I want to highlight yet another incidence of ridiculous cultural insensitivity in the Globe and Mail. Stephanie Nolen is the Globe and Mail African correspondant. In her latest blog post she says
”the members of the Collectif des femmes pour la lutte contre l’immigration clandestine au Sénégal had been recognized that morning by Senegalese president Abdoulaye Wade for their work, and had put on their official dress for the occasion at State House. …
But once I got past the odd sensation of talking to a room full of women wearing what appeared to be the curtains,”
She calls herself the African correspondant and she finds this odd? There is a strong tradition in Africa to make dresses and shirt out of custom fabric for different events. Say that these women are wearing “curtains” is totally insulting, and takes away from the message of the article.