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Comment by scabarott | Hacker News Reader

As an African, born and bred who "looks like I came from Africa", I really really hate it when a European person writes about Africa. They tend to end up writing things like the energy and enthusiasm of the African people is inspiring as hell with no clue whatsoever how immensely condescending and patronizing that comes across. Let me transliterate that so you have a little bit of an idea: the energy and enthusiasm of European people is inspiring as hell. I know the poster is probably well meaning yet the post comes off ironically in exactly what the essay is describing - as if the poster didn't read that before saying their piece about "Africa"

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Hey, thanks for being nasty.

I know exactly what the essay was describing.

Most of the kids I played with, are probably dead. They almost certainly died horribly. Maybe some of them became child soldiers, and killed and raped. I could have gone on about how I had to treat PTSD, from my experiences over there, but I didn't think that would be helpful.

But I really appreciate your "putting me in my place." I guess I needed it.

I've often found, in my experience, that initiating a relationship on a confrontational basis, is not a particularly good idea.

Have a great day.

> Most of the kids I played with, are probably dead. They almost certainly died horribly. Maybe some of them became child soldiers, and killed and raped.

I’m also African and currently live in Ghana, and I fail to see how this is representative of the experiences of African children in general.

I do think the comment you’re replying to went a bit overboard, but I fail to see how your comment is proper rebuttal to it, which is disappointing because I was interested in how you would address his substantive point

I lived in Uganda. It was quite representative of the situation there, at the time (1973).

And...that's exactly why I didn't mention it in the first post.

I am talking about my own life, here, and the experiences that I had, and the points of view that I developed, as a result of the experiences in my life.

I'm not particularly thrilled about being told that my experiences and my life is somehow "invalid."

I wasn't speaking for anyone else. I have had family that were heavily involved in a lot of fairly fundamental African development work, anti-corruption (and anti-communist) stuff, and had to leave two countries, because of horrendous wars (Nigeria, in 1966, and Uganda, in 1973).

These were my experiences, and my words. Feel free to share your own thoughts and experiences.

Maybe their experience wasn’t representative of Ghana, but it was representative of recent history in Rwanda, Nigeria, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Chad, Mali, Angola, Eritrea, Somali, Uganda, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sudan. Maybe we shouldn’t pile on to people for sharing their life experiences.

Note that even if those countries had brutal wars, in most cases those were quite a while ago. The average child in most of those countries, currently, does not have to worry about being a child soldier.

Otherwise, then are we to lace every piece of writing about Germany with references to child soldiers simply because the Nazis used them 75 years ago?

And it wasn’t even that long ago that we had the war in the Balkans, as brutal as any in Africa, yet people don’t write about Europe as if everything should be seen through the lens of that war, do they?

I agree that Africa is a huge continent, and one person’s experience in one country at one time may differ enormously from others’, yours included. I disagree with your assertion that user scabarott made anything resembling a “substantive point” in his reply, which ignored everything ChrisMashallNY said in their comment about growing up in Africa and seemed to malign them purely on the basis of their European ancestry. You appear to be piling on based on the same sentiment. If I missed the substantive point, could you please explain it to us?

I read through this whole exchange.

If we're being completely fair here, not only did scabarott leave ChrisMashallNY's points unaddressed, but you and ChrisMashallNY seem to leave scabarott's points unaddressed. To me, it seems that entire exchange is largely emotion based lashing out. Yes, these comments make a few points on both sides here and there, but nothing really worth taking the time to address given what appear from the outside to be ingrained and intransigent attitudes toward other viewpoints among all the participating commenters.

I just shared my own experience, enthusiasm, and PoV. I wasn't in this for a fight (and I'm still not).

Of course, this being teh Internets tubes, we can't allow anything to be stated, without being weighed, valued, and judged (wanting, of course).

Don't like what I say? Ignore it. I do that, all the time. The world won't be a better place, because I want to pick a fight with someone. I try to make the world a better place, if possible. I definitely don't want to make it darker, and sincerely regret it, if I have. I won't get into a back-and-forth with someone that simply wants to use me as a foil for their own issues.

I sincerely try to be a force for good, in my Internet transactions. I am a reformed troll. I was a nasty troll, and I have a fair bit of atonement...

"Most of the kids I played with, are probably dead. They almost certainly died horribly. Maybe some of them became child soldiers, and killed and raped. I could have gone on about how I had to treat PTSD, from my experiences over there" Lol. I actually wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt. Now I don't believe you at all. And you have no idea what the essay is talking about - your post and reply could have been the entire inspiration for it.

Take it from me my friend, you know next to nothing about Africa and Africans, or how most Africans live. Your entire comment is representative of the kind of people who think they do.

A little sharp but I think you're onto something. It feels like those writers want to be even-handed when describing Africa: talk about the ills and then extend goodwill. The problem is that, because they don't know what they're talking about, they default to platitudes. Cheap, naive words which to reveal more about them than their audience. The writer implies "I know you" with emphasis on the "know" is rejected by the audience who says "You don't know us" with emphasis on the "you".

When pressed, the writers will often claim they were just "sharing their experience". But experience alone is only one part of knowledge; certainly not enough to support their original, sweeping claims. I think that's why credible writers will carefully caveat their words; they want a real connection with other people, not a fake connection that only serves the self.

Well said. In general there's no winning on boards like this. Most people here are ignorant of most of Africa and Africans in general, but that doesn't stop them from pontificating and being condescending know-it-alls

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