Africa Is Not a Country!

Could this misrepresentation be as result of outright disrespect or imaginative brilliance?

October 2011 — Rep. Michele Bachmann criticized then-President Obama’s foreign policy during a CNN debate with these words.

“Now with the president, he put us in Libya. He is now putting us in Africa.”

It would interest you to know that Libya is a country in Africa.

November 2011 — former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, cited development money that went to fight the AIDS pandemic in Africa.

“It was a country on the brink.”

August 2013 — Time Magazine published an article titled this.

“Africa’s Drinking Problem: Alcoholism on the Rise as Beverage Multinationals Circle.”

The article only talked about Kenya.

It is March 2022, and this anomaly is still uncomfortably rampant.

A quick Google search will let you know Africa comprises 54 countries.

But, who are you to doubt the veracity of your thoughts? You are the Western world. The enlightened bunch.

For lack of a better time, I will use this opportunity to give you a concise geography lesson.

A continent is a large solid area of land. Earth has seven continents. In order from largest to smallest, they are Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Antarctica, Europe, and Australia. — Britannica Kids

The use of this definition is deliberate, to explain the term down to the barest minimum.

Africa is the world’s second-largest and second-most-populous CONTINENT, only after Asia. As of 2018, it was home to 1.3 billion people from 54 different countries with over 2000 native languages.

News reports about happenings in North America usually read thus.

“Snapchat Influencer killed in Redding, California.”

“Law enforcement has nabbed the Toronto serial rapist.”

These reports are usually location-specific, down to the county where an offender lives. This is done so that the crime/wrongdoing is not a direct representation of the state or the entire country.

When it is about a person or thing in one of the 54 African countries, the International media gets complacently lazy.

No need to specify a country in the headline. They are all the same.

Well, we are not all the same.

Having this knowledge and using it appropriately show distinct levels of respect.

Educate yourself.

Progress is always relative: to the oppressed, it can only be viewed as an all-or-nothing deal - if oppression continues, even in a modified form, then the system must still be attacked until that injustice is eradicated. — Tim Wise

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