Is the song 'Africa' racist?

Question

After all, it is sung by a bunch of white guys about a primarily black country, and seems to promote some harmful stereotypes...

Answer 1

Favorite Answer

The music video makes it pretty clear that he wants to f@ck that black librarian lady. And apparently they had a black conga player. I'd never bothered to watch that video until just now.

Answer 2

The song has its Told Story and its Intended Story. In both, we have the Narrator and the Old Man. In the former we have the Lover...while the Intended Story is that the Lover is itself the country of Africa.

Regardless of which version, no specific people are stereotyped. The Old Man simply says "It/She is waiting there for you". And the descriptions given are explicitly towards the Lover, not towards any specific or generalized people. Further, nothing described covers explicit racial features in either a positive or negative light.

Thus there's nothing explicitly racist or even racial about the song.