The Barefoot Lie

The way the world sees Africa, and the way it sees black people in general, did not come from nowhere.

A friend told me his five year old daughter asked him whether Africans wear shoes.

I know that question. I grew up on television that gave me Tarzan, and Tarzan gave a whole generation its picture of Africa and African people. So the question was familiar. When I started leading groups to Ghana in 2007, potential travelers asked me things that revealed h…