The Challenges Of Stereotypes Within Africa

For instance, I did not realize the discriminations I was facing at an early age was different yet virtually the same to Black Americans' experience. I now understand that my experience has more to do with the diverse types of preconceived ideas people had about me being an African immigrant. In grade school, kids would make negative assumptions because of my broken English and my conservative attire. From my perspective, the difference between the corresponding values of the American culture and the Ethiopian values are how it is approached. Most students in America have the freedom to express themselves whether that is in the way they dress or speak as opposed to some foreign countries where your freedom is restricted due to cultural norms.

In the film Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: The Danger Of a Single Story filmed July of 2009 at Ted Global, speaker Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, a Nigerian native, discusses the problems that occur when someone stereotypes another racial/ethnic group. Chimamanda speaks on how being from Africa, she is often stereotyped as being poor, less intelligent, and seen as a beast. She also argues that the stereotype of Africans is not true and does not accurately describe their entire race.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to visit Africa? Mainstream media enforces the negative stereotypes of African living and culture; famine, genocide, war and poverty. Thankfully resources like Visiter L'Afrique are around to highlight the beauty of Africa through the eyes of the travelers and

Africa is a continent with fifty-five/fifty-four countries. There is a large amount of diversity in the climates and the people. This diversity is present in the languages, cultures, ethnicity, food, and religion. Although this is true many people believe myths and stereotypes about the African continent and Africans due to insufficient knowledge and incorrect images presented to them. In Mai Palmberg’s book, Encounter Images in the Meetings between Africa and Europe Yvonne Vera says the following about images of Africans: “One of the most urgent tasks in the issues of development in Africa, is the construction of primary images of Africans; these are visual, written, and lived expressions of identity: most of them have been biased and misinforming.” Many stereotypes and myths stem from four main generalizations about Africa and Africans. The four main images are Africa is one country, all of Africa has the same climate, Africans are a lower evolutionary step, and Africans are unmodernized.

Africa, compared to other continents, is probably the most misrepresented of them all. Little is known about Africa which results to stereotypical descriptions of the continent. Due to the lack of knowledge of Africa, research done by scholars may be illegitimate or seen as offensive to indigenous Africans. These stereotypes are often inaccurate and fallacious representations of Africa.

A third stereotype is that Africa is filled with famine, war, diseases, poverty, and political corruption. When most people think of Africa, the first image that

Through this course, we have discovered many ways to look at the continent of Africa. Each topic that we covered looked at a specific aspect of Africa that makes it unique and unlike any other part of the world. What makes it so unique is that it had its own history before the Western world interrupted the progress and altered the identity of Africans. It has taken many years to recover from the atrocities of the Western world’s invasion to create the recovering continent that is now Africa. While there are certainly aspects of Africa that are more contemporary and are certainly important, it is even more necessary to understand the history of Africa and what has caused Africa to adapt to its current state.

This point highlights a form of stereotype where being influenced by a single story can give an unintended opinion of a certain person, which is something that everyone needs to be aware of so that we can learn from it. For example, Adichie’s university roommate underestimated her by being shocked with her fluent English speaking skills and assuming that she didn’t know how to use a stove. After this, I thought very well about how you can’t assume the capabilities of a person just because of their nationality or from a story, just like you can’t judge a book by its cover without reading the contents inside. I know there are some colored people that made a positive impact such as Pentatonix member Kevin Olusola with his impressive beatboxing and cello skills or Usain Bolt proudly representing his Jamaican country in sprint races. All of this is what Adichie is trying to address to the misunderstood. In conclusion, it is important not to underestimate people, no matter what their nationality may

Question 1: The vastness of the field of Africana Studies encompasses multiple disciplines ranging from the individual native African to their descendants spread around the world. It delves into the culture diffusion upon contact with the external forces such as the Europeans and the egregious act of slave trade that followed suit. The effect of which yielded the ever festering wound that is racism. This subject juxtaposes the life and experiences of the continental African and their cousins in the diaspora. In the very first chapter of our Africana Studies book, Maria Azevedo noted how African was originally thought of as a continent without history or contribution to the advancement of the world (Azevedo 7). Imbecilic stereotypes, including the aforementioned one, and numerous others are debunked and corrected for the layman and interested parties alike. People that subscribe to this prehistoric train of thought contributed to the perpetual existence of racism, prominently in America and the rest of the world. Most learned individuals have a general idea of racism, but few could reiterate its origins and why it became so pronounced today. According to Azevedo, the Europeans that settled in Africa fervently believed that “Africans should be enslaved and colonized in order to be saved from extinction and rescued from their own barbaric ways of life” (Azevedo 8). These early supposed

Africa may be the birthplace of humanity, but over hundreds of years her children around the world have come back to degrade and destroy her land and people. This has been perpetuated by outsiders perceiving the continent as a sick child needing care, but ending up creating more damage to Africa. Much of this is caused by those in power and how they define “Africa.” The portrayal of Africa by these groups, which contradicts the reality depicted by Wainaina and Keim, has provided global powers with justification to intervene in African affairs. Such interventions have resulted in turmoil across much of the continent, greater hardship for its inhabitants, and obstacles to development.

just that, using “the dominant image of Africa” (56) and relying on “Western imagination” (56)

The continent of Africa is one of beauty and elegance, but that doesn't come without a dark past and a dark present. The continent of Africa holds may underdeveloped countries and thus is viewed as in-equal to a continents such as North America or Europe. Not only would stereotypes and modern day pop culture contribute to this, but the history of the country would set its path on a course of major food shortages and economic collapses. Under those circumstances civil wars would erupt and countries would gain independence from their colonial dictators. These are not even some of the major causes, Major causes for inequality of the continent of africa to western nations is due to geographic luck, which would limit food production and labor for them, Racism and other social issues, and a political fight for the continent of africa. Once more there are thousands of reasons for africa's inequality but the economic, social and political causes for these are the strongest

Have you ever viewed someone a certain way just because of where they were from or their background? Many people view others a certain way simply because they are from a different place; they do not realize that they are only stereotyping. Being from Nigeria, Chimamanda Adichie has experienced this first-hand. Adichie’s speech is very intriguing because of her effectiveness in completing her objective, her tone used, and how inspiration and passion for the story.

One of the most baffling aspects of European interest in African people is the civilizations collective distaste of and fascination with people of African descent. The initial journey into Africa, and the planning that preceded it, spawned many of the most enlightening theories about African people. These theories, usually in support of African savagery and inferiority and in favor of European superiority and civility were based in the colonial mentalities of that time. Of the most notable theories is the idea that African religious system was pagan and that African people were inferior because of their darker skin pigmentation and “beast-like” nature. These theories dispersed rapidly across the globe, and even today people of

For centuries Africa has been identified as a place where endless poverty, diseases, conflict, and violence exist. Studies show that the negative stereotypes and misconceptions about Africa come from different sources including movies, and mass media. There are other misconceptions, not only about their lifestyles, but also about their religious aspects and cultural standings.