Most visibly, when Vice President Joe Biden uttered his gaffe about the “nation of Africa,” it demonstrated the compulsion to treat the continent as one undifferentiated mass. Miriem Bensalah Chaqroun, executive director of the Oulmes Water Co. and president of the Moroccan Confederation of Businesses, told me, “Perception is important. These are 54 countries and each one has specific [characteristics]. You can’t address an entire continent.” But that is precisely what Biden and President Obama did, speaking as if the same prescriptions apply everywhere.
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