They believe Africa is a whole country rather than a continent and they believe to live in Africa and to be an African means you live in pure poverty and starve like the children we see in commercials. The problem Americans have when we think about what Africa is to us, is that the media has painted an image in our head about what Africa is when we have not been able to learn for ourselves. American commercials are just one example of why African-Americans have such a tainted example of how African immigrants live back in their home country. Americans have so many misconceptions about Africa simply due to the way Africa is shown in movies or on TV that many of them would be astonished to know the real facts.
In discussing certain media, the news has also fueled the bias beliefs between African- Americans and African Immigrants. Right now, many Americans are acting with complete ignorance because the news has not stopped talking about the Ebola virus that is said to have started in Africa. Now people are starting to connect all Africans with disease just because the news has poisoned our minds to think this way. Even on social sites like Instagram, you can't scroll down your timeline without seeing a picture with an ignorant joke about Ebola in it. I could only imagine how awful it would be to be an African immigrant coming to America with all the Ebola rumors that all Africans carry the disease.
The divide between Africans and African-Americans comes from so many different sources and each person has their own opinions on why they feel the way they do about the other. Perhaps one of the reasons African-Americans and Africans don't get along because they do not know the history of each other. Sure Americans know Africans were brought here to be slaves but what do we know about Africans? And what don't they know about us?.
The biggest surprise to African-Americans or even Americans just in general, is that there are also white people in Africa.