Etymology

Maafa

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Today it means: 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. Full definition →

Swahili maafa ← Arabic آفَة (ʔāfa)
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The story

  1. Arabicآفَة (ʔāfa)
  2. Swahiliafa
  3. Swahilimaafa
  4. English todayMaafa

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.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.