To dislike how Africa or black people are shown on TV

[BeenWondering]

Pretty much that.

I was watching something on TV last night about an Ethiopian tribe. All very well some might say but I despise the way Africans are portrayed as some naked, bead-wearing persons without autonomy.

They never show, at least on primetime, the technological developments in East Africa, or the wealth that West Africa offers.

And when it's time to 'give money' r.e comic relief, or whatever, it's always some starving face gawking at the screen.

Why can't they ever show on primetime the go-getters, the ones striving to achieve, the innovators? At present it makes me think wtf!

I think YANBU OP.

But I also find that the lives of e.g. white british women shown on TV bear little resemblance to the lives of white british women that I know. TV, especially so called 'reality' TV, shows a horribly skewed view of all cultures, I think

There is a problem with how Africa is represented in the media. We only usually see 2 extremes 'soldiers' I.e Somali pirates, brutal civil war atrocities, boko haram etc. or 'victims' I.e. Famine, refugees, poverty.
None of the normal everyday stuff in between gets a look in.

I lived in West Africa (Sierra Leone) in the 70s. One of my jobs was to summarise an extensive report on the corruption in the diamond mines.
There is wealth in W Africa and very little of it is seen by the general public. There is widespread abject poverty, deprivation on an unimaginable scale, open drains in the capital city,mutilated beggars outside supermarkets and vultures vying with rabid dogs on the garbage heaps at the side of the road.
Amongst all this live some of the proudest , kindest people I have ever known. Yes the women bead/ braid their hair, they wear hand dyed colourful clothes and sing and dance. The drums can still 'talk' they have been the equivalent of mobile phones in Freetown for a couple of hundred years.
If all you see is the wealth and the suits then you do not see Africa.

The OP was making a point that sad charity ads were one of the only things we saw of Africa. People responded 'well of course charity ads are meant to be sad'. That clearly wasn't the point.
That's the problem - the point wasn't particularly clear.

Yanbu. My 8yo thought that all of Africa "hasn't got any water to drink". The only things he sees about Africa are the charity ads and the occasional news report on famine or civil war or wildlife programmes.

If all you see is the wealth and the suits then you do not see Africa

So Greylady Is it your opinion then that there is currently an equal balance of wealth and suits V poverty, famine and war portrayed about Africa on TV?

then don't reference my posts

In other words, don't challenge my views because I can't defend them.

And another video about this.

croco are you ok?

You referenced my post, I defended myself, then you claimed you wouldn't get into it with me. Pretty sure that's you that isn't able to defend your words.

But at least there's a range of presentations Quim. If you look though the TV on an average day yes you'll get more than your fair share of vacuous constructed reality bimbos but you'll definitely get female news presenters, cabinet ministers giving interviews, scientists being talking heads on Horizon, Mary Beard, Mel and Sue etc etc etc. Perfectly fair representation, no. But something,

OP I think you're wrong about "black people" because black Brits and Americans are pretty well represented in a range of roles on UK TV (in the past even a little over represented as the result of a generation of white London TV execs who see "ethnic minority representation" and immediately jump to "Windrush descendant" thus over representing black Caribbean Brits relative to South/East Asian and African Brits). Many people would argue that it's far from perfect but still, if you look for Black scientists politicians or lawyers represented on your TV you will find them.

But you're dead right about Africa. Nothing wrong with appeals for disasters in Africa showing people going through hell. Nothing wrong with showing the fascinating lives of people living in traditional tribes. Everything wrong with the absence of any representation of normal African city and town life. We hear so much about Mugabe, but how many could name Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Leymah Gbowee who won the Nobel Peace Prize for their work rebuilding Liberia after the civil war. How many people know that Liberia is now free of Ebola? How many people know about the epidemiological triumph that the Nigerian health system used to slam the door on the start of Ebola in Nigeria?

One more and then I will stop.

Did you know sending money to other people by mobile phone started in Kenya.

I found the programme very interesting. I must admit to comparing the Bridezillas, with their expensive hen-nights and glitzy weddings, to the Tribe tradition of living in the attic for 5 months, covered with butter and mud, then being presented with a broom and a goat and given the job of cleaning out the goat pen!

I think this is the wrong programme to make the Op's point. It's a programme about the lives of a tribe in Ethiopia. It could have been a programme about a village in South America, India, Russia, Hampshire, Cornwall or an Scottish island, all of which I have seen on TV.

Crocodopolis Poster did defend his/her post, you replied that you don't want to get into the mud . But now you're not making any sense at all with your reply.

I agree with the OP and Questioning some earlier posters completely missed the point as was obvious by their replies, they weren't offering a different point of view, they just misunderstood/misinterpreted the crux of the thread.

A few years ago, my friend's little one was helping her mum clear out her room.

When they were discussing what to do with unwanted toys, LO pipes up that she'd bring them into school because there was a black girl in her class and black people are so poor they don't have toys.

Totally innocent. Friend horrified and put LO to rights but it was a real indication, IMO, of what we're shown and taught about Africa.

I should add, this was a school in rural Ireland so there was no black community at all and very few black people living in the village.

Spot The Africa with Trevor Noah makes the point well, I think.

There was a good 4 parter a year or so ago about life in Lagos, very much showing the high tech next to people in poverty working like crazy for a share of 'the dream' Was excellent and very true to life. Maybe you missed it?

YANBU, OP. I did my PhD on representations of French colonialism and it is incredible how much of (in my research) formerly 'French' Africa we only see through a Western prism - local people make up the backdrop, the source of conflict, the 'other' but aren't given subjectivity of their own - it's the White Westerners whose perspectives we're meant to identify with. Africa, if it's going to interest bigger Western audiences and make money for film/TV studios, still has to fit the Western image of the other - violent, volatile, savage or, on the other hand, pure, natural and innocent.

We don't get enough access to films or other media over here which are made by Africans, about Africa. There is loads of good stuff out there and I'd recommend Jean-Pierre Bekolo and Mahamat Saleh Haroun's films.

After graduating from uni I worked for a reputable NGO, the overwhelmeming majority of the literature, Ad campaigns and visual aids featured black Africans. However, the organization only spent 9? of its expenditure on projects on sub Saharan Africa. Most of the money was spent in south east Asia. Last time I checked India was the capital of hunger. When I queried the mis match and said that by the reinforcing negative image of Africa they were impeding tourism and fdi I was told that I was being oversensitive and because I was black I wasn't being subjective.

Needless to say I don't work there anymore.

"Everything wrong with the absence of any representation of normal African city and town life."

But why is that wrong? The world is a big place and 'normal' life isn't exactly newsworthy be it African or otherwise.

Looking for or expecting the everyday of any country to be reported or represented in a different countries media is a bit unrealistic. That is unless 'normal' is extreme and even then only if it's deemed more interesting than local news.

African news -of the less extreme variety- is around, on the bbc and a few other places
www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-africa-33118915
but if you want to know the minutie, you have to go looking for it www.thebigproject.co.uk/news/african%20newspapers%20in%20english.html

If someone holds the idea that all of africa is still as it was in 'zulu' then they are pretty dim or live a very sheltered life.

saying all that, I know what you mean. but the same applies to a lot of the world. If you asked the 'average' brit what sprung to mind when they thought of many far flung places you'd get a similar kind of 'ignorance'

syne you are being insincere. BBC africa has very little reach, the images of Africa most people consume are of charity ads which are problematic for the reasons I outlined above.

Do you know how offence that sounds? Like the people who are starving aren't striving enough!! And why would they not show images of the people the fundraising is directed at? You sound bonkers as conkers, OP

Maypolist, I don't want my words to be misinterpreted. I'm not insinuating that those who are starving just aren't working hard enough. I think anyone who holds that belief probably holds a whole host of other bizarre beliefs about poverty and wealth distribution etc.

Needascarf I'm not African no, but I have worked extensively in east Africa, as it as happens as a researcher profiling entrepreneurs. I was taken aback once when we were posted to Mombasa and one of my colleagues decided to pack a tent as he considered it would be a lot more robust than the apparent mud-hut we'd be staying in.

I also agree that a great deal of places in the world have similar negative representation but I can't cover all of them in one post. If someone had started a thread about India or South America, for example, it would still be a legitimate argument.

I think it serves the purpose of keeping people decicated to donating.
Not only during Comic Relief, but our own government sends billions in aid to Africa. Despite the fact that Nigeria has already made plans to put a man in space this year!
Taxpayers are also funding aid programmes in South Africa, Uganda, Kenya and Ghana – all of these countries also have their own space agencies.

Of course you're not being UR because it's your opinion but like a PP I remember the programme about Lagos which I'm guessing you missed.

However, I dislike your depiction of starving people as 'gawking' at the camera. Really? 'gawking' - maybe they'll try to make hunger more photogenic for you next time.

There are lots of different depictions of different groups in the media. You can choose which ones to focus on. I've worked in Africa. I manage to see depictions of Africa on TV that aren't just charity ads. However, I'm sure if I only focused on depictions to kick against I could find them.

The media paints in broad brushstrokes. It's neither good or bad. It's just a fact. In RL, travellers in the UK are constantly subjected to questions about whether they have electricity; TVs, etc. People can choose to remain ignorant or choose to be informed. That basic choice about whether you wallow in ignorance or choose to be informed is one that people make independent of the media although it does then influence how they consume it.

Aplaceonthecouch ONE show about one of the most populous cities in the world. Your reaching.

Also having worked at an NGO I know first hand how they select their images and gawking would be an apt word to use.

I've had some ridiculous things said to me when people learn I'm African. Not because they want to be hurtful (most of the time anyway) but because they genuinely believe that we all live in mud huts/have bones through our noses/have had malaria.

I can't believe that's typical. Ask most people to name things they associate with Africa and Africans, it won't be bones thru noses and mud huts, unless they are complete fucking idiots. But they will say corruption, shit government, officials in power syphoning off money, tribal based violence leading to genocide, Islamic terrorism etc.

My firm used to do business in Africa and it was a complete nightmare. We just couldn't get stuff done due to the corruption. Staff we paying put more in backhanders to grease the wheels than we were making on the deal. We were considering pulling out when a lovely young guy from the Rotterdam office was murdered in Nigeria, so that sealed the fate of our African involvement.

Never again.