Why Have Well Intentioned Foreigners Done So Little About Haiti?
The numbers are not inspiring: Six months after the United States pledged $1.15 billion to Haiti in response to the 2010 earthquake, not one…
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How US Policy Looks Set to Screw Over the Blind
In law school in Freetown, Sierra Leone, Thomas Alieu was smart, determined, and thwarted. “I wanted to become the first blind lawyer in this…
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Who You Calling Poor?
Official figures say 46 million Americans live in poverty. Beyond that, there’s little about poverty that Americans can agree on.
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Gauging Poverty From Africa to Appalachia
New York — When New Yorkers find out I grew up in West Virginia, they often ask if I’ve read “The Glass Castle.” Jeannette…
Read MoreThings you should read this weekend
Tristan McConnell’s series of stories from “the new Mogadishu” for GlobalPost. I think the piece on underpaid city cops is my favorite. Spend some…
Read MoreIf your only lens on Africa was the war on terror, what would you see?
An article in The Washington Post got Mohammed Ademo heated up. Ademo is the cofounder and editor of the Oromo citizen news website Opride.com,…
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How Fiction Fooled Hitler
Pulitzer Prize-winner Tina Rosenberg discusses the novelist who helped defeat the Nazis Jina Moore Before there was James Bond, there was Gregory Sallust. Unlike…
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The White Correspondent’s Burden
Being an object of compassion is not the same thing as being the subject of a story. Let’s tell Africa’s stories differently.
Read MoreGood News from Africa
Not that kind. Not the Gospel, and not heartwarming features about an NGO or a noble American doing good and fixing Africa. I mean…
Read MoreRegarding more than the pain of others
I have a new essay with the Boston Review, about suffering, compassion and foreign journalism (and other narratives) of Africa. I hope you’ll read…
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