What's up with all the misconceptions?

Question

Some western cultures seem to have a lot of weird misconceptions about Africa. Like when I told someone I'd gotten to ride a motorcycle while visiting family, he was all surprised to learn that there were cities and cars and stuff there. And he believed lions roamed the streets and people lived with them. Don't people realize that Africa is not like that? There were civilizations in Africa before Europeans "discovered it," and they don't all live in huts or walk barefoot. Why don't people know anything about what Africa is actually like?

In Nigeria, there's electricity, but it rarely works so that sucks. People sometimes use generators to deal with it.

Oh, and the misconceptions I'm speaking of don't have to do with the presence of problems like disease and so forth. Those are all very real. But the main misconceptions are the type that believe Africans live in huts and run naked and barefoot and have no science at all.

Answer 1

Lots of people don't know anything about ANYWHERE.

They don't know Egyptians, Libyans, Tunisians and Moroccans are also Africans !!!

Safari, tribes and South Africa are what we hear/see over here in America, mostly. The biggest PR/news schemes move towards poverty, disease, genocide, war, extinction of animals, oil, famine and liberation.


The TV networks and the International Aid/Relief people paint the picture of Africa in the ways we see it.

If it is better than all of the publicity we see..... PLEASE TELL US THINGS ARE FINE AND OK !!!!

We will be happy and very relieved !!!!

Answer 2

I am from Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, and many Americans still believe that Las Vegas consists of nothing but hotels and casinos. People assumed that I lived in the hotel I was working at. Las Vegas is just like any big metropolitan city in America, except that we manufacture entertainment, which is why you have to come here to see it. As far as Africa goes, people who have never been outside of there own little place on the globe just don't get it. It is just a failure of schools to emphases geography, a subject that I loved in grade school. I believe that tourism is the key to improving the economic outlook of most of Africa's countries, but Americans must get out of the headset that Africa is safaris and lions only.

Answer 3

Some people know that but the Western media does their best to convince the rest of the world that Africa is a continent with nothing to offer besides poverty, disease, AIDS, cannibalism, and other terrible things...sorta like Durham, North Carolina.

I'm fairly sure that Africa even has electricity in some parts, too.

Answer 4

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Answer 5

The reason why they view Africa like that is because of TV...on TV they show Africa as being a very poor country,people with aids,and people with no clothes on .They never show the true side of Africa its hard not to blame people for not knowing...blame it on the media for not educating us

Answer 6

People suck sometimes.

Sounds like you can enlighten some folks, enrage others.

Maybe it pleases some bigoted people to image Africa as one huge country full of ignorant folks. Just laugh and move on.

Answer 7

it's easier for people to live with their head in the sand and not try to learn anything. I've been to Guinea. I know what it's like there, and still, I should not say a statement like "in Africa......it's like this...." because that was only ONE country. there's so much more to know and learn.

Answer 8

that is because the rest of the world knows more about America than Americans know about any other country. You would be surprised at what their misconceptions are about Canada and Mexico, and we are right beside them.

Answer 9

Westerners dont anything about other countries, period. Its all about us. But, really, there aren't people riding lions and elephants to work? Wow, thats crazy. See, here in the US I ride Bald Eagles to my relative's house, wierd.

Answer 10

one reason (apart from systemic and subtle racism in general) is that we are not taught about it in school. that just leaves TV and movies (cringe)!!

I remember being in high school and being really ticked off that we studied Canadian history, European history, and that was it. As if the USA, and the rest of the world, didn't even exist.