As the daughter of Congolese immigrants, I'm aware, informed, and proud of my heritage. I'm also open to sharing and celebrating my culture with other people because I've seen and lived in the beauty of my country. The stigma around Africa is that it's full of impoverished people living with animals but that isn't all of Africa.
Yes there are countries that are still in poverty but that's due to the government and environment but that's a whole other discussion for another day. But there are beautiful places that make every country in the continent beautiful in its own individual way. So when I see pictures like these, I rightfully offended and pissed off.
So this past week, there was photos of a travel vlogger trending on Twitter calling her out for insensitive use of local people in their element as her backdrop for her vacation photos for Instagram. You can clearly tell that the people in the back are annoyed and have seen people like this woman do this before.
Now people have been asking how I felt about these pictures and I'm going to give you my honest opinion. For one, when I look at these pictures, I see somebody from another country flaunting their wealth and taking pictures to stunt for their followers. Two, when you go to another country you respect the local people and not use them or their neighborhood as a backdrop. And three, the local's faces can tell you that they tired of it. They rather you buy their food rather than going around, touch food their selling and use it as a prop.
This is one of the many reasons why there are some Africans who have animosity when African Americans come over to visit the motherland. A lot of the times they want to show pictures just to prove that they been there. I could go deeper into it but the point of the matter is that poverty is not an aesthetic. You can go visit a country, tour the scenery, eat food, take memorable pictures. But do not make a person's environment as your personal photo shoot
So the next time you go to a country in Africa, be considerate and respectful of other people and not use it as a reason to stunt for the gram.
