The wor Maafa (also known as the African Holocaust or Holocaust of Enslavement) is derived from a Swahili word meaning disaster, terrible occurrence or great tragedy. The term refers to the 500 years of suffering of Africans and the African diaspora, through slavery, imperialism, colonialism, invasion, oppression, dehumanization and exploitation. The term also refers to the social and academic policies that were used to invalidate or appropriate the contributions of African peoples to humanity as a whole, and the residual effects of this persecution, as manifest in contemporary society.