The Bright Continent : Africa 's Way Of Life And I Do Too

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.

Africa, like many other continents, was a very tremendous and a very diverse civilization that is very complicated to introduce due to all its wonderful but also diverse features and beliefs. From the differences between its society and language to its religion and politics, Africa always had the reputation that its empires, cities, and kingdoms never progressed in the developments and achievements for their civilization. Many people believed that the Europeans were actually the cause of Africa’s achievements and advanced developments for their civilizations. However, this is further than the whole truth. Before the arrival of the Europeans between the 15th and 16th century, African kingdoms, empires, and cities had many achievements and accomplishments

Africa became known as the “dark continent” through the Europeans eyes. Not only from the skin color of its inhabitants but also from the vast lands still undiscovered. Due to the Europeans’ view that Africa had a backward sense, they believed it was their responsibility to help. Conflict arose from the creation of a new society resulting in ethnic feuds and imperialism. European imperialistic powers subjugated Africa to strengthen their own economy. Africa’s rich supply of resources such as a large population had extremely detrimental to its economy. Slavery Sentence. The welfare of Africa’s people weakened rapidly from the poor management of the spread of diseases such as HIV/AIDS and Malaria. Africa is the least developed part of the world, given the impact of European imperialism, slavery, and an inability to deal with major diseases.

Like many other continents in the world Africa has a lot of differences in itself for example there are differences in geography ,language, politics, religion and other things in life due to Africa’s lack of political government over an extended period of time.

When learning about the history of the world, we can not ignore the fact that Africa plays a significant role. Many believe that Africa is the birth place of all races, and although that is true, the history and cultures of Africa and its natives are misunderstood among Americans. People do not take the time to expand their knowledge about Africa, yet they create their own perceptions of the continent based upon the image that America created. America creates this stereotype that Africa is inferior to the other continents by picturing them as savage like individuals who live an insufficient life. To truly understand Africa, you must understand these two important elements: the demographics of Africa and the true history of Africa

When I think of Sub-Saharan Africa I see the complete opposite of The United States. I think of poverty, no Internet & cell phones( no texting, social media), no malls/shopping centers. I think of villages and people having farms and growing crops. Africa is approximately 15 of earths land & even with one of the largest countries in the world, it is one of the lest developed countries. However, even though Africans economy is not where it is suppose to be, West Africa is becoming more developed & offers more economic opportunities than other parts of Africa. Many tribes are moving towards West Africa to start a better life for themselves & and their families. However Africa needs more infrastructure which includes; high speed highways, railroads

Poverty was originally inevitable as a result of world affairs, such as slavery, wars and battles for independence. After world affairs has settled, majority of countries recovered from their despair and hardship. Today, the worldwide rate of poverty has dropped dramatically except in sub-Saharan Africa. Jeffery D. Sachs has spent 25 years working in indigent countries of Africa in effort to understand the cause of their endeavors with extreme poverty. Sachs, then, provided an analysis of why extreme poverty exists in Africa and how well developed countries can contribute toward eradicating the complication.

North American media coverage of Africa often times paints a pictures of a vast waste land of poverty and death. One is often led to believe that the entire continent is just an undeveloped desert, with citizens living only in mud huts, tormented by rebel armies on a mission to rape and plunder then burn villages to the ground. This understanding is incredibly dangerous and are often warped to fit a certain agenda. African cities like Lagos, Cape Town, Windhoek, or Cape Town are much like those in found across America and are not as rare as it would made to be seen, but despite this, many areas of Africa do struggle. The Democratic Republic of Congo is one country in particular that has and continues to struggle to find it’s footing in a global

Africa, a land of innovation and intelligence or a land underdeveloped and inept. Despite, how one perceives Africa it is inevitable to overlook Africa’s geographic greatness. Africa is the second largest continent, is the home to approximately 1 billion people of different cultures and languages. Africa also houses a majority of significant geographic features such as, the world's largest desert the Sahara, and the longest river the Nile. A vast land like Africa also comes with a vast history waiting to be discovered. In the video, Africa: Different but Equal presented by Basil Davidson, he gives his audience four key points for better understanding African civilizations. Many of these key points can be tied back to our class readings. Both

The false perception of Africa has been engraved into multiple minds so the truth becomes impossible to comprehend. Overtime, the Europeans discovery of Africa has lead to numerous debates about how stable Africa truly was. Figuratively, Africa has always been viewed as place in need of constant saving, however, in actuality, Africa has always been a diverse continent, never requiring any saving.

Education is a large problem for children in Africa. Many children long to go to school to learn to read and write, but most can not because they simply do not have the money. Some parents do not allow their children to go to school because they are needed to help out at home. The children who get the privilege to go to school must leave their home very early, because the trip to school is made on foot and is many hours long. Most children that travel to school leave so early they are hours early to their lessons, this is done so they do not have to endure the blistering heat. As you can see education in Africa is very difficult for children.

When an individual has got lot of resources, they are usually wealthy. This might be true for most but not for Africa. Africa is said to be the richest continent in the world when in terms of natural resources (Ebegubulem, 2012). Yet it is the poorest according to the nominal Gross Domestic Product calculation (Mannak,2008). That is why I agree with Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf”s statement that she made at the Nelson Mandela annual lecture in 2008, which reads: “Africa is not poor, it is poorly managed”. It is seen that Africa is wealthy yet it is encountering low levels of economic growth as it is not developing. Is it because of power? As Africa is one of the continents which suffered greatly from the independence of its land, which was under the

Africa’s fascinating geography can start with the continent mostly being composed of old ancient rigid blocks of dirt as said in the article called “Africa”.  Africa also has 8 different climatic regions which are all over Africa and they include “hot desert, semi arid, tropical wet and dry, equatorial, mediterranean, humid subtropical marine, warm temperature upland, and mountain regions”(Africa, 2018). These different regions are what make Africa’s climate so fascinating because each one is different in many ways such as high mountain tops to hot deserts. The last reason why Africa has a fascinating geography is because Africa is the second largest continent in the world right after Asia and Africa is about eleven million seven hundred twenty four thousand square miles. If Africa did not have different climatic regions and it being the size it is Africa would not be that interesting.

Throughout my educational career, I have always wanted to take some form of African History, because I have always been told stories about Africa and Africans. I wanted to know if those things were in fact the whole story. In this mini term I have learned so much.

Known as the mother of mankind, Africa is a vast land full of resources and gracious people. However, most people do not see it as such. They think of the continent is being ravaged with disease, poverty, and war. Nevertheless, even though it does have those things, Africa is a thriving continent like any other. It has cities with vast highways and is advancing rapidly with the help of chivalrous people like Twesigye Kaguri. These people see Africa for what it really is, a place full of opportunity and they use their voices to bring attention to the real issues, trying to help the many villages and communities of the continent.