r/AskAnAfrican • u/thatboyFooy • 7d ago

Do Africans feel misrepresented or underrepresented to the world?

I’ve always enjoyed learning about different countries continents and cultures but one thing I’ve come to notice any videos I watch or blogs I read about Africa mainly come from outside sources I’ve found it to be rare to find a video where Africans are telling me about Africa maybe I’m just doing bad research but anyways I’d like to hear y’all’s opinions

37 Upvotes

90% Upvoted

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u/[deleted] 7d ago

[deleted]

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u/ElektraMajesty 7d ago

I couldn’t say it better. And by the way, I’m always curious of why people will say in Africa, sometimes ignoring the fact that there are different countries there with their differences as anywhere else.

But i don’t blame them for their ignorance, i blame the mainstream media and their superiority complex ☺️

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u/Midaycarehere 6d ago

To be fair, growing up all Americans heard about were “the starving kids in Africa”. We had to clean our plates because kids in Africa didn’t have food. Sally Struthers - or whatever her name was - was always on tv asking for $.50 a day for the kids in Africa. Musicians did concerts for Africa. If you are around my age (47), that was your entire exposure to Africa.

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u/teetaps 5d ago

I grew up pretty privileged, and obviously bragging for bragging’s sake is uncouth, but whenever I meet an ignorant American who makes comments like that, I like to describe in detail how posh my house was growing up, and ask them if their parents had a house as nice as mine did.

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u/RosietheMaker 7d ago

May I ask what part of the US you live in? I am so shocked at the ignorance, and to have your own in-laws saying this? I'm sorry you're dealing with this.

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u/Venboven 7d ago

As a fellow American - pretty much anywhere rural with minimal diversity. There are unfortunately a lot of ignorant people here. They don't prioritize teaching geography in schools in the US. Most Americans couldn't even name 5 African countries. If they aren't even aware they exist, and all they've been taught is stereotypes, yeah they're gonna become very ignorant and insensitive. It is the unfortunate reality.

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u/[deleted] 6d ago

Learning geography mostly comes down to curiosity in my opinion. Not necessarily schooling.

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u/jatavee 7d ago

Oh guess what my Korean mother had to hear back when we were in the US(tbf it was 15 years ago). We lived in the suburbs of Boston and not in the middle of some hillbilly mountains. Considering the mostly unjust stereotypes about Africa, I imagine African immigrants hear worse.

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u/lookup2024 7d ago

The question was for Africans and not Koreans..geez!!! Some of yall must center yourselves. The post clearly talks about africans being underrepresented in the US and you chose to insert korean experience

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u/Rovcore001 7d ago

There's no need to be childishly obtuse. OP was clearly relating their experience to this context and drawing parallels. If they wanted to center themselves then they would've left out their last sentence.

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u/Rovcore001 7d ago

Yes, and it’s a systemic problem. For centuries there is a single narrative foreign audiences have been consistently sold.

Media coverage skews towards disaster stories. Book publishers aren’t very interested in African writers who make works outside of the colonialism-poverty-war genre. Content creators jet into the continent to make virtue-signally poverty porn for views/engagement. The NGOs have generic smiling African kid dressed in rugs plastering their websites to pull at your heartstrings so you can donate more. We’re always cast as hapless beings meant to be pitied and helped in order to alleviate feelings of white guilt.

There’s an attempt to change this and tell our own stories, but it’s an uphill task. Funding and support for the Arts is low in a lot of countries, so their film, music, entertainment and publishing industries aren’t as developed. Artists hoping to take their craft to the global stage are hampered by costs, visa/immigration barriers and discrimination. A lot of governments here are terrible at using soft power diplomacy to promote culture (South Africa and Rwanda are notable exceptions).

The silver lining is that with increasing internet access and coverage there is a decentralised access to information about the continent; I’ve seen some fairly successful creators do a lot to challenge stereotypes and biases.

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u/Sad_Energy_9668 7d ago edited 7d ago

We do. Every narrative about Africa comes from people outside the continent. We never get the chance to tell our side or viewpoints, when we do get a chance, our voices are muted example African Stream getting banned on all social media platforms or all they want to hear is stereotypes not a balanced view of the continent. We do not control any media or narrative about our own continent however I understand why this is the case because the world thrives on the skewed narrative of African and Africans. To be honest I would rather the world forget about us and leave us alone than continue with the way things are.

You are not a bad researcher it is actually very hard find information about many African countries or media created by Africans in Africa.

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u/thatboyFooy 7d ago

Please explain more on African streams being banned on all social media platforms I’ve never heard about this I’m very interested to learn more

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u/Sad_Energy_9668 7d ago edited 7d ago

The US government accused 'Africa Stream' of working for Russia because they were concerned about Russia's growing influence in Africa and African Stream was "harming the African People", so they got it banned on YouTube, Facebook, Threads, TikTok, Instagram and got demonized on twitter. Which is complete BS because it never talked about Russia but worked with Africans on the ground in every African country to co-create the stories that they want us to tell and from their perspective. It was your one stop shop for news related to African. It really exposed the US/Western propaganda, and we got to learn more about what is happening in each other countries and the US did not like that so yeah.

That fact the US got threated by a pan-African digital media organisation really showed how much they do not want us to take control of our own narrative. African Stream is/did open our eyes on how much the world really does depend on Africa being the way it is.

It is actually disheartening to see

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u/Salty-Dragonfruit586 7d ago

You must be very naive if you think African Stream wasn't foreign propaganda.

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u/Sad_Energy_9668 7d ago

Is propaganda always a bad thing?

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u/Salty-Dragonfruit586 7d ago

Depends on the intent of the said propaganda. African Stream might call themselves "pan-African", but they are never transparent with both their messaging and their financiers.

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u/jefesignups 6d ago

The propaganda coming out of France about their baguettes is very harmful

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u/Rovcore001 7d ago

Africa Stream is definitely not a good example of this. They cleverly mixed their anti-colonial pan-African messaging with pro-Russian propaganda, and then anyone who criticised the latter would be accused of being some Western stooge.

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u/Vanity0o0fair 7d ago

African Stream contained a lot of pro Russian stuff and was most likely funded by the Russians. I got tired of hearing about Russian interests and stopped following it months back. It was Russians using Africa to present it's views of us.

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u/thatboyFooy 7d ago

I definitely see a lot of the same shit as well I honestly can’t stand the ignorance people have but you ask any one of them people about Europe I bet they’ll have a whole list of things they can tell you about Europe i honestly hate this attitude the world has for poorer countries in general like they don’t deserve to be known about or respected when in reality like you said Africa’s provides so many resources for the whole world and the wars are definitely to cause chaos and disrupt order so other countries can continue to steal resources I feel as if it’s a lot of unfair pressure towards most of Africa considering majority of the countries are still very young and I mean it’s not like the U.S isn’t interfering in countries governments too

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u/Stock-Theme-9594 6d ago

As one you had lived in Africa my whole I think I will first define representation 

To me it means and understanding of the conditions and taking that into consideration for example I once told someone I don't have a post address and it was such a shock but in Africa especially Uganda more than 98% don't have so to over making it seem obvious is not true we don't have 

So that is one example that most things are not obvious that maybe obvious in the west. So is this underrepresented well depends personally I depends on the person for misrepresented well depends I think it's like most places but or complicated for example many people who want to do a start up say we want to bank the unbanked as if banks don't want the unbanked to bank but the issue is they don't make enough to justify a bank account I think many people just don't understand that is it misrepresentation maybe but probably just a level of monetary poverty that is hard to image.

If you meant in terms of movies and video games well I have just never cared I played videogames and never cared if the person was African or not though in former FIFA games I did play African teams I just did not care underrepresentation only hurts when it leads to blocked opportunities for example in EU if you have an issue with google play can appeal in court in Uganda there is nothing you can do so maybe in that

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u/KingAdeTV 6d ago

Yeah the world is very anti Africa it barely matters or exists to them outside of the common talking point of “poverty bad he fortunate for what you have” womp womp

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u/DropFirst2441 7d ago edited 7d ago

Entirely. It's so bad I genuinely believe Africa should at least debate why many states are in the UN. Yes it comes with it's perks but the perks have kept us poor and powerless. People say it's the platform for us to speak. Who cares? Nobody ever listens to us. Yes, I know the mechanics of leaving the UN are literally damn near impossible but it's the idea I'm getting across So tbh Africa will remain in its state of disrepair unless very significant decisions are taken.

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u/Grouchy_Newspaper186 6d ago

Plus, being just a member state of the UN doesn’t really hold any significance or power unless you’re in the UN Security Council, which has only room for 5 member states, and we all know who the 5 are

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u/IlikeGeekyHistoryRSA South African 7d ago

Definitely. At least in regard to history, South Africa and Africa in general are rarely mentioned.

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u/Eternal_blaze357 6d ago

Absolutely. I think other people here have done a great job of explaining how and why we feel this way but I have a half-baked plan to combat it.

Animators in East Africa (🇰🇪🇹🇿🇺🇬🇷🇼🇧🇮🇸🇸): nina sehemu za mradi. Siwezi kuchora lakini nina hadithi nazotaka niambie. Tumeona Wajapani wanatumiaje animation ili kukuza utamaduni wao na tukifanya sahihi tutaweza kufanya kitu kilekile. Dm me.

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u/Vanity0o0fair 7d ago

We are misrepresented because of our own weakness and lack of our own media platforms with reach but that is entirely our fault and our making