Cultural Misrepresentation in Fetish African Royalty
While it is now widespread and portrayed that people of African descendant are royal, kingly, and queenly, I find this notion disturbing. Africa, just like any society both in the West and the East had royalties, not all of the members of the society were royal. In fact, most members of the societies were distant from royalty and its social privileges just like it is in England, Saudi Arabia, or Bhutan today.
It is becoming normal for people on social media, popular culture, and Hollywood to accentuate the non-existent royalty of African descendants. While it is okay to refer to a loved one as your royal, this kind of thought is in itself questioning the value of Africans without such titles. The portrayal trend in Black Panther, Lion King, and now Black is King is departing from the fact of actual African reality. In fact, I have a friend who have always raised a question that, “Why do African people have to be considered royal unlike other races? What happens if they are not royal, do they still remain human?”
These royals played an important role in disenfranchising the lands of the African people by signing treacheries with Europeans resulting into colonialism.
