Quote

When Europeans came upon real ruined cities they refused to believe that they had been built by Africans. Here the past has been distorted and denied.

To all those who have drawn the inference from my words that Africa, as a continent, is somehow genetically inferior, I can only apologise unreservedly.

If people in this country think of Africa as a place with kids and flies swarming around their heads, then they won't understand that these people are you and you are them.

Africans need to be kicked, that's the only thing they understand.

It's time Africa started listening to our young people instead of always telling them what to do.

I had a hard time convincing students that they were going to North Africa to understand the North Africans, not to understand themselves.

The last four or five hundred years of European contact with Africa produced a body of literature that presented Africa in a very bad light and Africans in very lurid terms. The reason for this had to do with the need to justify the slave trade and slavery.

Billions of dollars are thrown at African countries.

It's important to debunk the myths of Africa being this benighted continent civilized only when white people arrived. In fact, Africans had been creators of culture for thousands of years before. These were very intelligent, subtle and sophisticated people, with organized societies and great art.

What offends me the most when I hear criticisms about this so-called Africa bias is how quick we are to focus on the words and propaganda of a few powerful, influential individuals, and to forget about the millions of anonymous people who suffer from their crimes.