I know quite a few people may be confused by the title. It can also be difficult for many to process the fact that not everyone in Africa has AIDS and not everyone is “tribal”. Due to the constant misrepresentation of Africa there are plenty of over exaggerated myths and some that are straight up false.
Let’s start off simple. A great game Trevor Noah played on the Daily Show was called “Spot the Africa.” All you have to do is find the pictures taken in Africa. Here’s the first picture:
It looks too put together to be African. At least half of the structures should be half built since we are always late right?
Wrong, this is Nairobi, Kenya. A capital of a country in Africa.
No worries, there is a second chance! Alright so by the quality of this picture it has to have been taken in Africa since all we have are stone tablets and the occasional disposable camera.
Surprise! Detroit, Michigan is not a part of Africa and probably won’t be anytime soon.
Alright, last one. By this point you should have the pattern down. It’s all a trick this has to be a developed country.
...Okay so that lovely city of Nairobi, Kenya isn’t necessarily perfect. Just 5 km out of the city center are neighborhoods of slums.
My point of all of this is that countries in Africa aren’t all tin houses and straw huts, but they aren’t perfect either. The resilience of many achievements that are made in different countries is under-represented in the media. The mass misrepresentation is often all that is known. This isn’t just seen in current media but started as soon as history started being told the Eurocentric way.
Did you know that Columbus nor anyone else from Europe discovered the Americas first? In fact, Columbus wrote that Native Americans had traded gold tipped spears with“black skinned people who had come from the southeast”. Those accounts match native Mexican stories as well as Egyptian artifacts and stories. Many historians refuse to acknowledge this happening and instead say Leif Erickson discovered America. I love misinformation! This is just one of the many examples of how African history is made to look as if they were never as advanced as other nations. Even though that is simply not true.
Since there are so many injustices and underreported successes to cover I am making a 3 part series of the resilience of the countries in Africa and the real issues at hand, not just AIDS and the limited supply of lotion.
