September 30, 2016 - 17:35
“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 that appropriate measures had to be taken to eradicate the atrocities caused by the warlord, Joseph Kony. Placing myself in the Cole’s shoes, would I give a donation in support of the emaciated 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 to the victims, but they were entrapped in their 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 continues 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. 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 iron things out 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.