Stereotypes Of Africa Essay

There are many misconceptions that have been universally accepted mentioned in Curtis Keim’s book Mistaking Africa, many of which are based on biased and incorrect accounts and are extremely offensive. Three important myths are that Africa is a land of cannibals, it is backward and very uncivilized, and that it is one country where everyone and the climate are the same all over. These will be explained, refuted, and the detriment to the people of Africa will be discussed.

(winter, summer) the temperature is from -40° to 70° F The average rainfall ranges from 10-30

Africa is an enormous continent, no less than three times the size of the United States. Africa contains numerous countries that all have unique cultures, people and ways of life. Despite the fact that Africa is massive, many people have predisposed ideas of the continent and the people that inhabit it. Mass media generally leads us to believe that Africa is a single culture, and the people are nothing but hopeless savages. Chinua Achebe wrote an essay named “An Image of Africa”, the essay aimed to debunk many of the misconceptions about Africa due to plain ignorance.

Between America and other European nations, stereotypes and misrepresentations have ultimately plagued the continent of Africa. To every side there is often another story, yet unfortunately for the many countries of Africa, they are ultimately victimized and suffer through further oppression. According to Curtis Keim’s book Mistaking Africa, Keim suggests that Africa is essentially under the public microscope, it tends to be scrutinized, and compared to European nations and America. Keim elaborates on human natures need to group people, places, and things, which creates the theory of superiority or dominance over races, cultures, and even religions.

the summer are about 94 degrees while lowers down to 37 degrees in the winter. Today, the

Spring: Gradually warms up from winter. Temperatures reach an approximate daily maximum of 22*C (72*F) till May. With this increase in temperature, daylight sunshine hours become 10.

The physical environment has three different climates, the heights, steppe, and desert zones. The climate of the heights has an average temperature between 43 to 50 degrees with an annual rainfall from 16 to 27 inches with a growing season of 95 days. The steppe zone has an average temperature range from 45 to 50 degrees with an annual rainfall of 12 to 16 inches and the growing season averages 147 days. The desert zone temperatures average 50 to 60 degrees with an annual rainfall rage from 7 to 11 inches and the growing season averages 173 days.

Many contemporary scholars such as John Iliffe rashly characterize Africa as a hostile environment that induces weak agriculture and small population. Yes, their perception about Africa is sound to some degree because African geography suggests that its environment is less suitable for certain types of harvesting. Also, there are some diseases more prevalent in Africa. However, it is hasty to judge Africa solely based on these features, and such judgment parochially overlooks other characteristics of African environment that enable its inhabitants to live a life that is not at all inferior but quintessentially different from western continents. In contrary to the typical stereotype, Africa contains a rich diversity of plants and foods sources

Fluctuating temperatures, with an average winter temperature of -34˚C and average summer temperatures of between 3-12˚C (Ucmp.berkeley.edu, 2004).

There are hundreds of millions of people in the world. People live all around the world. There are many places in the world. We live in the United States. The United States is famous for democracy. There are many people living in the United States. The people in the United States come from different places in the world. Canada is another place in the world. Canada is famous for its clean air. England is another place in the world. People speak English in England. People in England have accents. England has a queen. Africa is another place in the world. Africa has wild life. Africa has more wild life than other places. Lions and elephants live in Africa. Africa is a beautiful place. There is beauty in every place in the

Although some may think of Africa as being of a single climate and terrain description, in reality a wide variety of land types can be found throughout Africa. How does this wide variety of climates and physical terrains affect human life and settlement patterns on the African continent? Different terrains and climates allowed for different lifestyles for Africans in different regions. Those close to the sea were susceptible to invasion, but had the advantage of maritime trade. Those living more in land were isolated but protected by the diseases visitors would contract that did not affect the locals. Due to the fact that Africa is so massive, it has many

temperature in summer season is about " 35C" whereas in winters is very low "-50C".

Stereotyping has lived in the human world for a long time. It is seen throughout our history. It was mainly recognized in Africa because of its unfamiliar culture. However, Africans are probably not aware of why their culture is not accepted.

Africa is a continent plagued by misinformed and false stereotypes, rarely being seen or portrayed as what it really is. Countless amounts of myths and ideas are formulated based off of single stories or one-sided stories from the region, often without a second thought. These stereotypes give Africa an overall negative image to the rest of the world and suppress the reality that is hidden behind the slew of stereotypes. The belief that all of Africa is poor and undeveloped is an uninformed statement that harms the reality and worsens the image of the continent by perpetuating an incomplete idea into the world.

The myth and stereotypes about Africa are not anything new and they are very present in our daily lives and the way Africa is portrayed. For example the reason why many people today think that Africa is bleak land of poverty and diseases is because early writers, historians, and geographers talked about Africa in that way. Because these stereotypes are so readily available, they infiltrate people’s daily thinking. Furthermore this makes people less likely to actually seek to really learn about Africa because they feel that their [inaccurate] suffice for their worldview of Africa. This is in turn leads people completely ignoring anything that contract their already established ideas.