News24 Reporter

We on the dark continent are familiar by now with the spectacle of the prostrate African American celebrity, kissing the soil from which they were spawned. "Don't put your lips there," we want to say. "I just saw a bergie wander away zipping up his pants and... oh, never mind." Because deep down we know that maybe we'll get a multimillion dollar school out of the connection, even if said connection was say, a good 7000km away in West Africa somewhere.

So I really thought that Oprah Winfrey was parodying those kind of sentiment in the foreword to South African photographer, Gordon Clark's book "Transitions".

"Ha ha ha!" I chortled with delight. "'There is a bond that runs very deep between my primal self and the children of Africa,'" I quoted. "This is good stuff."

But no, oh no. The Queen of chat and purveyor of pseudoscience medicinal quackery is as ever all the more terrifying because she's sincere. She really does take herself so seriously that she would dedicate 80% of the foreword to an amazing photographer's work with the most self-indulgent and vainglorious crap - and throw him a bone of congratulations at the end for "crystallizing" her connection. Er, actually the book is a treasure box of gorgeous images from across the continent - not a tribute to your confused sense of identity.

Copied below for your enjoyment.

Foreword

The first time I set foot on African soil, I knew I had returned home. It was a powerful experience coming back to the land of bones. It felt like a return to myself.

A lot of African Americans live with the eternal question of "who am I really?" The answer resounded in my spirit with profound clarity the moments I saw an African child smile. Those were my eyes, my lips, my face. And when I first heard African children singing, I knew that not only was I home, but that I would come back to this land again and again. There is a bond that runs very deep between my primal self and the children of Africa. It is a relationship that exists beyond words and one that is reinforced every time I plant my feet in the land of my ancestors. The children of Africa are, to quote scripture, "bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh." Gordon Clark's work crystallizes this connection as he juxtaposes familiar faces and expressions against a barren and inhospitable  landscape. Indeed what Clark accomplishes is to capture the essence of Africa's beautiful and amazing people set against a geography of challenge.