Teju Cole

Teju Cole's profile rose considerably a couple of years ago when he was one of the main critics of the "Kony 2012" youtube video.  In a series of tweets widely re-published, he criticized the "White Savior Industrial Complex" that the viral video expressed, the widely shared belief that Africa is a blank slate on which western humanitiarians can self-actualize and sentimentalize without much consulting the people they are purporting to help, let alone examining their own motives or privileges.  Cole is part of a growing number of African intellectuals living in the U.S. contesting our stereotypes about the continent.

I'm well into Cole's 2011 novel, Open City, in which an Nigerian-born protagonist records his impressions of New York City.  Part of what makes the novel so intriguing is its relative lack of concern with race and ethnicity.  To be sure, race matters to Cole's protagonist.  But he seems more deeply concerned with birds, music, architecture, and other features of urban life.

Cole's cosmopolitanism is, in and of itself, a critique of the notion that the U.S. and Africa are completely different from each other.