Why is there a separation between blacks and whites? Why does the television always show African countries as land of disease, hunger, starvation, malnourishment and pollution? Why do the newspapers report and highlight pictures of malnourished children suckling at their mothers breasts, wearing close to no clothes with flies all around them" Does the media want Americans to feel sorry for them or is there nothing good to report on? There are poor and starving people in India also, but we get only a minimum report, and there is a balance between all the issues that are covered about India
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Hunger and poverty is in two thirds of the world's countries but that doesn't mean that one has to use their pictures and stories to create sympathy in peoples minds. Certainly, there are areas in Africa where people as educated, well fed and living a standard lifestyle, but why don't they get a chance to explain and control the information that goes out to the rest of the world? Zwelakhe Sisulu, a former South African newspaper editor, for one, was very disappointed with most U.S. reporters. According to him, "They [the U.S reporters] tended on the whole to be very arrogant, they expected people to lie down and let themselves be trembled over "because of the importance of network"" (Hultman). .
The British Film Institute quite clearly and explicitly described the reason for such media behavior, by saying that "[the] western images of Africa says more about Western motives and agendas and the limitation of Western media [which prohibits them to] tell us anything useful about African reality" (BFI). I will acknowledge the fact that United States is a large nation with enough problems of its own to take care of, and Americans are engrossed in what's happening around them, "so who cares about the rest of the world let alone Africa?" The African Americans are the back bone of United States, they are one of the reasons that America is successful today, shouldn't these African Americans understand and articulate their history and events in Africa in a positive way? .
