Even though The Lion King was released in 1994, it remains a classic children's movie that all little kids can sing along to. For many kids, it is their first interaction with Africa, a world supposedly full of dancing and singing fuzzy and cute animals that just want to live in harmony with each other, except for Scar and the hyenas. There are no humans in the film and Africa is portrayed as a sprawling deserts, lush forests and vast almost nothingness, only animals and nature. This being many children's first time getting a visual understanding of what Africa looks like has the power to shape the way they view Africa as they grow up, even as they begin to understand more of the reality of the peoples and cultures of African nations.
When someone, including myself, is told to picture Africa, several images come to mind: first, the ever so popular safaris that provide tourists with the natural beauty, then those pictures of tribes and communities of people who through the efforts of westerners now have access to clean water and medicine, and finally, the bustling cities, overcrowded and impoverished. These pictures are what many westerners first imagine Africa to be like because that is how it has been "marketed" to us. We do not see the advanced, modern cultures and towns that really exist because we never question what we are initially shown and choose to believe.
Additionally, education on African history and culture, stops as soon as colonialism takes place and the slave trade. This once again leads to images of cultures from hundreds of years ago that were controlled by Europeans. After this point, we never again revisit African history in either of the required history classes at OPRF.
There are many many issues with the way we view Africa and Africans, including the fact that rather than seeing the many African countries, we see Africa the continent as basically all the same thing. When asked to think about Europe, we can think of many of the countries and how they are all different, speak different languages, and have different cultures. In order to change the very incorrect and close-minded lense that we see Africa through, a lot has to happen with how we are educated on Africa, taught more modernly and more similarly to Europe.
That last paragraph is really important. Sometimes I wonder if people really still get caught in that trap, but just last week my 3rd period teacher had to correct a student talking about the 'country of Africa'.
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