Blue Black: Overcoming Afrophobia

In her digital  collage Blue Black, Akuol uses her work to rise up against the devestating effects of what she refers to as 'afrophobia.'

As Akuol states 'people  talk about “colorism”, a word coined by the activist and author Alice Walker. Walker defines colorism as “prejudiced or preferential treatment of same-race people based solely on their color,” and asserts,  “I am worried, constantly, about the hatred the black black woman encounters within black society”.

Akuol however, prefers to use different terminology: ''I prefer “afrophobia”, which is the active distancing from the perceived wretchedness of the deep, dark, middle of Africa – where I'm from''

Speaking about this devestating and dangerous stereotyping, Akuol explains: 'Blue-black is a term used to describe very dark skin – a common characteristic of South Sudanese people.  As a dark-skinned black African person, I cannot deny, hide from, put on or take off my Africanness. I had to confront the negative ways the world sees Africa.' 

Akuol shows that a powerful way of ovecoming violent stereotypes is through representation itself 'Making, watching and engaging with films has been my way of grappling with afrophobia.  I loved seeing very dark-skinned black people on the screen in films by Djibril Diop Mambety and Ousmane Sembene. I loved that they did not fetishise, glamourise, victimize or render us abnormal.'