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!

Maybe forward this recent unlocking of archives about British practices during colonialism?

Last week three elderly Kenyans established the right to sue the British government for the torture that they suffered – castration, beating and rape – in the Kikuyu detention camps it ran in the 1950s.

Many tens of thousands were detained and tortured in the camps. I won't spare you the details: we have been sparing ourselves the details for far too long. Large numbers of men were castrated with pliers. Others were raped, sometimes with the use of knives, broken bottles, rifle barrels and scorpions. Women had similar instruments forced into their vaginas. The guards and officials sliced off ears and fingers, gouged out eyes, mutilated women's breasts with pliers, poured paraffin over people and set them alight. Untold thousands died.

The government's secret archive, revealed this April, shows that the attorney general, the colonial governor and the colonial secretary knew what was happening. The governor ensured that the perpetrators had legal immunity: including the British officers reported to him for roasting prisoners to death. In public the colonial secretary lied and kept lying.

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

Gnng. I know, I know. But the organizers genuinely believes that they can have this theme and not have it reflect the historical problems. Of course, one of the organizers is very proud of their quote of "Steampunk needs historical accuracy like a dirigible needs a goldfish". And while I agree that steampunk is not in any way required to be historically accurate, I DO think steampunk should be aware and respectful of the problems inherent in it, not just go WHEE CULTURAL APPROPRIATION AND COLONIZATION!

Ugh. I'll stick with the goth scene, were the drama is all focused on gossip and backstabbing. That's somehow less face-palmy.

Jesus fucking Christ! (ETA: to Hec's link)

(good refuting link, though, Hec.)