CNN:
Continental divide separates Africans, African-Americans
ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) — Africa is not a country, and Africans generally do not live in trees or hunt game with spears. Nor do they all walk around in the nude among lions and zebras.
African immigrants to the United States say cartoonish caricatures and a Western media penchant for reporting on Africa’s disease, hunger and war — rather than the continent’s successes — trivialize their cultures. They complain they have trouble dispelling the stereotypes once they arrive in the States.
They concede, though, the myths run both ways and some say they were surprised to find their values more often aligned with those of white Americans than African-Americans.
(snip)
Raphael Craig, 17, of Hyattsville, Maryland, said the television misinformed him as well.
Before Craig visited the continent in 2005 and 2006, he thought of Africans as “half-naked, running around with tigers in the jungle,” Craig said, confessing he was unaware tigers roam only Asia.
It’s called transferrance; you see in other people the qualities you have in yourself. All he did was to transfer what he sees in black Baltimorians in the summer months into black Africans. If Mr. Craig thought that black Africans had boxer shorts, he might also think they like to sag their pants.
