#sterotypes

I love making my moms coffee when shes getting ready for work

I love fluffing up the milk and grinding the beans

I LOVE IT

Who Gets to Tell Africa’s Story?

Western media has historically portrayed Africa through a limited lens focused on poverty, violence, war, disease, and helplessness. These representations often ignore the diversity, complexity, creativity, and modernity that exist across the continent. In many films, advertisements, and news reports, Africa is presented as a single place instead of a continent made up of many cultures, languages, and histories. These stereotypes shape how global audiences understand Africa and reinforce harmful colonial ideas.

This connects directly to Binyavanga Wainaina’s essay “How to Write About Africa,” which critiques the repetitive and stereotypical ways Africa is represented in Western media. Wainaina uses satire to expose how Africa is often reduced to images of suffering while African voices, innovation, and individuality are ignored. This also relates to discussions of colonialism in class because colonial powers often controlled narratives about Africa in order to justify domination and exploitation. By challenging these stereotypes, African writers, filmmakers, musicians, and artists continue reclaiming their own stories and identities.

Course Topics:

Representation

Media and Power

Global Narratives

Connections:

Except its watching aggressively heteronormative canon, and thinking these two would have been legendary if it wasn't for the obligatory romantic entanglement

You know the type of hot and passionate ship, that both just really need a good friend instead of a fuck buddy

Rolling around in the grass and looking up at the sky thinking how " guys don't talk about feelings " archetype

"We gotta stick together!!!"

That was too funny.

★ MNISHADEE

TW: mentions of SA, kidnapping, racism to a comedic degree, and bad depictions of indigenous(specifically, the Suquamish) and Chinese people, pedophilla(?)

Okay, so I might have found the greatest pastime, ever. Reading old bodice ripper paperback novels from the 70's/80's/90's. They're peak comedy gold.

I know it was a different time but sometimes i can't believe this was such a common thing, Romance Books where the entire plot is that the FMC is being violated by the MMC, but it kind of makes sense considering there were very few ways to women to express themselves this way freely.

More past the cut <3

it is shocking the amount of people that consider it progressive to be blatantly racist and xenophobic. like so many people forget that you can criticize a government without taking it out on innocent people from that country.

yes, israel has committed war crimes. that doesn’t make it okay to say “all jews are zionist” or “any civilian casualties on israel’s side is good actually”. at this point, so many people hate israel more than they care about palestine.

yes, japan still hasn’t issued a proper apology for their atrocities during ww2 and they do have systemic problems with brushing SA under the rug. That doesn’t mean it’s okay to say “liking anything japanese makes you a bad person” or “all japanese people are pedophiles”.

and a lot of these things people criticize other countries for, are things that apply to their own country too. yet it’s frames completely differently. using america as an example: “korea has a toxic celebrity culture and beauty standard” so does america (and most the world for that matter). “japan has such high rates of CSA” so does america, even counting for the estimated unreported cases of both countries. “israel is committing war crimes” america is helping israel commit those crimes.

all of those things are worth criticizing but it crosses the line of criticism into outright hatred when someone starts generalizing civilians for the government’s actions. other countries aren’t monoliths. There are some that agree with their government some that disagree like every other place in the world. if it’s unfair to say “all americans and pedophilic war criminals who all deserve to die” because of the actions trump is doing, then don’t say that about citizens of other countries. if you don’t agree with every single decision your government makes, then you can’t stereotype everyone from another country as supporting every decision their government makes.