Is ‘Africa’ a racial slur and should the continent be renamed?

Abstract

In this paper, we will investigate whether or not the name ‘Africa’ can be seen as a slur. Since the name was given by European exploiters, slavers and colonists, it raises the question of whether such a name should continue to be accepted or abandoned. It may seem that just as the slavers renamed their victims and the colonists renamed the territories they conquered, the name Africa/ns similarly was an imposition on the continent and its peoples. It can also be argued that the naming of the continent by an external aggressor is a form of epistemic subordination that vitiates the dignity of the inhabitants. That is to say that European slavers took it upon themselves to give the inhabitants an identity that highlights climate and possibly skin colour because it was something they could not do for themselves. This presents the inhabitants as inferior to their namers and whose millennia-old civilisational achievements can comfortably be overlooked. We argue that the two preceding arguments constitute compelling reasons to abandon the name Africa as a compromised identity and offer an idea for the renaming of the continent.