the last book I ever read (The Rumble in the Jungle: Muhammad Ali & George Foreman on the Global Stage, excerpt five)

from The Rumble in the Jungle: Muhammad Ali & George Foreman on the Global Stage by Lewis A. Erenberg:

When the Congo achieved its independence in 1960, white Americans viewed the political infighting through a Cold War lens deeply influenced by the colonial discourse. Molded by book and movies such as Tarzan of the Apes (1912), King Solomon’s Mines (1950), Watusi (1959), Something of Value (1957), and Congo Crossing (1956), white—and many black—Americans continued to see black Africans as naked, illiterate, and emotional savages prone to irrational revolt. Indeed, US officials depicted Lumumba, who rejected the colonial discourse of white paternalistic leadership, as the devil and equated him with a history of black African savagery and chaos. Without a strong man friendly to the United States in charge, the Russians would have taken over. After all, Africans could not rule themselves.