Stereotypes

Hey guys. What do you think south african people look like? I drew something to show you how I picture them.

As you can see, the drawing has no color. But I really pictured the man as a black person, due to the fact they live in Africa. I’ve imagined his clothes very tribal-like, maybe because in movies and other visual representations african people always wear extravagant clothes, full of color and weird hats.

As I researched more about this culture I found out that, although most of the population is black, there are actually white South African. They’re all really modern, some of them still have old traditions but in the day-to-day life they look like any of us.

I think the image about them that movies had created on us really affected my perception. I used think about them as people who couldn’t go to school, who didn’t care about writing poetry or novels. But as I started to get more involved with their culture, I’ve realized how many stereotypes I believed are not true.

As a famous writer from Africa says,

“The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story.”

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie