cultural background

The teacher begins to teach her lesson on propaganda and its influence in society. She shows us 3 videos on how the different aspects of it trigger different ideas. Of course, the first one triggered emotional ideas and it had to be a film on the poverty in Africa. I felt several pairs of eyes burning into the side of my face. Here we go.

How the media portrays the living situations and lifestyles of Africans is a very inaccurate, yet vivid image. They painted us as the lowliest and the loneliest. We’re seen as anorexic, dirty, needy, and uncared for people in a neglectful society. When you think of Africa, your mind redirects to wild animals roaming around the village and little kids in minimal clothing. Or a medical station with cots all pushed together while the cameraman zooms into the little boy, his bones defining his body and his sweat matching his mother’s tears. Or better yet, a short documentary of a little African girl walking 5 miles to her only source of water, with healing feet that get the same recurring cuts everyday due to lack of shoes.

“With only a dollar a day dramatic pause, zooms in on stomach of hungry child, sad music gets louder we can help feed all the starving children in Africa.” I hate this, why do we have to listen to this bullshit bs? Can a dollar a day help educate this woman? Sheesh. Why is it that this is so easy to believe? But God forbid it be true that kids can grow up stable, have an amazing childhood and never fear for food not being on their dinner table. That education is provided, that clean water exists, and that they walk from place to place in shoes, and still are raised in Africa.

I hear someone across the room make a smart remark, “Do they even have clean water?” I take it upon myself to raise my voice and say “Yes,” head turning as fast as my soundwaves reach the ear of the imbecile. Turning back around slowly, sharing a glare and an eye roll with them and their peer. Mainstream media and their lies leave a permanent mark in the heads of the close minded. There are many places all over the world that lack proper distribution of food and resources. Why is it that they choose to bash Africa? Even if it were true, that Africans have very limited resources, why do people make fun of it? Poverty must be funny right? Where does the term African booty scratcher even come from? When you surround yourself with lies, you end up sounding just as foolish as the person behind them. Yes, some parts of Africa suffer from severe poverty, but so do many other places around the globe. Didn’t we learn that many countries in Africa were raided by invaders because of their resources and goods? Or did that history lesson jump over your head and all you got from it was enslavement?

To be African has several different definitions. Either you embrace the fact that your ancestors were slaves or indulge in the greatness that you and/or your parents are African immigrants. My parents with their Ivorian and Malian blood makes me genetically apart of two countries in West Africa. As a family, we’re all gracefully allowed to take pride in being bilingual, or so in my parents case, multilingual. Growing up African was never something to take pride in. To continuously be ridiculed by a bunch of uneducated nuisances, for being different and an outsider had a lot of cons to it, barely any pros. I wasn’t known as Hawa, I was known as an African booty scratcher who isn’t familiar with clean water and buildings as if I built huts in my free time. I didn’t consider this as bullying and I still don’t. This was a time in my life where I was forced to find the beauty in where I come from, because I am who I am and no matter the negative and biased opinions that come with it, the pride I take in my African blood is far greater than the irrelevant and ignorant comments deriving from a sad soul.