Hillary Clinton in Trouble for Using Fake ‘African Proverb’ on Her New Website – Heat Street

Hillary Clinton says her newly launched political groupOnward Together takes its name from an old African proverb thats displayed prominently on the groups site: If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.

But while Hillary may think shes enough of a liberal icon, schooled in diversity and adept at feeling the pain of disenfranchised minorities that shes allowed to pull freely from their historical wisdom,her followers dont feel the same way.

Using African sayings, is, of course, cultural appropriation, and Twitters social justice warriors were quick to pounce on Clintons faux worldliness.

But worse still, its not even clear the quote is actually an African proverb.

Both Clinton and New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker have used the quote before, and actual experts on African history have stepped in to correct them. They note that while the conventional wisdom is that itoriginated somewhere on the continent, its not wholly accurate to call the quote a proverband its kind of weird to make assumptions about its history.

If someone starts an aphorism with theres an African saying, its probably a mythical quote misattributed to a whole continent, one social media user pointed out toNPR.

In other words, these types of quotes are a great way for progressives to depict precisely how in touch with their roots, and the marginalized and oppressed of the world they really are.

This particular quote may be a prime example. According to a history of the quote compiled byJezebel when Hillary Clinton used it the first time on the campaign trail, Clintons African proverb may have been made up by the whitest of all white men, Al Gore.

It appears in a few works of literature, but almost uniformly fiction books by white writers. Otherwise, it mysteriously appears on quote pagesbut mostly bysuccessful white businessmen, tech-types, and CEOs of socially conscious companies like TOMs (who, in turn, usually attribute it to being a mysterious, age-old African saying).

There are also an awful lot of artistic pull quotes with this particular proverb on it floating around Instagram and Tumblr, havens for educated, white social justice warriors.

Instead of making her look like shes off to represent the people, the quote makes Hillary Clinton looks a little like a fake.

View post:
Hillary Clinton in Trouble for Using Fake 'African Proverb' on Her New Website - Heat Street

Related Posts

Comments are closed.