BTR News – Trigger Warning: Mali’s King Mansa Musa Was A Wealthy Slaver

I was first introduced to King Mansa Musa back in high school in the ’80s when I saw one of those Budweiser marketing displays about the “Great Kings and Queens of Africa” in a bar that I was not to supposed to be in. I didn’t think anything of it other than cool, an African King. It was later when one of the former podcasters I knew used an image of Musa as his cover art. The show was in part about generating wealth. I then decided to look up information on King Musa and discovered he enslaved people and being a modern slavery abolitionist, I questioned the choice.

So coming across the meme armed with the information I had learned previously, I simply stated a fact which was that his wealth was acquired from gold mines worked by victims of slavery and that his “flossing” or “showing off” his wealth, put a target on Africa which brought more and more Arabs and Europeans to Africa.

Therefore in my own meme, in the description I wrote that I would like to see the film as well, but only if it is historically accurate. This resulted in some pushback which I will share on this podcast including the research by Balanta scholar by the name of Siphiwe Baleka who formerly identified as African American or Black.

Source Material: THE MALI KINGDOM AND MANSA MUSA WERE IMPERIALIST SLAVE TRADERS: REVISITING AFRICAN HISTORY FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF THE PEOPLE WHO WERE OPPRESSED

https://www.balanta.org/history/the-mali-kingdom-was-imperialist-revisiting-african-history-from-the-point-of-view-of-the-people-who-were-oppressed#

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