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Forum: Internet Links Topic: The problem with white people started by: thibodeaux Posted by thibodeaux on Feb. 26 2014,08:23
< http://pippabiddle.com/2014....nd-boys >This is hilarious. I've always wondered what the whole point of stuff like the Peace Corps and other do-gooder organizations was. How useful could fresh-out-of-college Americans be in the 3rd world? Turns out: not very. QUOTE Our mission while at the orphanage was to build a library. Turns out that we, a group of highly educated private boarding school students were so bad at the most basic construction work that each night the men had to take down the structurally unsound bricks we had laid and rebuild the structure so that, when we woke up in the morning, we would be unaware of our failure. It is likely that this was a daily ritual. Us mixing cement and laying bricks for 6+ hours, them undoing our work after the sun set, re-laying the bricks, and then acting as if nothing had happened so that the cycle could continue. Basically, we failed at the sole purpose of our being there. It would have been more cost effective, stimulative of the local economy, and efficient for the orphanage to take our money and hire locals to do the work, but there we were trying to build straight walls without a level. Of course, as a typical liberal, the problem isn't JUST that she doesn't have skills; it's also that she...WHITE! Gasp! QUOTE I don’t want a little girl in Ghana, or Sri Lanka, or Indonesia to think of me when she wakes up each morning. I don’t want her to thank me for her education or medical care or new clothes. Even if I am providing the funds to get the ball rolling, I want her to think about her teacher, community leader, or mother. I want her to have a hero who she can relate to – who looks like her, is part of her culture, speaks her language, and who she might bump into on the way to school one morning. ... Sadly, taking part in international aid where you aren’t particularly helpful is not benign. It’s detrimental. It slows down positive growth and perpetuates the “white savior” complex that, for hundreds of years, has haunted both the countries we are trying to ‘save’ and our (more recently) own psyches. < What would Kipling think? > Even funnier: QUOTE 1 black girl who, to her frustration, was called white by almost everyone we met in Tanzania
Posted by Malcolm on Feb. 26 2014,08:36
1) This is what happens when you shortchange shop class.2) There's some biz rule somewhere, I think stated by a former IBMer, that says you can't drop new personnel in an unfamiliar environment and immediately expect them to contribute to productivity in a positive way. Posted by TheCatt on Feb. 26 2014,08:44
(thibodeaux @ Feb. 26 2014,11:23) QUOTE < http://pippabiddle.com/2014....nd-boys > This is hilarious. I've always wondered what the whole point of stuff like the Peace Corps and other do-gooder organizations was. How useful could fresh-out-of-college Americans be in the 3rd world? Turns out: not very. [quote] Our mission while at the orphanage was to build a library. Turns out that we, a group of highly educated private boarding school students were so bad at the most basic construction work that each night the men had to take down the structurally unsound bricks we had laid and rebuild the structure so that, when we woke up in the morning, we would be unaware of our failure. Admittedly, the article does leave open the possibility that it was because they were all female, not just privileged. |