Here is a quote I’ve been chewing on for a while:
“Note please, that the prejudice of the western press feeds the acquired prejudices of the colonial and neo-colonial peoples, as much as it misinforms the underinformed in Europe or North America.” ~Nuruddin Farah. Maps.
I’ve heard so many people rant about the ill that the “Western media” is doing Africa by presenting it as one country, or at best a monolithic continent full of savages. I myself have had to deal with comments as openly ignorant as “I didn’t know you spoke English” to ones that are actually meant to sound intelligent like “I don’t think the idea of a nation is inherent to Africa.” But what nobody ever talks about (and these are the things that interest me most), is the fact that African peoples are themselves influenced by these portrayals…or is it that some of these stereotypes actually “feed our acquired prejudices?”
What, pray tell, does acquired prejudice mean? It makes me think of things like my elementary school teachers banning students from speaking any other language but English at school, assigning derogatory names to African languages, or of “enlightened” people labelling some cultural practices as “barbaric.” Having grown up in an upper middle class family, I must say that members of some of the higher socio-economic classes, at least in Ghana, have very interesting acquired prejudices. Nappy hair is bad. Your “village” is a place you go to once a year to give people presents and scold the dirty villagers who try to touch your car (in fact when you get back to your city home, the word villager is used to describe any “bush” person). A bush person is someone whose accent is “very African” and who does not wear a suit and tie in the stifling Ghanaian heat. This all calls to mind some of the comments some rather misguided people made over the Prof Ngugi incident a while ago, in which people begin to discriminate based on appearance. Someone said the esteemed professor would probably have received the same treatment in some Kenyan hotels. To be honest, na lie? The list of acquired prejudices is endless. But the more I think about this list, the more I am convinced that it reflects an unfortunate desire to be “westernized.”
Westernization= progress. Africanization= backwardness.
What really are our most deterimental acquired prejudices, our ugly inheritances from our colonial masters? Where do we draw the line between what is honestly backward and what is just a western media-fuelled prejudice? To what extent are we perpetrating in our daily lives the same prejudices that we so vocally denounce when we see them on TV?
Prejudice Racism
Here is a quote I've been chewing on for a while:
"Note please, that the prejudice of the western press feeds the acquired prejudices of the colonial and neo-colonial peoples, as much as it misinforms the underinformed in Europe or North America." ~Nuruddin Farah. Maps.
I've heard so many people rant about the ill that the "Western media" is doing Africa by presenting it as one country, or at best a monolithic continent full of savages. I myself have had to deal with comments as openly ignorant as "I didn't know you spoke English" to ones that are actually meant to sound intelligent like "I don't think the idea of a nation is inherent to Africa." But what nobody ever talks about (and these are the things that interest me most), is the fact that African peoples are themselves influenced by these portrayals...or is it that some of these stereotypes actually "feed our acquired prejudices?"
What, pray tell, does acquired prejudice mean? It makes me think of things like my elementary school teachers banning students from speaking any other language but English at school, assigning derogatory names to African languages, or of "enlightened" people labelling some cultural practices as "barbaric." Having grown up in an upper middle class family, I must say that members of some of the higher socio-economic classes, at least in Ghana, have very interesting acquired prejudices. Nappy hair is bad. Your "village" is a place you go to once a year to give people presents and scold the dirty villagers who try to touch your car (in fact when you get back to your city home, the word villager is used to describe any "bush" person). A bush person is someone whose accent is "very African" and who does not wear a suit and tie in the stifling Ghanaian heat. This all calls to mind some of the comments some rather misguided people made over the Prof Ngugi incident a while ago, in which people begin to discriminate based on appearance. Someone said the esteemed professor would probably have received the same treatment in some Kenyan hotels. To be honest, na lie? The list of acquired prejudices is endless. But the more I think about this list, the more I am convinced that it reflects an unfortunate desire to be "westernized."
Westernization= progress. Africanization= backwardness.
What really are our most deterimental acquired prejudices, our ugly inheritances from our colonial masters? Where do we draw the line between what is honestly backward and what is just a western media-fuelled prejudice? To what extent are we perpetrating in our daily lives the same prejudices that we so vocally denounce when we see them on TV?
Prejudice Racism
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Journal
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
You article is so very true. I have been mauling over the same topic for a while now. Since coming to South Africa, I have now interacted quite a bit with people of white origin.
One thing that i quickly came to appreciate is my ‘africanness’. I felt comfortable just being me. I recall in my high school years girls wanting to have a ‘twang’ (nice American/European accesnt) and a white boyfriend was the epitome of success. The handsome men were George Michael, Tom Cruise etc. No doubt these men are hanks but there was never an appreciation for anything african.
Annie@ true about the acquired prejudices in Ghana – Have had the same experience in Nigeria though I dont think its just a case of wanting to be “Westernised” it is also about the desire and belief in consumption, dressing up in gold and what have you and looking down on the poor as inhuman, bush etc. If you dont have money, dress right and act rich you are nothing – similar to the previous post on the Esquire article and Ngugi as you state.
Sokari, I agree that it might be a sad oversimplification to put this all down to a desire to be “Westernized” only. I’m interested in hearing what other explanations are out there. Yours on consumerism makes a lot of sense, which reminds me of a recent debate I had over economics (capitalism, socialism) and the idea of a colonial legacy. Perhaps a post coming on that soon…. As you can tell, underneath all the politics and the literature, I’m a bit of a self-styled historian with all this talk of colonisation and now neo-colonisation
Great post.
I went to Ghana and Kenya earlier this year and I was fascinated by the way Africans (specifically African men) dressed. I was traveling with a friend who was white, we are both American, and we discussed frequently the suit-wearing thing. It was extremely hot and yet folks were dressed (sometimes shabbily) in Western business suits. I guess I never really linked this to an attempt to shed native African culture and embrace a Western aesthetic, but it makes sense.
Rudyard Kipling comes to mind. I think the poem is “to be a man”. Maybe a bit far fetched, but i think the principle applies. There can be a balance…i believe it. Suits and ties and western stuff are part of our society as a result of history. Does wearing them necessarily mean prejudice? What is the difference between the physical act and the ethos it carries? Are they inextricably linked? Does consuming western products = prejudice, really? To be devils advovcate….is there not a proudly Nigerian/Ghanaian/Kenyan bourgeoisie who embodies balance? And are they prejudiced? Alot of questions i no fit answer ooooh….
I see the direction in which you are going Yem, but to be very honest, that proudly Afrocentric bourgeoisie are very much in the minority. I am not defining the act of wearing suits as prejudice so much as I am defining the ethos it carries, to answer your question with your own words. Think of the words “but this is not professional” when it comes to office dress code. There was a debate some years ago about setting aside Fridays as Ghanaian dress day, and a lot of the public were against it because they said our traditional clothes were too heavy for the Ghanaian heat! If it’s practicality we were really after, suits wouldn’t be much of an option either.
Appearance is a very important part of our acquired prejudices, and it goes beyond wearing suits. Think about how people with locked hair are viewed in our society. And then think about hair in general and where natural, afro hair truly ranks in the list of weaves and wigs and relaxers etc. I am not saying that any of the aforementioned are bad. I am asking where the balance can be and where the lines should be drawn. I am asking if people really do understand what message they send when they look a certain way.
I will say again that appearance is very important and it manifests itself in more than just dress or hair. Think now of skin, sepicifically that light is bright and dark is… well dark, really. Do you see the links Yem? What looks on the surface as just the “innocent act of prefering/wearing a suit to work” starts to take on a dangerous meaning when processed in the light of everything else, in the light of the rest of our “acquired prejudices.”
Annie @ your point in the last para is excellent. When you link dress, hair, skin colour together eg western dress, relaxed her and bleached skin then one has to seriously question what a person is saying about themselves and others. On the other hand I think we need to be careful not to assume that consuming the west = acquired prejuice – its about ones overall presentation of self and attitude towards difference, race, ethnicity, class, gender and sexuality?