Inauthenticity is endemic in American politics today. The political backrooms where I spent much of my career were just as benighted as my personal life equally crowded with shadowy strangers and compromises truths I hoped to deny. I lived not in one closet but in many.

It's important to debunk the myths of Africa being this benighted continent civilized only when white people arrived. In fact Africans had been creators of culture for thousands of years before. These were very intelligent subtle and sophisticated people with organized societies and great art.