December 17, 2016 - 01:45
IN COLE’S SHOES
“His good heart does not allow him to think constellationally. He does not connect the dots or see the patterns of power behind the isolated “disasters.” All he sees are hungry mouths, and he, in his own advocacy-by-journalism way is, putting food in those mouths as fast as he can. All he sees is need, and he sees no need to reason out the need for need.” (Cole 7) At first when I watched the Kony 2012 video, I supported Jason Russell’s non-profit organization, the Invisible Children. I mean, it would be so cruel not to agree with the fact that appropriate measures had to be taken to eradicate the atrocities caused by the warlord, Joseph Kony. Fitting myself in Cole’s shoes, would I give a donation in support of the suffering children? Yes, I would.
Recapping one of the earlier texts on slippage, it vividly states that, “slipping is well characterized as a form of “ecological” thinking and acting: diverse, unruly and fertile; conditional, uncertain and incomplete-an unending process, very much dependent on the unexpected.” (Dalke 254) I think Jason Russell and the supporters of the Invisible Children had fallen victims of slippage. I cannot deny the fact that they had innocent thoughts in trying to reach out and help the victims, but they were entrapped and blinded in the prime goal of doing good. They mitigated the sufferings the victims were going through and used testimonial accounts of the victims to evoke emotional reaction from the world which continued until Kony is arrested.
The White Saviour Industrial Complex tends to make me agree than differ with Teju Cole that there is much more to making a difference than doing good. Back in Kenya, there are many non-governmental organisations whose main objectives are to help the poor children in the society. Fortunately, I happen to be a beneficiary of one; Equity Group Foundation. To describe what the foundation does in a nutshell, it deploys people(ambassadors) who go out in every county in pursuit of the bright and needy students. However, them finding these children and giving them money is not their mission. They choose five from each gender and county and treat them as their own. They help them through their high school life; pay for their tuition, provide them with shopping and reading materials, counsel them and extend medical support and insurance to them. After the four years, they join the bank and work there as pre-university students. They are given a stipend every month which helps to cater for their expenses. When they are admitted to the universities, they have the chance to intern in the bank during the long holidays. The foundation has also partnered with other global institutions thus acting as mediums for their scholars to apply to those schools. See, the foundation receives grants from corporations like MasterCard, Visa and Education USA. However, they do not give this money to the students, sit down and act like the job is done. They take the initiative to share in the struggles of the scholars and understand them including their humble backgrounds. They also transform their lives by giving them motivation and providing platforms for them to establish their own lives. This way, these scholars become better people. Better than when they would be given the money and probably misuse it due to lack of knowledge or use it to solve the unending financial constraints in the family which would only last for a short while and then go back to the same poverty song.
Also, it makes me look at the bigger picture, to what level should we call out the heinous racist acts? He challenged the role played by the white activist in his quest to deliver the abducted children from the Lord’s Resistance Army. He spends so much time explaining the minutiae of his poignant tweets which had garnered diverse reactions from many people. Well, his tweets were quite controversial but truth be told, he had spilled everything into the light. He had pointed his own nuances in black and white. He says, “there is an expectation that we can talk about sins but no one must be identified as a sinner.” (Cole 5)
Before we proceed further, I think the model of activists using incentives so that they can help the ‘Third World’ countries are worth questioning. Public figures like Oprah and Kristof are willing to expose injustices only at a pay. I acknowledge that they are doing a good thing by promoting awareness but the way in which they analyse these problems downplay the real efforts needed to eradicate them. Using public awareness to evoke emotional reaction from the masses so that the US government can be compelled to help the third world countries undermines the autonomy and self-respect of the very victims.
Going back to Russell, if he and his non-profit organization really wanted to help Uganda, they would have made the Ugandan victims take control and lead themselves in the change they wanted to see. Deploying methods such as imperialism to help in the war would be to take up prejudice and promote the oppression the Ugandans have spent so much time and resources trying to overcome.
Cole says that, “if we are going to interfere in the lives of others, a little due diligence is a minimum requirement.” There is the need for us to draw boundaries when it comes to giving a helping hand. Being white or privileged doesn’t mean that you know things best. Helping anyone behoves the need to first making attempts to understand the gist of the problem before you can take action. We should not fall into the trap of ethnocentrism. We should not let our pure thoughts be corrupted by ignorance. Just like Teju Cole, I do not want to call anyone a racist, but when you are trying to help our people without knowing the cause, then you are being a racist.
Works Cited:
Teju Cole, “The White Savior Industrial Complex” The Atlantic, March 21, 2012.
Jody Cohen and Anne Dalke. Chapter 8, “Slipping.” Steal This Classroom: Teaching and Learning Unbound. New York Punctum Books. Forthcoming 2017.
Russell, Jason. “Kony2012.” http://youtu.be/Y4MnpzG5Sqc. 5 March 2012.