There’s a way the world talks about Africa that leaves a bitter taste. You’ve seen it—those stories that zoom in on flies, famine, and children with wide eyes. The headlines that collapse 54 countries into one “troubled region.” The documentaries with piano music playing over images of pain, as though sorrow is our default setting.

The world has a habit of flattening Africa, squeezing her into a narrative that doesn’t hold the full truth. And it’s exhausting.

What’s the Real Problem?

It’s not that the bad things don’t happen. They do. But that’s not all there is.

Where there’s poverty, there’s also innovation. Where there’s conflict, there’s also joy, culture, and people fighting back in quiet and loud ways. But somehow, only one part of the story gets exported—and the rest, the real texture of everyday life, is ignored.

That’s not storytelling. That’s erasure.

The Voice You Use Matters

A lot of the global reporting on Africa comes with a tone. You know the one—sad, condescending, almost noble. Like the writer has come to save the day, or teach us about ourselves.

But how do you teach people their own lives?

It’s one thing to report. It’s another to assume authority over a people whose language you don’t speak, whose context you don’t live in, whose pain you don’t fully understand.

Africa doesn’t need spokespeople. We need listeners.

Africa Is Not a Country

Let’s say it again: Africa. Is. Not. A. Country. It’s a continent. Made up of cities with skyscrapers, towns with market noise, and villages with history deeper than most museums.

And no, we’re not “recovering from colonialism”—we’re living through systems that colonialism built. We’re surviving, resisting, and, in many ways, thriving. So let’s not keep summarizing us with half-baked terms and lazy metaphors.

The White Saviour Complex? Let It Go.

If your story places a foreigner as the hero and the local people as helpless extras, stop. Go back. Start again.

You don’t have to be African to tell African stories—but you do need to respect the people in them. That means involving them, quoting them, letting their voices lead. Anything else is just performance.

Give the Mic to Africans

There are writers, artists, thinkers, and change-makers across the continent already telling our stories with nuance and fire. They exist. They’re doing the work.

Support them. Hire them. Amplify them. You’re not doing us a favour. You’re just doing it right.

In The End…

Talking to Africa with respect is simple:

Stop generalizing.

Stop pitying.

Stop writing like we’re a tragedy in motion.

Instead, be honest. Be curious. Be quiet sometimes. Let the people in the story speak for themselves.

Because storytelling isn’t just about words. It’s about power. And it’s time we started using it better.