Coffee is a $430 billion dollar industry amassed off the labor of Black and Brown people. Yet, African countries—where the plant has always grown or was forced to grow due to colonialism—make almost two percent of that money cumulatively. While the industry has increasingly tried to re-think its practices, particularly where sustainability is concerned, it has yet to reconcile the history of violence, theft and …
The demise of James Cook is legendary—especially in Polynesia and Australasia, where the English explorer was responsible for a tremendous amount of colonization. In 1779, Cook and his men attempted to kidnap Kalaniʻōpuʻu—the chief of the island of Hawaii—under the guise of showing him their ship. Thousands of Hawaiian people gathered on the beach at Kealakekua Bay, a fight broke out, and Cook was stabbed …
Located in Accra, Ghana, Kantamanto Market is the largest second-hand apparel market in West Africa—and it’s brimming with clothes from North America, the UK, China, Korea and Australia. It’s partly “waste management” for those countries (and has a devastating effect on Ghana, as tons of this clothing is unusable and becomes landfill), but it has also “helped popularize the term ‘Obroni Wawu,’ which directly translates …
