Christina Jud

2/11/16

In How to Write About Africa, by Binyavanga Wainaina, this excerpt describes how
Americans stereotype Africa by using common topics such as discussing dead bodies, including The
Starving African, and ending with a sunset, as well as a quote from Nelson Mandela saying
something about rainbows and renaissance. Because you care. Americans always make Africans out
to be non educated, violent, and uncivilized. Americans always seem to glorify animals over Africans
and always take the side of the elephant. Wainaina is making fun of how Americans have built up all
of these stereotypes about Africans that are very dehumanizing but would never write poorly about an
animal and always end a book or novel on Africa with a sunset or something that shows the beauty of
it's geography while emphasizing how uncivilized and almost inhuman the Africans are. We never
speak poorly of animals and give them more respect than we do the Africans. The author uses sarcasm
to show how foolish Americans look for portraying Africa as a place that is beneath us when in reality
we have a lot of the same things that we associate with them such as disease, death, and people who are
starving.