Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Stereotypes of Africa


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep.  Arbitrarily0  ( talk ) 04:53, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

Stereotypes of Africa
AfDs for this article: 
 * – ( View AfD View log )

This article is entirely unencyclopedic and reads like a poorly written social media posts. It is a bizarre mix of WP:CHERRYPICKING with no coherent idea. It is very short of meaningful content. For example, the entire section on the United States reads In the United States, Africa is viewed as disease-ridden and backward., for Australia and New Zealand the entire section says Australians view Africans as part of criminal gangs.[47] New Zealanders view Africans as illiterated. ([SIC]) and so on. Despite being tagged as entirely unencyclopaedic for eight months already, it remains in an appalling state. Improving it does not seem an option; with a subject as vague as this, any attempt to write an article will always run into the same cherrypicking issue. We don't have articles for stereotypes about other continents either, and I see no reason we should have this one either. It is quite possibly the worst article I've come across in ten years on Wikipedia Jeppiz (talk) 23:22, 30 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Discrimination-related deletion discussions. Shellwood (talk) 23:27, 30 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Africa-related deletion discussions. Shellwood (talk) 23:27, 30 October 2020 (UTC)


 * Keep I agree that the first part can be cut until we find some evidence that different countries hold substantially different stereotypes; most of these blurbs are redundant. But what about the "Common stereotypes" section? –LaundryPizza03 ( d c̄ ) 01:06, 31 October 2020 (UTC)
 * It is "only" bad, so not as bizarre as the rest. However, most of it deals exclusively with US stereotypes about Africa. And even there, it's still making sweeping and poorly substianted claims. Jeppiz (talk) 21:30, 31 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Out of curiousity, what could, if anything make this article redeemable for you? For example, would more precise language through citing statistics help? SacredSunflower (talk) 02:18, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Comment, this article is itself a stereotype ie. that sterotyping of Africa(ns) have only occurred in mainly late (ie. post 19th cent.) colonial times onwards. Coolabahapple (talk) 02:08, 4 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Comment The article is horribly written. The invocation of Swahili is a horrible thing to do, considering that there are essentially no speakers of Swahili in Africa's most populous country, Nigeria. This is a horrible article, it needs much more nuance. For example it is often no so much that people think of Africa as a country per se, more like various other conventions lead them to not treat Kenya, Ghana and Zimbabwe as three very distinct countries. The article needs huge amounts of improvement, but that is not reason to delete it.John Pack Lambert (talk) 13:43, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, North America1000 15:27, 6 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete per WP:TNT. There is certainly an article to be written here, but this WP:ESSAY is a quasi-random list of examples, most of which need substantially more sourcing not to constitute WP:UNDUE weight or WP:CHERRYPICKING. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 16:49, 6 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep I agree with Johnpacklambert here. It's a bad article as currently written, but that doesn't mean it should be deleted. Since there something that could be made of it. I don't think WP:TNT applies because it's such a short article. The concept is a thing though. A few possible references that could be possibly used include "Images of Africa: Stereotypes & Realities, Maybe "White on black: Images of Africa and blacks in western popular culture," There's also some stuff out there about how stereotypes played into apartheid. Although, maybe that would be "Stereotypes in Africa"? So, my recommendation is to clean it up and do another AfD in six months if things don't improve. In the meantime though AfD isn't cleanup and I'm just not convinced this isn't a notable subject. --Adamant1 (talk) 18:38, 6 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep - Sorry, but is this seriously the worst article you have ever seen? I have been on Wikipedia for less time, and this probably wouldn’t even crack my top 20. Ignoring that, however, this is a reasonably covered topic, and the idea that we don’t have stereotype pages of other regions is not true; see Stereotypes of White Americans for example. Foxnpichu (talk) 20:35, 6 November 2020 (UTC)
 * To be fair "white Americans" isn't a region. Which makes me think maybe the title of the article needs to be changed. Adamant1 (talk) 20:52, 6 November 2020 (UTC)
 * If that needs to be done, I’d be up for that. Foxnpichu (talk) 11:24, 7 November 2020 (UTC)


 * Keep: How outsiders misinterpret Africa is an enyclopedic subject, with many academic sources and a long history from colonialism to the present day. If an article is crap - and this is far from the worst I've seen - deletion is not the option, cleaning it up is. Unknown Temptation (talk) 15:26, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep per WP:BEFORE. There's literally been whole books and TV documentaries about this subject. Wikipedia is not censored from including disturbing or controversial topics; see, e.g., Hunting license, Stereotypes of white Americans, and Palestinian law. It's not so bad to meet WP:TNT. Bearian (talk) 20:44, 12 November 2020 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.