Portrayal Of Africans And African Americans In The Media

For a long time, the n-word has meant nothing to me. My parents had raised me with the mindset that I was African and nothing else. When I read about black people being discriminated against, it just seemed like another person who looked like but wasn’t related to me. So, when someone in the playground called me that word when I was around six years old, I laughed and gave him a funny look. Although I understood the problems of his actions after I told my parents that day, it took me years to understand what I had done wrong.

To prevent scenarios like these, television and movies should reflect both the African and African-American communities differently so that both communities feel properly represented and others have a better understanding of their cultural values. According to the 2010 US Census, Black/African American people account for about 12. 6% of the total population. This makes them the second largest race after white people. However, even the census fails to acknowledge the difference between these two groups and dubs them “black” even though they have vastly different mindsets due to be being raised differently. The entertainment industry continues to portray the black race as a distorted fusion of the two and doesn’t take the time to show their true experiences. Because of this, many Africans and African-Americans do not have identities that reflect their upbringing because they must go out into the world and be seen as black. Africans have always been portrayed as people from a continent of savannahs and disease. Often, Africa is generalized as just one country. The Africa I know is not just full of poverty and grasslands but has cities and even some affluent areas. Our continent is more than political corruption and famine. It is more advanced in technology and culture than pictures show. Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Google and former CEO, praises African countries such as Kenya for embracing a future of technology and cultivating the growth of tech entrepreneurship

However, the media has not shown these sides but only of the negative sides such as our apparent “primitiveness”. In an excerpt from The Media and Africa: The Portrayal of Africa in the New York Times (1955–1995): “Eighteen U. S. soldiers were killed and dozens were wounded in a fierce battle in Mogadishu, Somalia, on October 3–4, 1993. Their deaths were a direct outgrowth of the Clinton administration’s handling of a series of United Nations (UN)-sanctioned military interventions in Somalia, which are popularly referred to as Operation Restore Hope. With the Cable News Network (CNN) providing almost instantaneous transmission to audiences in the United States and abroad, the victorious Somali forces not only paraded a captured U. S. helicopter pilot, Corporal William Durant, through the streets of Mogadishu, but also dragged the naked corpse of a U. S. soldier past mobs of Somali citizens who vented their anger by spitting on, stoning, and kicking the body”.

This excerpt gives the impression that Africans are savages who would attack anyone. The media portrayed this not as a violent protest but as if Africans have awakened their “warlike side” and are attacking innocent people. White soldiers are seen as victims and public opinion caused the government to withdraw their soldiers. The profound impact that the media’s presentation of the event on the foreign policy shows how representation of a third-world country is critical to viewer perceptions and decisions made by world leaders. On the other hand, African-Americans are often seen as murderers and rapists. In Framing Blackness: The African American Image in Film, the reason for this negative portrayal of African-Americans is the need to prevent black people from gaining too many civil rights and political power during the Reconstruction Era. Framing African-American men as brutes and threats to white women would drastically affect the public’s perceptions of African Americans and decrease support for them. The Birth of a Nation accomplished this perfectly. The rising political power that black people had vanished due to negative stereotypes. This strengthened segregation laws because African Americans were seen as threats and the whites felt the need to distance themselves. Moreover, The Ku Klux Klan(KKK) were able to get away with terror attacks and lynchings because viewers perceived African Americans as savages. The film’s effects reach even now where black men are suspected for more crimes than other races and the incarceration rate is three times the rate of white men. Just like for Africans, the perceptions of race stem from negative portrayal by the media. These representations influence the minds of the public and eventually decisions made by the government.

Essentially, both Africans and African-Americans are being portrayed based on stereotypes which leads to government decisions that negatively affect their lifestyles and lack of understanding of the two different cultures. Even though the media regularly fails to portray them properly, there are movies that accurately describe the connection between the two. Black Panther of the Marvel Cinematic Universe has a large cast with primarily black actors and a black director. The film explores the effect of imperialism and the relations between white people and African people in the past and now. They also discuss the experiences of African-Americans and how they feel towards white people in America. The film serves as a conversation between both communities that are often misrepresented and don’t feel connected to each other. Hollywood should normalize movies that accurately depict culture and race since they are very important to understand and be able to discuss about. Most movies have primarily white casts and don’t show much diversity. Networks should try and offer shows that represent ethnicities rather than race since it doesn’t show the insights of the individual cultures. Another solution is for Africans to take charge and represent their culture in their own media.

Professor Eric Masinde Aseka claims, “The African media, however, have failed to aggressively market an African identity and authenticity to challenge the one imposed by the West”. I completely agree with his claim. Although do we have a prominent film industry, we don’t do enough to represent all sides of our lives which contributes to the ignorance of our culture. In an age where nations are being referred to as “shithole countries”, it is more important than ever that voices of underrepresented people are being heard and are made distinct from each other. This doesn’t just go for Africans and African-Americans, but for all people who feel like their identity is being confused with another and want others to see them as they are: unique people with unique experiences.