ugh

One of the problems arising from the paternalism of the white mans burden and the influence appeals to white guilt have on white/ black and global north /global south relations is the notion that just because a person wishes to “do something” that they are helping.

What is helpful must be determined by the people recieving the aid. Almost without fail what the people say is most helpful is redistributive measures coupled with building sustainiable institutions.

The underlying problem of course is that Africa is used as a vehicle for people like Bono to be better humans. These helpers have no intention of giving up their right to determine what is helpful or not because their reward psychologically is exactly that high they get from helping “the lessers.”

It serves to reinforce ther notion of themselves as “good” humans, Christians, or activists…while sustaining and maintaining a dependant client.

Until this cycle is broken and the power to determine what is necessary is placed into the hands of the human beings in poverty (who, as Kenyon said, have been put there by the theft of their money and natural recources by centuries of colonialism and neocolonialism) we will continue to see the same patterns.

I’ll take ten dollars worth of rescources from your nation or community through institutional and political means backed by military force…

then I’ll give you back one dollar to assuage my guilt and show that Im not as bad as the guys (normally called corporations ) that do the taking.

The structural adjustment programs of the IMF are a global manifestation of the same prejudices which created the Indian Ring and what Malcolm called the “Liberal Power Structure” here in the US.

Deep down…

They would ask what someone in Norway, or France thought they needed.

They dont ask in Africa because they dont think they have they wherewithal to make those determinations.

The educated, privileged and yes..the white are to determine whats “best” for them. Because if they knew they wouldnt be in the situation they are in.

Of course no one comes out and SAYS this…

Which of course neglects the role of the colonizing nations in creating the poverty that the few concious and committed people try so valiantly to combat.

Poverty in Africa has a 500 year history.

I just wanted to throw out that there are some very cool ways to support local, independent, initiatives in Africa and other parts of the world.

I encourage you to check out the website http://www.kiva.org.

Kiva let’s you connect with and invest in unique small businesses in the developing world.

You can see the businesses I’ve invested in at:
http://www.kiva.org/lender/davidmariner

Cheers,

David

The people who live in Africa know their continent best, and they do not need to be preached to by Hollywood celebrities. Africa does not need celebrity photo opportunities. It needs foreign investment and development, the same as any nation including America needs.

Anyway, I am contacting political bloggers around the country, and I apologize in advance if my request is redundant.

I would like it very much if you would go to http://www.bloggerschoiceawards.com/blogs/show/21020 and vote for me for best political blog and best overall blog as well, IF AND ONLY IF you feel my blog is of a high quality. I really think I have a legitimate shot at winning. If you are open to spreading the word, that would be cool as well.

Thank you.

eric aka http://www.blacktygrrrr.wordpress.com

My comment actually agrees with you, I believe that if one just gives money to a cause the problem (poverty in this case) will continue because we have to target the aid to help Africans solve the problems that plague the country.

I feel as though this famous Chinese Proverb is particularly poignant, “Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach him how to fish and he will eat for a lifetime.” To truly help those around us we need to stop giving them fish we need buy them rods, nets, and boats; so they can sustain themselves. If we really cared, we would be doing that.

I noticed throughout your comment, you took parts of my comments and put a spin on them as if they were coming out of the mouth of the stereotypical “mullet donning, white southerner.” I am far from that my friend, when you speak of people of color and of the poor; you are preaching the story of my life. I was once homeless and in need of aid my own aid; and to go through that as a young African-American was not an easy thing for me. So do not try to pigeonhole someone when you do not know them or their background.

I don’t think Africans at the conference were saying that they don’t need resources. They’re saying they need the kind of resources to encourage the innovations that are already happening within the continent–not the kind that simply provide grains of rice during famine, rather than creating sustainable food and farming infrastructure.

For instance, I heard a South Asian (American) freelance television reporter who was in Niger at the same time Anderson Cooper was there during their famine last year. She said that the problem was not weather that ruined crops. There was plenty of food in marketplaces, but the prices (set by World Bank and IMF programs) were so high people could not afford it. So “aid” in this sense has actually caused or helped t exacerbate the problem, not solve it.

When people talk about “throwing money at the problem”–that is such a racist and disingenuous notion. When rich white people send their kids to prep schools, they’re throwing money at the problem! It only becomes “throwing money” when its people of color, usually poor and usually blacks, who people have no interest in assisting.

Africans do need resources but the notion of “aid” needs to be re-examined.

There is not “always going to be a problem.” To say so, in the way that you mean it, is to suggest that poverty is somehow a natural state of being, rather than a situation imposed on certain groups of people by political, social and economic structures.

Thanks for sharing!