Sunshine Journalism

I'm not sure there is a worse insult someone can hurl at a white person in Africa than "racist." I'm not sure there's a worse insult someone can hurl at a white journalist working in Africa than "racist." In plenty of circumstances, it's probably deserved, but having been on the receiving end -- taxi drivers occasionally throw out "racist" when you're negotiating a fare -- it smarts, terribly, when you see yourself as being in love with the continent, the people, the culture and others see you as filled with hate and superiority.

While some readers might snort at the idea that I worry how I write about Africa, it's true. I worry about feeding into the idea that Africa is scary or dangerous or violent or starving. This blog doesn't always reflect that, it's true, but at the same time, I think it gets the idea across that often the most violent person on the continent is me with low blood sugar on a hot, sweaty day spent crushed up against fellow passengers during a long overland journey.

During my stint in East Africa, I wrote hardly any "good" news. I wrote mostly about AIDS and the orphans it leaves behind. I think it's a major crisis that's just being ignored and I would have to be the most hard-hearted SOB to stand by and write sunshine stories while there is so much suffering that is going so ignored.

Still, that's one of the reasons I chose Ghana. There is plenty of "bad news" here -- infant mortality rates and unemployment and illiteracy and poverty -- but there is plenty of good, uniquely African news here too.

This week I sat in on a "Rebranding Africa" conference that aims to improve the image of the continent on the world stage. It was pretty comprehensive, looking at everything from the way local media paints their home to the way international journalists portray the continent to the way diasporans represent their homelands to the way NGOs and charities feed into the idea that all children here are half-naked with bits of rice stuck to their cheeks and flies scratching around the corners of their eyes.

It was at times infuriating; at times inspiring.

The delegates talked about how to counter bad news with good. How to get powerful messages of success to the journalists who usually write about war and famine and disease. How to harness the power of the Nigerian film industry and turn it into something every African can be proud to call their own. How to get blogging. How to take on the Economist, a publication that was uniformly panned as evil.

South Africa has this amazing campaign on right now to "brand" itself as a nation of possibilites. It's capitalizing on its global image as a country with an incredibly painful history that has managed to face the truth and reconcile and build, beautifully, on the shared strengths and amazing character of its people. The brand's boss, Yvonne Johnston, showed these video clips of sweeping clifts and amazing sunsets and wild animals and colourful people and vibrant cityscapes and traditional dress and women walking with bowls on their heads and children dancing and... all the things that make Africa great. I was tearing up.

Another man gave a presentation about the negativity of the media, beginning with a clip from the Economist, something filed around the time of the Congo's election, which said many people didn't really know what they were voting for. There was a quote from a woman saying she didn't really know who was running or who she would vote for or even whether she would vote. She was identified as Monique, a smoked-monkey seller in a remote jungle town.

Initially, I screwed up my forehead and stared at the guy. What is wrong with that? The woman is what she is, should she not be quoted because she didn't give her last name? Because the quote makes her look uninformed? I wasn't really sure what he was getting at and it was starting to make me angry how he kept referring to it as perpetuating negative African stereotypes.

Then he said, "I don't imagine the majority of Congolese people eat monkey meat, but this journalist has just reinforced a tired stereotype about the way Africans live."

My heart sank. He definitely had a point. And my inability to recognize it strikes me as the worst kind of racism. The unconscious kind. The kind that is so subtle and ingrained, the person committing it doesn't even know they're doing it.

It's food for thought. The paragraph said "most" people don't know what they're voting for. So why not ask a popcorn seller, or a boy selling PK? Why not say she is a mother of three? Why not identify her in another way? Her comments are certainly valid and she really does sell monkey meat. But should the journalist have tried harder to find someone who represents the mainstream?

It's all a good debate.

Maybe I'm thinking about this more and more because an article I wrote for the Star drew *major* criticism from Toronto's Ghanaian community. The foreign editor forwarded me an email from a woman who lambasted the article and called it a perpetuation of the Star's racist agenda. She was irate that I had besmirched the reputation of the Asante king. (The story was about a cocaine commission underway here; two lines referred to the fact that the Asante king's name has been mentioned at the hearings.)

Or maybe it's because as of next week, I'm going to be working with Journalists for Human Rights again. (Yes, I'm a huge hypocrite. But don't stop loving me. I need the money.)