I will, but I suspect that the people behind the event really REALLY want to wear pith helmets and feel like they're the heroes in a Rider Haggard novel.

I'd suggest Oswald Bastable again, but but I suspect the people you are talking ab out would totally miss the point, assuming they knew who Bastable was in the first place.

Whooo. Well, never mind. I just talked to one of the event organizers, let them know about the current RaceFail happening in the subculture, and gently suggested that "Safari" may need re-thinking. He nodded a lot, and said something along the lines of, "But we're reinterpreting the history the way we want it to, without the awful parts", and "We've all talked about it, and we don't want to cater to the whims of people who rant about imperialism any time someone wears a pith helmet."

Oooookaaay, then. Not going to that event next year, nope.

Wow. OK they are way beyond the point where Bastable could help.

Yeah, I'd go with "Explorer." You could reference historical figures such as Cândido Mariano da Silva Rondon [link], Matthew Henson (African American, may have been the first person to reach the geographic north pole in 1909--Edwardian's still ok, right?) [link], or Nain Singh Rawat [link]

I still feel like the end result would be pretty much anohter layer of - pardon me - whitewash over the original concept.

Maybe if the idea had started there.

How would one celebrate the exploration of Africa without being accused of racism?

Um, not much to celebrate about that? Colonization of Africa and the Caribbean was, for the most part, a pretty brutal process and not so great for those who lived there, and was also horribly racist. Therefore, to answer your question, you cannot, because the "exploration" of Africa is racist.

*history, without all the awful parts*

...

...

yeah. I'm still boggled. Fail.

Wow. Yes. Because "we're doing history without any of the bad bits" isn't problematic AT ALL.

Good lord. The mail chain starts with "first thing Friday, so she can do her thing" and ends with "I thought they were due Monday?"

HELLO. THIS IS WHY I START A NEW EMAIL CHAIN. To little effect.

However, I got a "nice email" from my communication-hyper-focussed CIO in explaining status on a highly sensitive topic to one of our COOs. I'm surprised they gave that task to me--in a meeting with me, the CIO, and my boss the Senior Director, I was tasked with reporting status to the COO and a VP.

How would one celebrate the exploration of Africa without being accused of racism?

I'd start by steering away from the bits which exploit the people who were chilling (and killing!) there first. Since there's a "sherpa" factor in a lot of turn of that century exploration, it pretty much taints every party, and sometimes you gotta wonder--do I really need to celebrate something that brought so much pain and anguish to people, even if that wasn't the prime motive (since exploration often led to purloining natural, man-made, and human resources, that's difficult to say)? And then maybe find another, less hotbuttony thing to dress up as.

Therefore, to answer your question, you cannot, because the "exploration" of Africa is racist.

Maybe if the idea had started there.

What Brenda said. I was thinking to shift it away from the original, but the subtext is still there.

"But we're reinterpreting the history the way we want it to, without the awful parts"

Oh, without the awful parts. Well that's all good then. Nothing to see here!