The term "black orientalism" was first used by Kenyan academic Ali Mazrui in his online critique of Henry Louis Gates, Jr.'s documentary Wonders of the African World. Mazrui had criticized the film for having markedly deemphasized the history of Islam in Africa, to the point where the history of Nigeria – half of whose population is Muslim – was all but absent from the general coverage by the documentary.
Ali Mazrui introduced the term "black orientalism" in his online critique of Henry Louis Gates, Jr.'s documentary Wonders of the African World. He criticized the film for downplaying Islam's history in Africa and notably excluding Nigeria's substantial Muslim population from the documentary coverage.