Essay 1 Exercise 3 PDF

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Mandatory weekly assignment #3 for essay 1...

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When you think of Africa, what's the first thing that comes to mind? Is it the starving people, the breathtaking sunset, or the safari? For me, it has to be the starving people as it usually is the case for many others. It’s definitely something we should always keep on our minds, but at the same time I can’t help but wonder, why? Why is this the image that pops up in our head almost every time we think of Africa? I mean, it's not like the whole continent is living in these underprivileged conditions, so how come? I think part of it has to do with the fact that all throughout our lives and even today, we’re conditioned to see all of Africa in this gloomy light and as a result, we end up creating our own fantasy of what Africa should look like. I found this idea to be even more palpable when the other day, I was reading an essay titled "How to Write About Africa” by Binyavanga Wainaina. Through his essay, not only was I able to get more insight on why this was happening, but I was also able to see how terribly wrong it is for us to generalize Africa in this manner. It’s one thing to show appreciation for a culture different from ours, and it’s a complete other thing to misrepresent this difference solely for our own benefits. Reading this essay really put into perspective the unjustness of stereotypes that even you and I have been victims of, and it really made me question what I think I know of the world, and what the world is actually like.

In his outstanding essay, a deeply frustrated Wainaina satirizes the way Western countries portray Africa, to show how ridiculous it is that we stereotype Africa to the extent that we do. Wainaina argues that by doing this, we are manipulating the continent to look a certain way so that it can do certain things for us, as he so sarcastically said, “Africa is the only continent you can love – take advantage of this.” His interesting use of the word “love” followed by a provocative example of a man taking a woman’s virginity represents exactly what Western countries are doing to Africa: while pretending to “love” the exquisite place, they’re actually just

there to take what they can and what they want from it, just as a man objectifies a woman’s body. Additionally, by using "The Starving African" as a prime example, Wainaina tells writers that they must only speak of the suffering, the helplessness, and the desperate need for Western benevolence because that's the only Africa we really know of, and the type of Africa we tend to prioritize over others. Wainaina even goes as far to list taboo subjects which include everyday happy-go-lucky happenings such as “love between Africans” or “African characters laughing,” because in our eyes, that’s a false perception of Africa and we’d be distorting what we believe to be their reality by doing so. With all these stereotypes illustrated in society and in the media that we consume daily, at a certain point, it becomes difficult to distinguish whether this kind of exposure is for pleasure or for economic benefits. How can we know what the author’s true intent behind his/her work is, especially if the author emphasizes only the negative aspects of a culture? Are we safe to assume that the author is really trying to treasure the unique facets of the culture or could there possibly be underlying, immoral acts of manipulation? Okay, so as my closest friend in the entire world, you’re aware that I’m an over-thinker and that I tend to dig into things much deeper than I actually need to, so I have another essay I’d like to share with you. Titled “Time and Distance Overcome” by Eula Biss, this essay explores the history of how the telephone, and more specifically how the telephone poles came to fruition. The first line of the essay asks, “Of what use is such an invention?” While Thomas Edison declared that the telephone “brought the human family in closer touch,” our cruel American History instead, answered with the practice of lynching African American men using the wires of these poles. Men who might have been wrongfully accused of crimes due to rumors were disconnected from their lives from an apparatus designed to connect people with one another. What was supposed to be a completely innocent, conjoining way to deepen human relationships

became another one of the many life-taking mechanisms that still leaves an unforgettable mark on our country’s brutal history. I mention this essay, because in many ways, it is similar to Wainaina’s main argument of how we may be exploiting, corrupting, and harming things instead of appreciating them the way they are. I felt that Biss’s essay left a more impactful message of the consequences of altering the true meaning behind an entity which I wanted to share with you. Overall, what we fail to understand is the repercussions of these appropriations. They eventually lead to the formation of stereotypes and false notions that cause innocent people to die every day and spread more discrimination all around. Remember how we were intensely insulted and humiliated when people when would ask us “Hey, are you from North Korea?” or randomly shout out derogatory terms to our faces? We mustn’t forget that any one of our actions, if illwilled, can evoke the same feelings for others, which is why I’m fighting to find out the true intentions behind people who create artwork of other cultures. It’s essential that we respect everyone, everything, and their life stories, and to be able to do so, is to be a righteous, upright person....