Recently, one of my co-workers took a pilgrimage to Africa to teach people things. It stuck in my craw at the time though I didn’t allow it much attention. As the logjam of stuff that bugs begins to loosen it finds itself in the forefront of my thinking. Specifically, why are we still in that mindset? This idea of white males going to Africa to ‘fix’ things or ‘educate’ the people is older than the United States… heck it is older than the Americas (in our cultural understanding of settlers that is). Yet it persists. It persists to the point that we are still sending middle-aged white men over on their pilgrimages to civilize the savages. Let me begin by saying the continent of Africa is not by and large savage. It is not civil by North American standards either. I think a lot of what we see as savagery is merely a failure to accept a preponderance of non-white faces. Consider this: India is also viewed in this fashion. China to a certain extent but more as a threat because we, as “Americans” view Chinese as intelligent and organized and thus threatening. It really continues to boil down to a level of racism. I mean, what makes Russia less threatening?
I’ll let that comment stir in the ether for a while. We can come back to it in a year once we’ve decided where “we” stand with Putin. However, I was and am bothered by this simple pilgrimage because it highlights the aforementioned problems and simultaneously ignores the problems we have here at home. You don’t need to go to Africa. You need to go to Northern Arizona. Time and again I watch the people around me try to personally solve problems far from home and rely on their government to solve the problems right here or next door. It isn’t working. We aren’t fixing anything or anyone in this manner.
Some Thoughts:
- Yeah, I was getting on a rant there. I needed to get it out, but ranting is also not the answer. I don’t have the answer… Perhaps acknowledging that is a step in the right direction.
- Often stereotypes are based on outliers. I think this is true of most stereotypes. You take the worst of a type and make it seem as though it is the standard in order to key in the fight or flight response or, at the very least, teach others how to act around that type. It occurs to me that my ex wife is the living breathing stereotype of what we think of as the terrible ex wife…