(Link Gems is a supposed-to-be weekly round-up of interesting articles and essays from around the web).

Enjoy!

• “I’m Not Listening”: Kenyan Whiteness (From Gukira)

Kenyan whiteness is righteous rightness. Hyper-corrective toward non-whites, hyper-aware of its privileged status, hyper-willing to exercise its privilege and whip the natives into place.

• Ghana is the most difficult place to be a young person (from JoyOnline.com)
• Why Gay People Can’t Get Married in Nigeria (from MzAgams)

This bill will discriminate against the poor! Na poor people go suffer! Na de poor people de argue for am pass. Ah ah. People wake up and smell the coffee or the roses if you prefer. It’s not about being for or against homosexuality it’s about equity and protection of human rights.

• MsAfropolitan reminds us that Africa is not a brand.
• STUNNING: Comparing US World Covers for TIME Magazine (from The Daily Kos)
• Eels Über Alles: On Julio Cortázar (from The Nation. My thanks to Isak)
• From Finland, an Intriguing School-Reform Model (From The New York Times)
• (On) Grace Paley: “Write What Will Stop Your Breath If You Don’t Write” (from Gwarlingo)
• Henning Mankell on African Literature in The Art of Listening (from The New York Times)

In Africa listening is a guiding principle. It’s a principle that’s been lost in the constant chatter of the Western world, where no one seems to have the time or even the desire to listen to anyone else.

(bless him, but some Africans, myself included, are too impatient for all the listening that we have to do)

• The Pleasures and Perils of Rereading (from The Millions)

As long as we keep rereading, however, we never have the ultimate version of a book. Whether we go back again and again to a classic (and the ability to hold up to rereading is how a book becomes a classic) or pick up an old favorite to see how it has fared or dig deep into the treasures of our youth, rereading is an experiment that is bound to change us, and to change our impressions of the books we read.

• The Digital Divide (focuses on the United States.  Situation is more pronounced in Africa.  Botswana will buck the trend; they have announced an initiative to deploy networking infrastructure to their rural areas.  I should move there. Article from The New York Times)
• Margaret Atwood says Twitter, internet boost literacy (from cbcnews)
• More Than a Decade In, and Internet Comments Continue to Be Terrible (from the Atlantic)
• The New Yorker lists its Ten Biggest Positive Stories of 2011.  It starts off with the much stated economic boom in Africa.  To which some of us reply: Where? For Whom?  All I see is an ever widening gap between the rich and the poor.