
People of Africa (1921) - tux
https://readtext.org/history/people-of-africa/
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zfell
This article is a great example of the kind of brain-washing that took place
historically to justify inhumane actions. It gives very little attention to
historical facts.

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B1FF_PSUVM
Good thing that does not apply to the output of the TV and movie industries.

I'd be worried.

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stuxnet79
Sarcasm right? I'm not even sure these days with the stuff I read on HN.

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B1FF_PSUVM
Yeah, we poor fish tend to be a bit oblivious of the water ;-)

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webwielder2
Funny how the third paragraph comes to essentially the same conclusion as
Pulitzer Prize winner Guns, Germs, and Steel.

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jbattle
This is interesting reading. Such subtle and comprehensive propaganda. Anyone
know more about this book? It seems to have been written by an English woman
with a target audience of ??? Africans?

I thought it might be a sort of catalogue of the British empire in Africa, but
I don't think the British had much presence in the Congo.

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cb18
The very first paragraph explains in detail that yes, the target audience is
Africans.

 _It is hoped that this book and its companion volume dealing with non-African
peoples will be the beginning of a series of simple, readable accounts for
Africans of some of the various objects of general interest in the world of
to-day. There are many such works published for the use of English and
American children. But the native African has a totally different experience
of life, and much that is taken for granted by a child of a Northern civilized
land needs explanation to one used to tropical uncivilized surroundings.
Again, the African knows the essential operations of everyday life in their
simplest form, whereas the European knows them disguised by an elaborate
industrial system. All this makes books written for English children almost
unintelligible to a member of a primitive race._

Why do you call it propaganda, comprehensive propaganda no less, without
having seem to have even read it very closely?

People just seem to be having this knee-jerk reaction to it in order to signal
their adherence to the modern Regressive dogma.

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jbattle
I'm wondering who exactly the target audience was. School children? University
students? The general reading public?

And yeah for sure it is propaganda. It is clearly trying to tell a pretty
standard colonialist narrative that "Africa is a lovely place, too bad the
Africans couldn't get their act together. It's OK though, the friendly,
altruistic Europeans are here to educate and civilize the locals".

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stuxnet79
Very surprised that this made it to HN, but I wouldn't be shocked if it didn't
spur any meaningful discussion considering how insular HN is. Labelling any
post with "Africa" is the kiss of death in these parts.

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roninb
I mostly lurk here but I see far more comments like this, essentially baiting
arguments about touchy subjects like race, gender, sexuality, and the like. I
suppose it's more me inferring that it's from a "cis, white male" perspective
more than you imply it by quoting Africa like it's not a real place...

