Africa: poor kids or cool football players?

Rasha Almaqaleh

Awhile ago, there was an advertising poster placed on the city bus stops. The poster shows a sad-looking African kid standing in the middle of a landfill, holding what seems to be a torn-up bag. The advert sends a message about the struggle of kids in poor cities and how living there is such a miserable situation.  

When my son saw the poster for the first time, he didn’t say anything. He just looked at it. Next day, he spent more time pondering around the poster. Finally, he asked: “what is wrong with that child and why is he standing in the middle of the garbage?” I tried to explain to him that the poster is asking people to help poor children in poor cities. Then, he asked about the city of the boy. I said: “ I don’t know!” My son asked : “he is Africano!right?” I said yes! He got troubled and said: “but Africa is cool!”

Until now, all my son has known about Africa was that it was the place where one of the players of Germany’s national football team originally comes from. My son is fascinated by the German team, especially the black player; he would collect their photos and look for the missing cards to complete the collection. He and the other kids in the kindergarten would refer to the black player as “Africano” and my son wanted to be that player and to get a shirt with his number.

When my son saw a sad-looking miserable “Africano, he got shocked because until that moment, all what Africa represented to him was a cool football player, with “chique hair”! I am literally quoting him on the hair part!

Even though this type of ‘help Africa campaigns’ are generally well-intended and the people behind it want to help poor kids, they unintentionally enhance one of the worst stereotypes about Africa. An advertisement like that sums a whole continent which has 54 nations with different aspects of history, culture, currency and hundreds of languages into one word: poverty!

It is true that poverty is a problem in Africa, just like terrorism is a problem in the Arab world. But this doesn’t mean that all Arabs are terrorists! Similarly, not all Africans are poor! Being an Arabic Muslim woman who lives in the West, I know exactly what it means to be stereotyped by the society surrounding me. While Muslim women have the choice to take off their headscarves and not to be necessarily identified as Muslims, African people cannot do anything about the famous stereotype of the Dark Continent and they shouldn’t be suffering because of it.

When I saw that poster of the poor African boy, I immediately thought about the African kids and families living in Germany! How do they feel about it? Isn’t there a possibility that the African kids who live in Germany might struggle because of such advertising? They might be harassed and bullied in school.  Isn’t that poster teaching African kids that they are poor and inferior?!

Imagine a poster that sends a message about fighting terrorism by placing a picture of a Muslim woman wearing a headscarf. Try to imagine how thousands of Muslim women who live in the West would feel about it?

When black people see such ‘poor Africa’ advertisements, I cannot imagine their reaction and how ashamed they are made to feel. An African lady who lives in Germany, once told me that she is really pissed off because whenever she and her family drive their own car, they get some wondering stares from German bystanders. And she could read in their eyes this question: “how come an African family has a car while they are supposed to be poor and have NOTHING?”

On the whole, it is not fair to link people of a specific race, ethnicity, or religion to a negative notion, even if such linking is well-meaning or seems reasonable. We have to be aware of the fact that such way of advertising subconsciously enhances our worst prejudices of each other.  One way to overcome our stereotypes is by linking the people of a specific stereotype to success stories instead of degrading them. That way, Africa would be the place of successful football players instead of helpless poor kids, who are in constant need of help.