By: Rae Sharman Sampson-McMillan, LCSW-R
September 8, 2026
For generations, many of us have looked at a map of the world without questioning what we were seeing. Africa was there. Europe was there. North America was there. Their relative sizes seemed to be matters of geography rather than interpretation.
A map was simply a map.
But maps, like many of the institutions and systems we inherit, are not necessarily neutral.
In September 2026, the United Nations General Assembly overwhelmingly supported an African-led resolution encouraging the use of world maps that more accurately represent the relative size of continents. The initiative challenges the continued dominance of the Mercator projection, developed in the sixteenth century for navigation but still widely used to represent the world.
The Mercator projection significantly enlarges land masses farther from the equator while diminishing the relative visual size of equatorial regions. Greenland, for example, can appear comparable in size to Africa, although Africa is approximately fourteen times larger.
That distortion raises a question extending far beyond cartography:
What else have we learned to see without questioning who created the picture?
More than two decades ago, I developed Oppressiveisms™ as an umbrella term for naming systems of oppression together rather than addressing racism, sexism, classism, ableism, ageism, xenophobia, linguicism, colonialism, and other forms of oppression as though they operate independently.
My years in social work taught me something fundamental:
The systems do not take turns.
People rarely experience one form of oppression neatly separated from another. Racism can intersect with classism. Sexism can be reinforced by economic inequality. Xenophobia can operate alongside racism and linguicism. Ableism can intensify the consequences of poverty.
But the same principle applies beyond individuals and communities.
Nations do not experience systems of domination one at a time either. Neither does history.
Africa provides a powerful example.
European colonialism was not simply the occupation of African land. It involved control over resources, labor, political institutions, education, language, religion, cultural practices, and systems of knowledge. European powers also drew borders across the continent, often with little regard for existing ethnic, linguistic, cultural, and political relationships.
Colonialism therefore involved more than controlling territory. It involved the power to name, classify, divide, represent, and define.
Africa was studied. Africa was categorized. Africa was divided. Africa was mapped.
And much of what the world learned about Africa was filtered through institutions possessing the political, economic, and military power to define it.
This is where Oppressiveisms™ becomes particularly useful.
Colonialism cannot be completely separated from racism. Racism cannot be separated from economic exploitation. Economic exploitation cannot be separated from the extraction of natural resources. Resource extraction cannot be separated from global systems of wealth and power. Migration cannot always be separated from conflict, climate change, poverty, borders, and global inequality.
These forces are interconnected, and understanding their cumulative impact requires us to examine the relationships among them rather than treating each as an isolated phenomenon.
One of the most enduring characteristics of oppression is its ability to become so deeply embedded in institutions and everyday life that what was constructed begins to appear natural.
A map hangs on a classroom wall.
A textbook tells history primarily from the perspective of the colonizer.
A child’s accent is interpreted as evidence of limited ability.
A community shaped by decades of discriminatory policies is simply described as “poor.”
A border drawn by colonial powers becomes an unquestioned national boundary.
Eventually, we stop seeing the decisions, histories, and systems behind these realities.
We simply see reality.
That is why the movement to represent Africa at its true size matters.
Changing a map will not erase colonialism, redistribute wealth, resolve conflicts, return extracted resources, or eliminate racism. But representation matters because representation shapes consciousness. Maps influence how generations of children imagine nations, continents, power, and their own place in the world.
There is something profound about African nations collectively declaring:
You have not even been seeing us at our true size.
That statement is geographical, but it is also historical, political, educational, and psychological.
For centuries, Africa has been diminished in ways extending far beyond its representation on a map. Its civilizations have been minimized, its intellectual traditions overlooked, its resources extracted, its people enslaved and colonized, and its cultures too often interpreted through stereotypes created elsewhere.
Perhaps correcting the map, then, is also part of correcting the story.
Oppressiveisms™ asks us to look beneath what appears normal and examine the overlapping systems of power that helped make it so. It asks us not only to name oppression when it is obvious, but also to recognize it when its consequences have become so familiar that they escape our attention.
The question before us, therefore, is larger than which map projection we should use.
It is about who has historically possessed the power to draw the map, define the borders, name the people, control the resources, produce the knowledge, and tell the story.
And it is about what happens when those who have historically been mapped, named, categorized, and defined by others reclaim the authority to define themselves.
Africa is not asking permission to appear at its true size.
It is insisting on being seen as it truly is.
About the Author
Rae Sharman Sampson-McMillan, LCSW-R, is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker based in New York with a career spanning NYC Child Welfare and Emergency Domestic Violence Services in clinical, management, and executive leadership roles, including having served as Chief of Staff in the Division of Child Protection within the NYC Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) — one of the largest child welfare agencies in the United States. She holds a Master’s
Degree in Social Work (MSW) from Columbia University and a Bachelor’s Degree (BSc) from
Fordham University, and is the recipient of the NASW-NYC Mid-Career Exemplary Leadership Award. She is the originator of Oppressiveisms™, a word she coined in 2002, and the developer and author of its framework — A Transformative Framework: Magnified, Collective, Clarified and Inclusive for Social Justice and Public Well-Being — further explored at
oppressiveisms.com. She has authored and published related Oppressiveisms™ articles. She currently works as an independent consultant on the Oppressiveisms™ framework.
Email your opinions, letters and commentaries to: letters@caribmagplus.com
Dear Editor,
Thank you for publishing “Africa Is Not Asking Permission to Appear at Its True Size: Oppressiveisms™, Colonialism, and the Power of the Map.”
I am grateful to Caribbean Magazine Plus for giving this conversation a home — and for recognizing that a question about a map is never only about a map.
What the essay ultimately points to is this: Oppressiveisms™ do not take turns. They stack. They interconnect. And they operate not only in individual lives but across nations and continents — shaping how an entire part of the world has been seen, measured, and understood. That a global body has now moved to correct one such distortion suggests the work of naming these systems is far from finished, and far from local.
With thanks and continued appreciation for the platform you provide.
Rae Sharman Sampson-McMillan, LCSW-R
Originator, Oppressiveisms™
oppressiveisms.com
Great article! A recommended read for all of us, Rae.
This article is very informative and thought-provoking. It clearly demonstrates the significance and overarching nature of your term “oppressiveism’, especially in light of the recent and most welcome UN decision re. correcting the map of Africa.
This move is important and could potentially be a small step leading towards the revelation of her complete and true story, even if it is now seen as just the tip of the iceberg, in the face of entrenched systems of “oppressiveism” worldwide.
It is commendable, because Africa, who throughout world history has been oppressed, exploited and dispossessed of her self-defining authority is here reclaiming that power of self-determination, and demanding her right to be seen, understood and treated in a just and equitable manner, that she so rightly deserves.
Your discussion, also convincingly argues that all the strategies devised and used by oppressors everywhere, are inextricably bound and interlinked and not independent of each other. This common characteristic is of paramount importance, especially when designing planned interventions for dealing with these pervasive forms of gross injustice and discriminatory policies.
Thank you once again for sharing. Keep up your excellent work!.
Dear Gladys,
Thank you so much for this generous and thoughtful reading. You have named exactly what I hoped the essay would carry — that the map is a small, visible correction sitting atop something far larger and far from finished.
Your phrase “the tip of the iceberg” is the right one. Africa’s insistence on being seen at her true size is only the beginning of a longer reckoning with self-determination, and with everything still owed. And there is something further in what you’ve named: if the map can be corrected for Africa, it becomes a precedent — proof that other regions long misrepresented or diminished can make the same demand, and be seen for who and what they are.
I am also glad the interlinked nature of these systems came through. That, to me, is the heart of Oppressiveisms™ — that Oppressiveisms™ are never operating alone. Nobody’s pain ever shows up alone, and neither does a nation’s. They stack. Africa’s dispossession was never one plunder under colonialism; it was land, labor, language, culture, self-rule, control, etc., seized, taken, stolen dismantled, all together, by the same hand to ensure diminishent of a people. Any intervention designed to address only one strand will always miss the others still holding on.
Thank you for reading so closely, and for your continued encouragement.
With warm regards,
Rae
This was a wonderful and thought-provoking article.
You have brought much-needed attention to the oppressive systems and narratives that have shaped how we see the world.
The fact that Africa is often depicted on maps as much smaller than it actually is, particularly in the Mercator projection, is a powerful reminder that even the way we represent the world can distort our understanding of it.
Africa is a continent of immense size, history, and influence, yet its true scale and significance have so often been diminished.
I also believe we must bring greater attention to the repatriation of wealth, cultural treasures, and other assets taken from Africa and India through colonial exploitation and plundered wars.
These are not merely historical matters; they are questions of justice, ownership, and the restoration of what was taken.
Your editorial is an important contribution to that conversation. It encourages us to look beyond the narratives we have inherited and to ask who created them, who benefited from them, and what must be done to correct the injustices they continue to perpetuate.
Excellent piece 👏
Dear Shalimar,
Thank you so much for this thoughtful reflection — and for reading the essay in the spirit it was written.
You’ve named something the piece points toward but does not fully take up: that correcting how Africa is seen is only the first layer. Repatriation of wealth, cultural treasures, and the assets taken through colonial exploitation is the next and harder question, because it asks not just who gets to define a people, but who is required to return what was taken from them. Representation and restitution are two expressions of the same injustice — one is about how a people were made to look and feel diminished, the other is about justifying that diminishment by taking what belonged to them.
I appreciate you extending the conversation in that direction. It’s exactly the kind of engagement I hoped the essay would invite.
With gratitude,
Rae
Very good article, Rae. It is indeed true that the various isms intersect and operate in combination with each other. This intersecting legacy has prtsistently and signigicantly influenced definitions and measures of development across the years. Despite this individuals, groups and organizations can cultivate a sense of agency as zrgued by Paulo Friere in Pedzgogy of the Oppressed and Eric Williams in Inward Hunger. I have an article that redefines and advances new fairer and more valid mezsure of development. I want to send it to this magazine.
Thank you, Russell. I appreciate you taking the time to read the essay, and your point about the intersecting legacy shaping definitions and measures of development is well taken — Oppressiveisms™ intersect and stack, shaping those very measures, and a map is itself one such measure. When it is distorted, much of what follows inherits the distortion. As the Oppressiveisms™ framework holds, nobody’s pain ever shows up alone — and neither, it turns out, does a distortion, whether individual or continent.
Freire and Williams are both fitting references here.
Please do send your article to the magazine. It should be a valuable contribution. I would be delighted to read it.
With Gratitude,
Rae
Dear Shalimar,
Adding to your thoughtful reflection:
I wanted to acknowledge something you named directly and drew reference: the Oppressiveisms™ systems and narratives that have shaped how we see the world. That is the very ground Oppressiveisms™ was built to name — that these systems are not incidental to how we understand history, geography, or one another, but foundational to it, and rarely examined as such. You saw that immediately, and I’m grateful for it.
Many thanks for your ongoing support in the work.
With sincere gratitude.
Rae.