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Maafa. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
Maafa, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say
Maafa in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word
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English
Etymology
From Swahili maafa (“disaster, catastrophe”). Coined in 1994 by Marimba Ani (in Let the Circle Be Unbroken: The Implications of African Spirituality in the Diaspora) on the model of the Hebrew-derived designation Shoah of the Jewish Holocaust.
Noun
Maafa (uncountable)
- (Afrocentrism) The history of slavery and anti-black racism and discrimination in the United States; the historical enslavement of Africans and associated atrocities, under the interpretation of these as a genocide against them.
- 2003, Out of the revolution: the development of Africana studies (edited by Aldridge and Young; published by Lexington Books), page 250:
- The Maafa concept explains the conditions of disorganization, disunity, self-hatred, and alienation affecting African people to varying degrees.