The Increased Misinterpretations 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.

Throughout the reading "How to Write About Africa" by Binyavanga Wainaina, the author was mentioning exactly what people, in general, see and hear in the average about Africa. What catches my eyes the most about this reading is how many people talk about African countries as if they had the same health problems, culture, economy, nature and so on. The climate diversity, land, plants, animals and people divided into five continent. Africa is one of them. However, if this continent is so big, so diverse, and as complex as any other continent, why do we treated as a country?

Europeans filled in the blanks of African history by using exoticism to come up with origin theories that made sense to them. Because the African population has a different physical appearance than Europeans, they were viewed as the “other” race, and therefore were inferior in the minds of Europeans. Africa, however, was a society that was equally as complex as any European nation, unique with their own kingdoms and customs. Because of this, it was incorrect for Europeans to label Africans as “savage” individuals. Africa’s culture is rich and deserves to be interpreted in the way that they see fit, rather than having European stereotypes of the past define their culture of

Other stereotypes imposed by Americans, is that Africa is littered with civil wars within every country. However, that misconception is far from the truth. Many countries within Africa are peaceful and are

The cultural diversity and advancements portray the progression developed in African history. The growth of these two subcontinents prove that American and European historians were incorrect on how advanced and civilized Africa was.

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

The indigenous people of Africa suffered many setbacks, when the Europeans arrived. When the Europeans arrived in Africa they made the indigenous people feel inferior, lack self-confidence, and be stripped of their responsibility. As shown by Document 2, when it says, “...convince us that our civilization was nothing less than savagery, thus giving us complexes which led to our being branded as irresponsible and lacking in self-confidence.” Some people may agree, that this seems like something out of a genocide. Originally the indigenous people of Africa were supposed to be cheap labor. However, this soon changed when the Europeans enslaved the African people. This is portrayed in Document 6, when it says, “...Beneath the noonday sun, My brother was strong…” By doing this they stole all of the human rights from the Africans, who had done nothing wrong. This is shown in Document 3, when it says, “Whereas fundamental human rights...are denied to Africans.” During this extremely horrific time in African history men were worked to death, and women were raped. This is found in Document 6, when it says,”The White Man killed my father,My father was proud, The White Man seduced my mother, My mother was beautiful.” This shows the negative effects are much worse for the Africans, than for the Europeans. But, there are some positives in this dark hour. When the Europeans arrived in Africa, they provided the

According to Keim, some misconceptions are that they are culturally and evolutionally behind us. Also, that people living in Africa are living in the dark ages. This was even believed by African-Americans during this Dark Continent Era. They believed “in African backwardness… Because the general cultural climate in America promoted evolutionism… most were Christians and believed that most Africans, as non-Christians needed salvation. ” This is pretty alarming to me that everyone regardless of race for the most part bought into this way of thinking about an entire Continent, even if they disagreed on religions. There is this stereotype that Africa is in trouble or helpless and needs our help. People constantly come to Africa to help people that

Africa was always a savage place with no civilizations or so the white man thought. When the British first came to Africa to colonize it, the British writers wrote about how it was a savage land and had no makings of a civilization. That was completely wrong. A group of people cannot survive for thousands of years without some aspects of civilization. The novel Things Fall Apart (by Chinua Achebe) talks about and shows examples of all seven elements that make a civilization. Things Fall Apart shows some aspects of civilization such as religion, government, and social structure. In the novel, Achebe shows the Igbo culture is a fully functioning civilization.

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.

One reason I feel the wealthy Europeans have a certain outlook on the Africans is because of their lifestyle. Rich Europeans saw themselves as above everyone in their society. They were

Adichie to refer to Africa as a country rather than a continent because it is racism. The world consists of seven continents which are North America, South America, Antarctica, Asia, Australia/Oceania, Europe, and Africa. According to World Atlas’s website, Africa is the second largest continent in the world which contains fifty-four countries. Another example when people mistakenly lump diverse culture groups into one group is the saying “All Asian looks alike.” I hear this saying quite often, even in a daily basis.

While the temperatures of Africa play a role in its stereotype, so do the contrasting

Some key features that I read about characterizing the views and attitudes towards the Africans by the Europeans was they saw the Africans as weak and by that, I mean they saw them as defenseless people who couldn’t stand up for them self’s and they knew even during the strike the Africans couldn’t survive without them. They needed the jobs that the Europeans provided for them even if they were very low income with no benefits, it was better than having nothing. The Europeans also saw the Africans as people they could take advantage of. They worked them very hard and gave them bad pay etc. They treated all the Africans very poorly, even the children. They murdered children that were playing on the railroad. They only saw the people as items