Louise Linton is currently getting crucified on social media for what many found to be a tone-deaf Instagram post, in which the wife of Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin tagged a photo with all of the designers she was wearing.
This isn’t the first time Linton has received such blowback for perhaps being out-of-touch with issues of privilege.
Last spring, the Scottish-born actress self-published a memoir about her gap year spent in Zambia — “In Congo’s Shadow: One Girl’s Perilous Journey to the Heart of Africa” was about as well-received as Monday’s instantly infamous deplaning pic
The book, which she subsequently withdrew from circulation, chronicles the time the “skinny white muzungu with long angel hair” spent in “darkest Africa.”
It covers the horrors of Linton living on “the fringe of the Congolese War,” which some Zambians have straight-up called a lie. Others criticized the author as having a “white savior” complex.
Here is the “In Congo’s Shadow” full description, per its out-of-print Amazon listing:
“In Congo’s Shadow” is the inspiring memoir of an intrepid teenager who abandoned her privileged life in Scotland to travel to Zambia as a gap year student where she found herself inadvertently caught up in the fringe of the Congolese War.
A ‘skinny white muzungu with long angel hair’, Louise was an anomaly in darkest Africa. Posted to a tiny village on the shores of Lake Tanganyika just miles from Congo, she became immersed in a remote world of unsurpassed natural beauty rife with hidden danger. Life was at first idyllic. As the weeks passed, Louise formed close friendships with the Bemba people, learnt their language, and created a little school under the Mukusi tree. Still struggling with the untimely loss of her mother, Louise found comfort in her bond with Zimba, a six-year-old orphan girl who she came to love as her own.
Monsoon season came and went, and just as normal life resumed Louise fell for a young German pilot, but their courtship could not last. News of civil war was spreading down the lake as the Hutu-Tutsi conflict began to escalate…
This compelling coming-of-age story is a tale of lost innocence and one daring young girl’s bittersweet journey to heart of Africa as she conquers fear, breaks barriers and learns that friendship can transcend race, age, and history.