Without trying to presume we at AudioPhix know the exact definition of racism and precisely what it means to be oppressed by racism, we should ask, "If someone writes a song about what is to them a mythical place, does it make them racists for doing so?" Is that the case even if some of the facts related to the place are incorrect?
The reason these questions are brought up is that Far Out Magazine's Will Howard (and no offense to the magazine or the writer, as both are usually fantastic) has a recent article implying, possibly correctly, that Toto's hit song from the 1980s, "Africa," is inherently racist. The reason is that the band was from California, had not been to Africa, and did not seem to know it well.
Does that mean songwriter David Paich was racist? He certainly did not depsrage the continent or the people who live in Africa. In fact, he wrote about the continent as some kind of ideally place.
Toto accused of racism over "Africa"
Had Paich written the song about a place that has been oppressed physically and financially for centuries, and claimed the people were bad and the place was ugly, yes. That would be horrible and racist and not worthy of being recorded, or a single release from the recording. But Paich didn't.
He wrote a tune that was somewhat inaccurate. Mount Kilimanjaro does not rise above the Serengeti. Both are found in Tanzania, but hundreds of miles apart. The lack of detail in Paich's facts must make him a racist.
In reality, it doesn't. It just makes him dishonest. He could have written about a wonderful part of his native California and made that appear dream-like. He could have written about how Antarctica is all snowy (it isn't) and made that sound wonderful. Instead, he chose Africa.
He should have at least checked his facts. Or maybe he had gone to the place he was signing about because he almost certainly could have afforded it.
Even better, he could have written a song that was not so awful. The music is weak and thin, the words unclear and nonsensical, and yet the song was extremely popular. We should blame what happened with Toto's "Africa" as much on ourselves as on the band. Does that make us racist? No. It makes us poor judges of music.