"skinny white muzungu with long angel hair"

July 5, 2016 10:04 AM

Actress and writer Louise Linton wrote the book In Congo's Shadow, excerpted in an article titled How my dream gap year in Africa turned into a nightmare. Apparently it was plagued with inaccuracies and outright lies, and Zambian twitter dragged the "delusional white woman" with the hashtag #LintonLies.

The satirical response: How My Dream Gap Year In Europe Turned Into A Nightmare

And be sure to read the classic essay How to Write about Africa, by Binyavanga Wainaina

posted by AFABulous (102 comments total)

Even if every word of that was accurate, it's a memoir about a someone else's war that manages to work in how prestigious her school was and how skinny and blonde she is. It's gross.

It's bullshit that this stuff still sells in 2016, but if it has to, I'm glad we have African twitter to call it out.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 10:16 AM on July 5, 2016 [26 favorites]

She is no doubt surprised and horrified to find they have computers and people who can read in Africa.
posted by Mooski at 10:18 AM on July 5, 2016 [34 favorites]

Wasn't there someone else who wrote something very similar a few or several years back?
posted by Halloween Jack at 10:18 AM on July 5, 2016

She is no doubt surprised and horrified to find they have computers and people who can read in Africa.

I thought this was one of the more amusing tweets.

Maybe you thought you'd get away with this because you didn't finish teaching us poor Zambians English.

posted by AFABulous at 10:23 AM on July 5, 2016 [42 favorites]

The part where she literally talks about how she became a central character in the war made my eyes roll so hard I think I might be permanently damaged. Because she was a random white chick who hid from rebels a couple of times. But in her eyes, that makes her central. Because of course.
posted by jacquilynne at 10:24 AM on July 5, 2016 [8 favorites]

It appears to be self-published, in case anyone else was wondering wtf her editor was thinking.
posted by (Over) Thinking at 10:24 AM on July 5, 2016 [7 favorites]

Surely it should be possible to establish at least some of the truth of this - there should be a record of where she worked, people there should remember her, it should be possible to figure out if there really is "jungle" nearby with 12 foot spiders, etc. (Since as the article notes, the region appears to be mostly grassland.)

I think that while bad framing is a huge problem, that's rather different from making things up out of whole cloth in order to sell a book - if she really did spend time cowering in the jungle and afraid of giant spiders (even if the spiders were rare, not actually local or not that likely to bite her, etc) then she's a rather different person from someone who decided that a fantasy about the whole thing would go down nicely with readers. It would be worth knowing whether she's someone who simply went looking for cliche and stereotype and thus found them or an active liar.
posted by Frowner at 10:28 AM on July 5, 2016 [7 favorites]

12 inch spiders....if there are any twelve foot spiders out there, then we need a new post about them.
posted by Frowner at 10:29 AM on July 5, 2016 [72 favorites]

(Over)Thinking, someone at the Telegraph thought it was a good idea to publish the excerpt, which baffles me.
posted by AFABulous at 10:29 AM on July 5, 2016 [6 favorites]

Good point, AFABulous! I'm curious it was pitched to them (like, by what mechanism) — maybe she has an agent with a contact there? So many questions
posted by (Over) Thinking at 10:33 AM on July 5, 2016

Someone is apparently doing some of that fact checking.
posted by jacquilynne at 10:34 AM on July 5, 2016 [5 favorites]

Should I stay and care for Zimba, risking my life? Or flee to the safety of my family and break her heart? The rebels would surely return and the plane to take me home wasn’t due for several weeks. Torn, I wept for my mother and for myself as I hadn’t wept in years.

Not to suggest that it wouldn't be difficult to be in that particular situation, but maybe she could have spared a tear for Little Orphan Zimba, who wasn't going anywhere regardless?
posted by praemunire at 10:34 AM on July 5, 2016 [21 favorites]

Unsurprisingly, on Amazon 86% of this book's reviews are one-star.

Even less surprisingly, it was published through Amazon's "Createspace Independent Publishing Platform", which presumably is how vanity presses are branded these days.
posted by Doktor Zed at 10:44 AM on July 5, 2016 [2 favorites]

12 foot spiders - maybe "Jose Greco de Muertos" would be a good name.
posted by Death and Gravity at 10:45 AM on July 5, 2016 [1 favorite]

why do idiots get to travel in Africa (or Asia or Europe) and I don't. I'd go to learn about landscape and history and farming!
posted by jb at 10:45 AM on July 5, 2016 [11 favorites]

Even less surprisingly, it was published through Amazon's "Createspace Independent Publishing Platform", which presumably is how vanity presses are branded these days.

Another user of Createspace is Dr. Chuck Tingle, so yep.
posted by Etrigan at 10:47 AM on July 5, 2016 [5 favorites]

Oh my god, those excerpts are so bad they're almost satire. It's like she had a list of white saviour tropes -- and also just bad memoir tropes -- and made sure she hit all of them.

"skinny white muzungu with long angel hair" holy shit
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 10:51 AM on July 5, 2016 [7 favorites]

But the difference between Tingle and Linton is that one of them is writing absurd and improbable wish-fulfillment fantasy, and the other one writes about getting fucked by velociraptors in space.
posted by Panjandrum at 10:52 AM on July 5, 2016 [82 favorites]

Obviously...no african would call you "white" and "muzungu"...that's redundant...
posted by littlejohnnyjewel at 10:54 AM on July 5, 2016 [3 favorites]

and the other one writes about getting fucked by velociraptors in space.

"Pounded In The Butt By My Own Butt" is still my all time favorite Tingler Title.
posted by FatherDagon at 10:56 AM on July 5, 2016 [15 favorites]

Another user of Createspace is Dr. Chuck Tingle, so yep.

This alone justifies the existence of Createspace.
posted by maxsparber at 10:57 AM on July 5, 2016 [23 favorites]

The next morning, I was faced with a dreadful dilemma. Should I stay and care for Zimba, risking my life? Or flee to the safety of my family and break her heart? The rebels would surely return and the plane to take me home wasn’t due for several weeks. Torn, I wept for my mother and for myself as I hadn’t wept in years.

Her editor must have rejected her first draft, which was a bit more lyrical. I'm guessing something like:

The wild dogs cry out in the night as they grow restless, longing for some solitary company. I know that I must do what's right. As sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti, I seek to cure what's deep inside, frightened of this thing that I've become. [Zimba,] it's gonna take a lot to drag me away from you; there's nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do.
posted by Mayor West at 10:58 AM on July 5, 2016 [95 favorites]

Watch for Tingle's next book, Pounded in the Butt by 12 Foot Jungle Spiders.

Make sure to get a co-author credit, Frowner
posted by Panjandrum at 11:00 AM on July 5, 2016 [17 favorites]

Unsurprisingly, on Amazon 86% of this book's reviews are one-star.

And two of the five-star ones note 1) the book's qualities as toilet paper, and 2) the happy emergence of the #lintonlies smackdown
posted by mochapickle at 11:01 AM on July 5, 2016 [3 favorites]

Pounded in the Butt by 12 Foot Jungle Spider Butts
posted by mochapickle at 11:01 AM on July 5, 2016 [7 favorites]

"Pounded In The Butt By My Own Butt" is still my all time favorite Tingler Title.

It's also wonderfully recursive.
posted by delfin at 11:04 AM on July 5, 2016 [2 favorites]

someone at the Telegraph thought it was a good idea

'nuff said.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 11:17 AM on July 5, 2016 [3 favorites]

There's something about that picture at the top of the Telegraph excerpt that's so white, it's like how much more white could this be? And the answer is none. None more white.
posted by prize bull octorok at 11:26 AM on July 5, 2016 [41 favorites]

A thing I was still confused about after reading the excerpt is just how skinny she is. Maybe a few more photos would have helped?
posted by not that girl at 11:28 AM on July 5, 2016 [20 favorites]

someone at the Telegraph thought it was a good idea

It's probably that they have a soft spot for stories from Zimba.
As their family used to own half of it.
posted by fullerine at 11:38 AM on July 5, 2016 [7 favorites]

Also, we know her luxurious flowing locks are blonde, but what sort of blonde are we talking here? Diaphanous and flaxen? Windswept, yet like finely woven gold? Tawny and luxurious? We need more details here, Ms. Linton; how are we to judge the reactions of the sweet children if we have only inexplicably-blurry photos to base our judgements?
posted by Mayor West at 11:39 AM on July 5, 2016 [13 favorites]

Kutsuwamushi, has "muzungu" perhaps glided, as words will, from meaning "white person" to meaning "foreigner in general"? If an African-American shows up as a Peace Corps volunteer in Congo, they certainly don't just fade into the background, but are perceived as foreign in various ways (and not in some other ways, I assume). In Haiti, for example, "blan" has a range of meanings that don't just faithfully map onto "person with pale skin." Asking because curious and comparative-minded.
posted by homerica at 11:43 AM on July 5, 2016 [2 favorites]

There's something about that picture at the top of the Telegraph excerpt that's so white, it's like how much more white could this be? And the answer is none. None more white.

I think she was trying to camouflage herself and blend into the furniture so the rebels wouldn't get her.
posted by AFABulous at 11:51 AM on July 5, 2016 [3 favorites]

Always a good policy to read the satire first.
posted by Cocodrillo at 11:58 AM on July 5, 2016 [4 favorites]

There is a part of my brain that simply can't fully accept, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that this isn't satire. That part of my brain is stuck at "BUH. WHAT?" and can't move on. The rest of my brain is wildly cheering Zambian Twitter.
posted by EvaDestruction at 11:58 AM on July 5, 2016 [3 favorites]

Pounded in the Butt by 12 Foot Jungle Spider Butts

Of course, the pedant in me wants to know whether the spiders are four yards wide or simply have twelve legs.
posted by Mooski at 12:08 PM on July 5, 2016 [8 favorites]

Obviously...no african would call you "white" and "muzungu"...that's redundant...


Maybe they were doing it for emphasis. "Wait...which muzungu?" "The white muzungu." "Oh- riiight."
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 12:17 PM on July 5, 2016 [3 favorites]

I don't work in that part of Africa so i have no experience with "muzungu."

If she did misuse it, it's only another layer on the incredible tone-deafness of that single sentence. She manages to write a sentence that makes the fear of violence about her white exceptionalism--her white beauty.

There is a hell of a lot of white supremacist ideology bubbling up to the surface. Like, she might not be an overt racist (I do not know her), but I've seen similar descriptions of white female victims of violence from neo-nazis.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 12:17 PM on July 5, 2016 [6 favorites]

anecdotally, the one white guy I met in Zambia used "mzungu" more than anyone else over the age of seven
posted by theodolite at 12:21 PM on July 5, 2016 [5 favorites]

I was in Congo (then Zaire) as a Peace Corps Volunteer back in the 1970s.

There were only a couple African American PCVs there when I was there and they were not (I believe, scraping memory) called "mzungu" - which is usually translated as European (non-black Americans, Canadians, etc usually get grandfathered in (so to speak)).

I heard at one point (though, Peace Corps Gossip!) that African Americans were no longer going to be sent to Congo because they'd had problems with the local constabulary - who sometimes refused to believe that anyone black could be from other countries.
posted by Death and Gravity at 12:48 PM on July 5, 2016 [6 favorites]

I thought the feminine for mzungu was wazungu, anyway -- based on dim memories of those Alexander McCall Smith novels.
posted by PsychoTherapist at 12:57 PM on July 5, 2016

Wasn't this an Ace Ventura movie?
posted by JohnFromGR at 12:59 PM on July 5, 2016 [1 favorite]

It's good when things happen to or near white people, so that, you know, they really happened.
posted by allthinky at 1:01 PM on July 5, 2016 [15 favorites]

No, mzungu is singular, masculine or feminine. Wazungu is plural.

As a white woman who spends a lot of time in Africa, I find this incredibly embarrassing. This is basically everything I try not to do, all the ways I try not to talk about people and my experiences. I've been in a constant state of cringing since I first saw this.
posted by ChuraChura at 1:03 PM on July 5, 2016 [33 favorites]

Oh God, she's Barbie Savior.
But, like, blonder.
posted by ocksay_uppetpay at 1:08 PM on July 5, 2016 [21 favorites]

Of course, the pedant in me wants to know whether the spiders are four yards wide or simply have twelve legs.

I'm sure the novel would thoughtfully explore all possible options.
posted by mochapickle at 1:11 PM on July 5, 2016 [4 favorites]

Oh God, she's Barbie Savior.
But, like, blonder.

Literally feeding Coca-Cola to the little Zambian child!
posted by atoxyl at 1:16 PM on July 5, 2016 [1 favorite]

(Oh they did put that up in response to her article! I was like - what a coincidence!)
posted by atoxyl at 1:17 PM on July 5, 2016

Did you notice the spider in that pic?
posted by AFABulous at 1:18 PM on July 5, 2016

the pedant in me wants to know whether the spiders are four yards wide or simply have twelve legs

Neither. They are foot spiders. There are a dozen of them. Make sure you shake out your shoes in the morning because, as you can probably tell from the name, they like feet.
posted by The Bellman at 1:22 PM on July 5, 2016 [19 favorites]

Yawn. LA actress self publishes terrible memoir with the help of a ghost writer. The only surprising thing here is that the Telegraph excerpted it. Wonder how that came about.
posted by quaking fajita at 1:49 PM on July 5, 2016 [3 favorites]

I especially love the Daguerreotype filter they ran on 2 of the photos - really gives it that Heart of Darkness vibe.
posted by Devils Rancher at 2:32 PM on July 5, 2016 [2 favorites]

I'm so glad the satire exists:

My new home was beautiful and I made close friendships with the local English people. I learned some of their language, ate their bland Cornish pasties, planted a vegetable garden, and created a little school under a hedge row, writing about my experiences in my diary.
posted by harujion at 2:44 PM on July 5, 2016 [6 favorites]

Huh. So not so much LintonLies as HoldenLies. A good example of why you shouldn't put your name to things written by others.
posted by Bugbread at 3:17 PM on July 5, 2016 [1 favorite]

"As I huddled at my desk, I reflected on how I, internationally recognized for my handsomeness, had become a central character in the Congo's civil war — was reading a gap-year essay really worth imagining myself in a jungle full of spiders where my immaculate skin might be tarnished with heat rash? If only I had known how I would change the course of all human history, past and future."
posted by klangklangston at 4:18 PM on July 5, 2016 [3 favorites]

The only surprising thing here is that the Telegraph excerpted it. Wonder how that came about.

Connections. Her web site (warning: autoplay) goes into her upbringing in some detail. Informative quotes from the Press section: "growing up at Melville Castle has shaped her attitude to life, work, and making it in Hollywood"; "the Queen gave me an encouraging nod when I was onstage"; "Her connections and family wealth could mark her out as the product of privilege, but rising Scots actor Louise Linton is determined to make it in Hollywood on her own". She played Kate in a TV film about the Royals. I assume she had a family member or friend pull in a favour from the Telegraph.
posted by jokeefe at 5:25 PM on July 5, 2016 [10 favorites]

Oh God, she's Barbie Savior.

Barbie Savior is genius.

The linked article is appalling. Something that used to drive me crazy when I was working overseas was meeting those people and worrying that they reflected poorly on me by association. In retrospect I should have given everyone a lot more credit for being able to separate one kind of jackass from another.

Her connections and family wealth could mark her out as the product of privilege, but rising Scots actor Louise Linton is determined to make it in Hollywood on her own"

Gag.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:14 PM on July 5, 2016 [4 favorites]

Perhaps this piece is part of a strategy to be so terrible that her connections disown her and become worthless, giving her the chance to truly experience "making it on her own". Unfortunately I'd say she underestimated what it takes to get rid of connections built on a wealthy family name, she'll have to try harder. Perhaps join the rebels next time?
posted by the agents of KAOS at 7:14 PM on July 5, 2016 [1 favorite]

So she is actually the person Bob Dylan is singing about in "Like A Rolling Stone"?
posted by zutalors! at 7:21 PM on July 5, 2016 [1 favorite]

She's deleted her Facebook and Twitter, and made her Instagram private. There should be a name for that quick wipe of social media accounts done in a frantic effort to ameliorate public damage and control the narrative of humiliation....
posted by jokeefe at 7:24 PM on July 5, 2016 [9 favorites]

So she is actually the person Bob Dylan is singing about in "Like A Rolling Stone"?

Leopardskin Pillbox Hat, maybe.
posted by jokeefe at 7:26 PM on July 5, 2016 [2 favorites]

So she is actually the person Bob Dylan is singing about in "Like A Rolling Stone"?

That person is at least educable, at least once they encounter the mystery tramp
posted by thelonius at 7:28 PM on July 5, 2016 [1 favorite]

. There should be a name for that quick wipe of social media accounts done in a frantic effort to ameliorate public damage and control the narrative of humiliation....

It's basically what my toddlers do when they hide their eyes before they get in trouble, as if I can't see them when they do it and therefore can't put them in timeout. Despite the deletion, I'm sure she's feverishly checking her twitter mentions.
posted by Existential Dread at 7:34 PM on July 5, 2016 [3 favorites]

Maybe by "twelve inch spiders" she means twelve spiders, each being one inch? That's not so implausible.
posted by drlith at 8:06 PM on July 5, 2016 [1 favorite]

I've seen dinner-plate sized spiders (leg tip to leg tip, with much smaller bodies), so that might be the one believable part of the entire story.
posted by Dip Flash at 8:13 PM on July 5, 2016 [2 favorites]

She squeezes her eyes shut. You know, like an Eric Cartman but with angel hair.
posted by Dr. Zira at 8:51 PM on July 5, 2016 [1 favorite]

With Zimba, an orphan girl

And with that, I could not read anymore.
posted by LuckyMonkey21 at 8:52 PM on July 5, 2016 [1 favorite]

(CW: spiders) From a quick read of internet spider sources: rain spiders, Palystes spp., are members of the Sparassidae (huntsman) family, and the African ones can have legspans up to 110 mm. But they are dwarfed by the tropical Asian and Australian Heteropoda spp., which have legspans up to 300mm. *Those* are your dinnerplate spiders.
I would rather have these spiders in my house than this lady or her ghostwriter.
posted by gingerest at 10:15 PM on July 5, 2016 [5 favorites]

She's deleted her Facebook and Twitter, and made her Instagram private. There should be a name for that quick wipe of social media accounts done in a frantic effort to ameliorate public damage and control the narrative of humiliation....

I hope she's not getting too many death threats. 8(
posted by Deoridhe at 11:09 PM on July 5, 2016 [3 favorites]

Despite the deletion, I'm sure she's feverishly checking her twitter mentions.

I doubt that. Instead, I suspect her Twitter mentions probably contain a fair amount of vile stuff no sane human being would want to see. She's a young woman on the Internet and ostensibly a fair target. You do the math on the kinds of abuse and images she was probably being sent in the hours before she deleted her accounts.
posted by Sonny Jim at 1:36 AM on July 6, 2016 [3 favorites]

Yeah, in these situations one has a lot of mixed feelings:

1. No one should get death threats for writing this type of book, even though it's a loathsome type of book.

2. She's already benefiting from white, rich privilege - if she were a Black woman writing on another topic, it would be a lot worse. If she were a Black woman, she'd be getting death threats over gently suggesting that racial inequality exists instead of getting them over an actually-racist book.

3. On the other hand, if she were, say, fifty and chubby and not from a rich family it wouldn't be a story - it's not like there's not tons of dumb white people writing about African issues everywhere you turn, and they don't all get massive scrutiny and death threats.

4. Rich white people usually bounce back from this stuff.

5. But if she were a man it would be different - the rage machine wouldn't be as rage-y. The internet takes particular pleasure in threatening and shaming women, especially young women, regardless of what they actually do - genuinely shameful stuff or just suggesting that video games are sometimes sexist.

6. She after all did the dumb thing - it's not like this was her personal blog with five readers that just blew up at random, her rich buddies at the Torygraph printed it to help her out. She has set herself up as an expert on this issue, and she's apparently willfully exaggerated at best and lied at worst.

I mean, if anyone has to face the internet's rough justice, it should be people the most privileged in society, since they don't usually face any other justice. But at the same time, it seems like elite white men don't face this kind of thing, and even sufficiently elite white women don't.

I keep thinking of Brexit - like, Farage (and Cameron and all of them) are so much worse than this woman on her worst day. She's just a selfish idiot - Farage and all those [pig] fuckers are actually stirring up sentiment (even the Tory remainers) that is getting people beaten in the street. They're driving disabled people to suicide through benefit cuts. They are people who should be in the ice at the center of hell. But what happens to them? Nothing. They go from luxury public school to elite political position to elite consulting position to luxury retirement.

It just seems really broken that the only power of justice that ordinary people have is death threats on the twitters.
posted by Frowner at 2:02 AM on July 6, 2016 [24 favorites]

Frowner: "I mean, if anyone has to face the internet's rough justice, it should be people the most privileged in society, since they don't usually face any other justice. But at the same time, it seems like elite white men don't face this kind of thing, and even sufficiently elite white women don't. "

I don't quite follow this part. She was apparently raised in a castle and her performance was attended by the queen but she's not elite enough to be criticized on the Internet? Just how privileged do you have to be to not get a pass?

(Criticized, mind you, not the death threat bullshit. Nobody should have to deal with that, no matter how privileged.)
posted by Bugbread at 2:12 AM on July 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

I guess to me there's a difference between "being criticized on the internet" and the whole "rough justice" thing, which I would take to be the usual menu - death threats, stalking, people trying to get someone fired even if what they did wasn't at all relevant to their job, people contacting someone's family, SWAT-ing.

It's like "if women on the internet get death threats for bad stuff and for just existing, what relation does this have to any kind of justice"?

Also, it's not that less privileged people should get passes - it's that more privileged people get passes that they don't deserve, which casts some shadow on the justness of the whole thing.

I'm very aware that this particular woman will, in the long run, have nothing happen to her - rich white people very rarely face long term consequences for racism.

The point isn't that people should only be criticized if they have social power - the point is that the connection between the offense and the response seems to be broken, and that this has a lot to do with the brokenness of other social systems.

It's more that, because there's no way to get at the people with the power to structure the world - Telegraph editors, Farage, various elites - these other discourses become heightened because they are the only ways to enact justice that are available.
posted by Frowner at 2:42 AM on July 6, 2016 [6 favorites]

Ah. In that case I'm not sure anyone should get "rough justice". I always figured things like death threats, stalking, SWATting, etc. were things that shouldn't happen because they're bad things, not because they're happening to the wrong people.
posted by Bugbread at 2:49 AM on July 6, 2016 [4 favorites]

But at the same time, there's a disconnect - someone writes a racist book in order to advance her acting career and there isn't much recourse, and the book does real injury. I think that a lot of the harassment in these situations - where someone really has done something loathsome - comes from the fact that people are genuinely injured by systemic racism and there isn't any redress to systemic injury, so people feel that it's legit to use what weapons they have.

(I should clarify that I'm not in sympathy with this woman or her book in any way and I think that the Twitter response has been hilarious, incisive and justified - I was only thinking about the fact that things seem go so rapidly from "hilarious hashtag justice" to "death threats" when women are involved and there doesn't seem to be a way to stop that.)
posted by Frowner at 3:08 AM on July 6, 2016 [5 favorites]

She’d described 12-inch spiders, rebels taking over the country and the war in the Congo being between the Hutu and Tutsi people. At first some people thought it was satire (this isn’t a Zambia any of us recognise), but then I found out it was actually far worse – an excerpt to promote the actress’ new memoir.

What is wrong with this memoir by Louise Linton? So many things. I will elaborate a few examples...

Thirdly, Linton references a little HIV-positive girl in the northern province called Zimba. This character is the only positive thing she highlights in her piece. However, it does not quite add up either. She mentions that the girl is from the Bemba community, but where Linton slips up is the name. Zimba, as any Zambian knows, is an eastern name. It is almost exclusive to the eastern province, and some parts of Malawi. But the Bemba tribe live in the north. It would be like finding a white, French person being called Xin Li in the 19th century – it just doesn’t happen. Zambians, especially rural Zambians, take pride in the tradition of naming and so it is not possible that a little girl would be given a name from another tribe. My deduction is that this character was made up or at least exaggerated for her memoir’s heartwarming factor. It’s sad she didn’t get her facts right, but Africa is just Africa … we’re all the same, right?
posted by infini at 3:16 AM on July 6, 2016 [9 favorites]

This reminds me very much of what happened to Max Gogarty, who had a very, very, very short lived travel column in the Guardian. The same cluelessness and the same level of privilege.
posted by jfwlucy at 4:05 AM on July 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

Max Gogarty is now Content Editor at BBC Three, a job he's moved to after working as Head of Development at Vice. He's doing fine.
posted by Sonny Jim at 4:55 AM on July 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

This is a theme which needs to die, as obsolete in a connected world. Till then, be prepared for angry Africans waving their smartphones.

oh, and little Zimba lives!
posted by infini at 5:21 AM on July 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

I don't know where the idea came up that she received death threats. There has been no mention of those. All anyone did was make fun of her elite blond and white privileged thinking.
posted by infini at 5:34 AM on July 6, 2016

"hilarious hashtag justice" to "death threats" when women are involved and there doesn't seem to be a way to stop that.)

I've been looking out for these and it seems to be more of a first world problem. It could be bot driven or specifically geo targeted. This hasn't happened in our third world coloured spaces as yet. I would have heard. Speaking about African twitter specifically here.
posted by infini at 5:37 AM on July 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

I'd be fucking stunned if people aren't contacting her and threatening to push her out of a helicopter.
posted by thelonius at 5:45 AM on July 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

Assumptions made on race or gender relations in other continents or cultures based on your own operating environment will act as inadvertent barriers to progress, and understanding, if not aware enough to pause to consider that things might be very different. Half of this thread sweepingly assuming Madam blonde hair has been threatened is one such case. Half a century ago it might have led to an invasion of Zambia. Thank god such thinking has changed in today's world - interconnected yet so different in context and lifestyle.
posted by infini at 5:45 AM on July 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

I'd be fucking stunned if people aren't contacting her and threatening to push her out of a helicopter.

Its a sad but natural outcome of an environment where people are shot on sight.
posted by infini at 5:47 AM on July 6, 2016

I'm not just talking about her getting threat, I'm talking about the whole gender = ganging up harassment which could be geo thing. I have not heard of or seen this behaviour in African social media. Out of the African continent, not hyphenated harassed and tormented first world versions.
posted by infini at 5:50 AM on July 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

I kinda assumed the whole "she's probably getting death threats" thing meant "she's probably getting death threats from other Westerners," not "she's probably getting death threats from Africans."
posted by Bugbread at 5:59 AM on July 6, 2016 [6 favorites]

Yeah, that was my assumption too when I made my comment above. I was not suggesting that Zambians were threatening her ...
posted by Sonny Jim at 6:02 AM on July 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

Oh, me three! My assumption is usually that the death threats thing comes from white westerners who are part of a very particular corner of the internet left*, or else white westerners who just like sending death threats to women, or possibly various western internet culture people who sincerely are overwhelmed by the shittiness of the world and respond badly.

I didn't mean to derail this - I couldn't sleep and was maybe not super coherent while posting at 4am. Also, I certainly don't want to suggest that African twitter is responding wrong - partly because that's not my place to judge and partly because all the African twitter I've seen on this has been hilarious and/or informative.

*Where you prove your bona fides by "not being soft" on people who transgress, and eventually everyone transgresses and is cast out, then you find a new social circle and begin again....
posted by Frowner at 6:25 AM on July 6, 2016 [5 favorites]

*Where you prove your bona fides by "not being soft" on people who transgress, and eventually everyone transgresses and is cast out, then you find a new social circle and begin again....

That's a great summary of the dynamic. It sounds an awful lot like plain old fashioned American puritanism and witch hunting when you put it like that.
posted by saulgoodman at 6:40 AM on July 6, 2016 [5 favorites]

The Woman Who Wrote That “Gap Year In Africa” Memoir Is In A Relationship With Donald Trump’s Finance Chief

Linton told The Edinburgh Evening News in May that she has had dinner with Trump. She said: “I sat next to him at dinner and he was charming and engaging.

“I appreciate he is polarising individuals politically, but in person he is thoughtful, personable and polite.”
posted by infini at 6:57 AM on July 6, 2016 [10 favorites]

I had started to wonder, why did none of her associates tell her, hey, publicising your terrible, ghost-written, Great White Hope fantasy is a really bad idea.......it's because, they thought it was fine?
posted by thelonius at 7:02 AM on July 6, 2016 [3 favorites]

The Woman Who Wrote That “Gap Year In Africa” Memoir Is In A Relationship With Donald Trump’s Finance Chief

That's it. I'm out. Fuck 2016.
posted by Etrigan at 7:10 AM on July 6, 2016 [21 favorites]

Well the thing about the .001 percent is that there's going to be a lot fewer of them by definition. I imagine they kind of do all know each other. Who else will they hang out with? We plebes who could never understand their pain?
posted by emjaybee at 7:16 AM on July 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

Madonna
posted by infini at 9:25 AM on July 6, 2016

Trump's finance chief? Ugh, of course.

I was thinking we could set her up with Sad Boner guy and launch them both into orbit.
posted by Space Kitty at 9:51 AM on July 6, 2016 [5 favorites]

To clarify, since I caused the death threats derail through not being clear, yes I assumed they would come from white westerners who got the "woman did something wrong on the Internet" signal and descended en mass. The Zambians responding have been hilarious and on point, and I expected nothing different. Sorry for the derail!
posted by Deoridhe at 10:43 AM on July 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

I just hope that, in a few years' time, she doesn't get to bounce back. That people don't forget this, and don't let her get away with whatever career pivot a rich, well-connected white person can pull off once the shitstorm has abated. That her acting career is permanently holed below the waterline, because no Hollywood studio will finance a film with her in the credits in a speaking role. That any memoir she writes, if it makes it out the door, ends up pulped as a dead loss to the publisher. Ideally, if her money ran out and she had to work for a living, interacting with the common people not from a position of privilege, that would be just, but perhaps that's too much to wish for.
posted by acb at 11:01 AM on July 6, 2016

I don't know, acb. What happened to that white PR professional who made a flippant tweet about getting AIDS while she was on a plane to Africa? I don't even remember her name.
posted by AFABulous at 1:24 PM on July 6, 2016

Justine Sacco. She was one of the central subjects of Jon Ronson's book on online abuse. It apparently ruined her life for a while, but is now back at work at a PR film.
posted by maxsparber at 1:36 PM on July 6, 2016

No one deserves death threats/life ruining to the degree these women have had, but I think a whole ghost written BOOK is different than the tweet thing. Linton definitely deserves the mockery.
posted by zutalors! at 2:05 PM on July 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

By Karen Attiah | The Washington Post

If there is one media narrative about Africa that refuses to be quashed, it's the White-Savior-in-Africa bug. Even though some of the world's fastest-growing economies are in Africa, and Africans on the continent and in the diaspora are perfectly capable of telling their own stories and transforming their own societies, the white savior framework lives, like some prehistoric literary insect that has managed to survive the ages without having to evolve. And just when you think the world has made at least some progress in beginning to exterminate this trend, a big, fat, multi-legged WhiteSaviorInAfricaStory crawls into the mediasphere.
posted by infini at 11:27 AM on July 7, 2016 [3 favorites]

Mod note: Several comments deleted. The sidebar about misogynist-harassment-by-westerners vs mockery-from-Zambians seems like it's been clarified, no need to reopen it 24 hours later and then have a hyper personal throwdown about it.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 12:26 PM on July 7, 2016 [1 favorite]