Why do people assume the whole African continent is poor?

Question

They even think that Africa is a country without even realizing that it is a continent with about 53 countries and not all the countries are poor. The starving families which are shown on tv are only a minority who live in rural areas in villages within countries which still have war such as Sudan and Congo. Otherwise some countries have cities just like the US. And there are wealthy people who are richer than some americans.
Cairo, Egypt: http://www.friendlyplanet.com/hotels/images/SherationCairoHotel-exterior.jpg
http://www.liv.ac.uk/~sdb/Egypt/Temples/Images/03-CD09-Cairo-day.jpg
Nairobi, Kenya: http://addisoncrawford.com/kenya/nairobi/Nairobi01.jpg
http://www.geography.org.uk/image/page/GA_Nairobi.JPG
http://www.kenyanview.com/IMG_0865_Nairobi_skyline.jpg
Cape Town, South Africa: http://static3.bareka.com/photos/medium/43938/downtown-cape-town.jpg
http://gregoire.leclercq.free.fr/en/travels/africa/rsa/CT%200017%20Signal%20Hill%20-%20Cape%20Town%20at%20night.JPG

Answer 1

*U have the ''media'' to thank for !!!!!!

Answer 2

It's because most people don't read into things and study or try to find out more about something. Most people will rely on television. This is why everyone believes the news and then comes widespread panic. Most people are stupid and ignorant (had to be said, sorry) and believe only what they see. But of course, on television and movies, you only see the poor places. We Americans are obsessed with feeling sorry for other places (yet we don't do squat about it). We also tend to think of the country, Ethiopia. Sally Struthers is well known for this one and hate her for taking advantage of it. "For $1 a day, you can help feed this child as well as give him or her medical care..." Meanwhile, she's raking in tons of money. By law, only a small amount of the donation has to be spent on the real thing they are sponsoring whilst I think... it's about 70% (if I remember correctly), they get to pocket. Simply put, we feel sorry for a place, we spend money which in turn, gives these people that's selling their schemes a pocketful of cash. It's a profiteering country here. But also, we don't like seeing other countries that as rich as us. There's no story to it so there's no program on television for it.

Answer 3

Is it because we call it third world by any chance,
The vast majority are poor, the others are poor and corrupt the rest have oil and are corrupt.

I been to some of the so called rich African countries
such as the totally corupted Nigeria.
Abidjan
South Africa.
Botswana
Kenya
Burundi.

ok its 6 out of 53 but it was a good insight.

Answer 4

i think the problem is that people see africa as one big country and not as an entire continent. i.e. when you say Europe, you think England, France, Italy etc. North America - Canada, US Mexico -- you think of these countries as rather distinct places with different languages and cultures. You think about Africa and all that we generally think is poor, starving, naked black children with distended bellies and flies crawling all over them, elephants and safaris. and it is easy to forget that some place like Egypt is part of Africa. I think that's part of the problem. Media emphasis on the poor areas, our own unwillingness or lack of interest in researching the truth are absolutely the biggest parts. Thank you for posing this question.

Cheers

Answer 5

It's political. The continent is used to make various peoples around the world thank God that they are not in the same situation that we're portrayed in. So they feel lucky, sort of like the chosen ones. They also believe that they are happier than they would have been without pictures of suffering people. More research should be done on how to strengthen self-esteem so that we do not want to find it in other people's suffering. It is wrong. Also, the human brain is very intelligent and therefore a side effect that comes along with everything I've mentioned above is that people feel kind of bad inside or guilty that they see the pictures they are seeing on TV or in books, so a process of entirely blaming the Africans for their problems (and removing the blame totally from they themselves) starts. It's quite a deep and complicated issue. It's very saddening though that down the line people seem to forget that the people they are using like this, though different in appearance, are people of flesh, blood and feelings just like anyone else. Ask me because I'm one of them. Thanks.

I have some pictures from Uganda too. Our main city is not that big or impressive, limited resources have been diverted to enlarge smaller towns/cities in the country.

http://collections.lib.uwm.edu/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/catw&CISOPTR=2098&CISOBOX=1&REC=4

http://www.flickr.com/photos/12632704@N04/1350394583/

Maputo, Mozambique

http://www.citiesalliance.com/doc/resources/paper-pres/ssa/eng/chap_3.pdf

Answer 6

I've never thought of Africa as a poor continent or as a country. I know it has a lot of diversity, poverty, wealth, and culture. That is why I don't care for the term African-American to describe a black person because I think that it's misleading. Good luck. 2D

Answer 7

I wouldn't exactly say that a "minority" is poor, starving and living in wartorn places. I would assume that there are PLENTY of wealthy people in Africa, because Africa for a very very long time has been an exploitable continent.

Answer 8

HOney there is only one explanation to that:
being uneducated
getting the education only from media (some people just watch TV and think that they know alot of things)
not travelling ( some people even think that getting out of their country is useless)
prejudice

Answer 9

because ppl are too ignorant to really learn how other countries are they just sit on the couch and get all their info from tv and thats all tv shows is the poor side

Answer 10

A lot of the people on this board very rarely read books. Luckily, you do. I'm glad someone figured it out.

Answer 11

I know ... Because they only think of the poor side of the country ...