermining the African race by claiming superiority through mixed heritage. This ends up dividing rather than unifying many people of colour, and not just African people.

   For these reasons, a lot of black people, both in and out of Africa tend to claim to have some sort of mixed heritage. While this is true for some individuals and for a whole range of populations around the world, I get the feeling that others do it to seemingly not appear to be of pure African origin, ignoring the fact that Africa has a whole myriad of physical features.
 So is it in the name of truly appreciating inter culturalism or do some of us just not want to appear so "African"

Your thoughts?