If Africa were white...

GreenTeaDisease

Heineken Helen wrote:

What I wanna know is why does this make us care less?

I really believe it doesn't make me care less. I really think I would care the same if the people in africa were white. I think race has had more to do with the actual *causes* of the problems in the first place, thanks to imperialism and it's lasting effects on people, governments, etc. and this has led to conflict and corruption which have feedback effects with starvation and disease and the continuing circle.

harmless_little_f***

I don't think it's a race issue, we are equally apathetic to extreme poverty in Britain and Europe... Bosnia and other parts of Eastern Europe for example. The problem is larger; we find it convenient to ignore things which aren't happening on our doortstep. Indeed, sometimes we're willfully ignoring poverty which is on our own doorsteps by the way we choose to live.

GreenTeaDisease

harmless_little_f*** wrote:

I don't think it's a race issue, we are equally apathetic to extreme poverty in Britain and Europe... Bosnia and other parts of Eastern Europe for example. The problem is larger; we find it convenient to ignore things which aren't happening on our doortstep.

yeah I agree with this interpretation. At christmas I usually donate to charities that help people in developing countries and my mum always says "what are you doing that for, shouldn't you be helping people around here?" I do local stuff as well, but the poorest kid ever living in the US has it a million times better than most of the populations of some of these subsaharan countries.

LONGRD

Heineken Helen wrote:

Yes, that's what I was saying... that people become accustomed to it and it just becomes 'yet another black kid with the flies and all'. If the child were white, I think much more people could relate... the kid may remind them of their daughter or a neighbours kid... but Africa just seems so far removed. It's hard to relate those images to anything we know!

interest video i watched a couple of months ago and glad i found it again.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFj0HdW2iDs

this is just as bad as apartheid. i doubt i'll see any positive changes in any under-developed countries in Africa, Southeast Asia, and S. America.

No matter how hard we try to help, it will be up to their own officials and higher power people to make the changes for balance.

Jeremy1012

GreenTeaDisease wrote:

yeah I agree with this interpretation. At christmas I usually donate to charities that help people in developing countries and my mum always says "what are you doing that for, shouldn't you be helping people around here?" I do local stuff as well, but the poorest kid ever living in the US has it a million times better than most of the populations of some of these subsaharan countries.

This is a very, VERY good point.

LONGRD

GreenTeaDisease wrote:

yeah I agree with this interpretation. At christmas I usually donate to charities that help people in developing countries and my mum always says "what are you doing that for, shouldn't you be helping people around here?" I do local stuff as well, but the poorest kid ever living in the US has it a million times better than most of the populations of some of these subsaharan countries.

true...i've seen it all, smelt it all, felt it all.

decides2dream

GreenTeaDisease wrote:

yeah I agree with this interpretation. At christmas I usually donate to charities that help people in developing countries and my mum always says "what are you doing that for, shouldn't you be helping people around here?" I do local stuff as well, but the poorest kid ever living in the US has it a million times better than most of the populations of some of these subsaharan countries.

agreed.
i also agree, imo anyway, it is not a race issue, at all. once upon a time perhaps...but nowadays i think it's overally apathy, and just the idea that all these atrocities are happening *over there*...so they seem so distant and fr-removed from the average person's life. also, we are inundated with information from everywhere now....and it may just seem overwhelming to some? so they simply tune it out. i immediately thought of bosnia when thinking about this thread topic. sadly, genocide does not seem to discriminate in as far as....it's open to all.




in regards to the amount of replies to this thread as opposed to others and using such as a 'reference' to apathy here, again, i have to disagree. this is truly quite an MT topic/discussion in the AET forum. this Is the forum overall for more light-hearted far, topics about next to nothing, etc. this is not to say that people who post here don't care...not at all....just that while visiting AET i think for most, it's more about silliness, and if/when a serious topic...it's of a much more personal, rather than global, level. people come here more often than not to laugh, to escape....to vent and release. merely my 0.02.

Bwalker545

Well I have just recently finished 15 weeks studying Genocide I think i have a pretty good perspective on the subject, and unfortunately I do not have an answer. I studied with a great Prof. and I think I will just let him do a little bit of talking for me. This goes a bit beyond the scope of this thread itself, but most of you with some interest in this subject I believe will find this article very interesting.

Finding Light in the Darkness?
http://web02.gonzaga.edu/againsthate/journal3/GHS111.pdf

JordyWordy

Magus wrote:

unfortunately I do not have an answer.

you dont have to sit an exam in it do you? HAVE AN OPINION!!!

ah no, good post, interesting topic.

prljmngrl

genocide is not strictly a "black" issue. I think the OP was being prejudistic in such an assumption.

Fifthelement

Perhaps the OP was trying to invoke the "A Time to Kill" summation. "Close your eyes . . . Now imagine that little girl was white." Not sure if that was her intent, but honestly that was the first thing that came to my mind.

Pax!

Bwalker545

No defiantly not sitting in an exam for it.
Wrote a 10 page paper on the perpetrators of the Bosnian Genocide, and my final is a take home essay, "Which of the six genocides we have studied has had the greatest effect on you and why?"
Not exactly a right or wrong answer.
Genocide is very clearly not an african issue. Genocide has happened to every race on nearly every continent. It a horrible ugly thing, but like the article says its not something that is impossible to understand, its just REALLY hard on your psyche and grasp of humanity when you start to see...

Heineken Helen

Fifthelement wrote:

There are some good points in this post but I think you have to go back further than just the last twenty-five years or so (the first Live-Aid) to put what happens now in Africa and other post-Colonial countries in perspective. I think part of the problem that Western countries have with aid to third-world countries is the fact that when many of these former countries were decolonized the colonists left them without any sustainable infrastructures (I don't mean buildings or things) but left the indigenous peoples without a way of continuing on (not that many of them wanted the reminders of their servitude). Many of the native inhabitants of post-Colonial countries reduced themselves to the us versus them i.e. Hutus versus Tutsi mentality (just as their colonists originally encouraged) it was, and often continues to be, a way of undermining meaningful growth by western standards. Many of these countries are run by corrupt regimes, warlords if you will. Any aid that does come from the UN and other agencies is often left to rot in port or sold to the highest bidders. The 'little' people often do not receive aid. Collective guilt by former colonists or a perceived white paternalistic attitude further erodes serious efforts at combating endemic death and disease in third-world countries.

Just my 2 cents.

Great topic HH.

P.S. Romeo Dallaire is a great man who couldn't deal with what he saw happening. He was forced into retirement due to severe depression brought on by his experiences in Africa. His book is an amazing wake-up call.

good post... but those of you refusing to believe that race is the... or one of the main reasons... why do you think the collective 'we' reacted in such a different manner to Bosnia? I'm now 200 pages into the book and Dallaire had informed the UN months before it all kicked off... about what was going to happen! And with pretty solid information... and yet they kept cutting his funding, removing levels of his responsibility and most of the time not even replying to his reports

Heineken Helen

harmless_little_f*** wrote:

I don't think it's a race issue, we are equally apathetic to extreme poverty in Britain and Europe... Bosnia and other parts of Eastern Europe for example. The problem is larger; we find it convenient to ignore things which aren't happening on our doortstep. Indeed, sometimes we're willfully ignoring poverty which is on our own doorsteps by the way we choose to live.

that is a good point. I guess also it's EASIER to help those who are closer. I would find it impossible to allow somebody I know, even through association, to go homeless.

I don't know though... it seems pretty clear from reading the book that, whether or not it's a race issue, the Rwandan's were definitely considered lesser people than the Bosnians. What other reason could there be?

Heineken Helen

prljmngrl wrote:

genocide is not strictly a "black" issue. I think the OP was being prejudistic in such an assumption.

where did I say it IS just a black thing? The point I'm making is that the white genocides get treated quicker and more efficiently than any of them in Africa.

harmless_little_f***

Heineken Helen wrote:

that is a good point. I guess also it's EASIER to help those who are closer. I would find it impossible to allow somebody I know, even through association, to go homeless.

I don't know though... it seems pretty clear from reading the book that, whether or not it's a race issue, the Rwandan's were definitely considered lesser people than the Bosnians. What other reason could there be?

To be honest, I'm not sure the advertising companies help much either... We're encouraged to believe that we can do something for Eastern europe. We can visit, we can help in orphanages, we can have a gap year/travel break and help with economic collapse.... an answer is within our grasp.

As far as Africa goes, we're told that 'Just your 50p a month will feed and clothe a family for a year'... 'This year, why not buy a goat instead of a cake'... and we're left thinking 'That's not real help, I'm powerless.'

even flow?

If Africa were white there would be no problems? Didnt' the whites try and make South Africa theirs? I remember a few problems.

Heineken Helen

even flow? wrote:

If Africa were white there would be no problems? Didnt' the whites try and make South Africa theirs? I remember a few problems.

that's not what I'm talking about and you know it

cornnifer

even flow? wrote:

If Africa were white there would be no problems? Didnt' the whites try and make South Africa theirs? I remember a few problems.

i guaranfuckingtee you if Africa were white we (U.S. and much of the rest of the world) would have intervened in Darfur a long fucking time ago. There's no way around that.

rebornFixer

Don't be so sure ... Yugoslavs are largely white, and not that much was done there. Perhaps more than in Africa, but not much more.
Its a more complicated situation that just race, although I am sure the latter is one factor.