So, naturally I try to dismiss them.
They're wrong.
They're not giving enough credit where credit is due.
They're diminishing the good that comes from them, by only focusing on the bad.
They make me uncomfortable--they hit a little too close to home.
They nag me when I read another article that offers a different voice and perspective on the same issue.
They become the gravel in my shoe. I pull it off and shake it out; place the shoe back on my foot expecting sweet relief, but despite the efforts of gravity, the gravel remains.
They even nag me in the shower.
Moral of the story is, when I hold onto something for so long, trying to deconstruct and discredit it, I come to realize how important the idea I'm trying to dismiss, really is.
Last week I had a totally inappropriate moment where a conversation with a good friend about the amazing (yet rightly controversial) Orange is the New Black turned into some pretty personal moments of realization and quarter-life crisis all rolled up into one. Luckily, my guy is awesome and potentially the most non-judgmental, thoughtful, most affirming dude I've ever met, so he handled my weird rant/ emotional outbreak very well, all considering.
The conversation started praising the show for its obvious awesomeness, but also keeping in mind the problems associated with framing so many women from different racial, social, socioeconomic, even gendered backgrounds through the perspective of a white middle class woman. From that, we began talking about the problematic nature of white voices telling black stories.
A long debate ensued. After which I was worked up and started talking about the work I used to do at LWR. I worked in Communications and Marketing where I relayed stories about struggling families, groups of people fighting off poverty, disease, and death and wrapped up their lives in very marketable, very sell-able packages. Bow and everything. (Seriously, a source once cited me and my blog posts calling me an aid worker in Africa. I've obviously never been to Africa, yet.) I've often acknowledged on some level that by taking someone's story and "giving a voice to the voiceless," I'm turning those people and their experiences into commodities. I'm selling them to constituents. But this time it actually hit me, and it hit me hard. I'm selling these stories.
If that doesn't sound heinous, take another moment and let it sink in.
I'm taking a person and essentially selling her/him/ze.
Are you fully disgusted? Or are you just laughing because writing about someone's life doesn't reeeeallly do any harm, right? How could it?
And those used to be my thoughts. If I'm using your story to raise money, and that money is going to help you, or others like you, how can that possibly be that bad? We're saving lives..sooo
I've always acknowledged that development work is harmful on many levels but have always kept a nugget of optimism in my heart. Good comes from it, so many lives are saved from the aid and sustainable developmental efforts. Giving resources, offering foundational support, sharing skills, and knowledge, training people in country to perform certain tasks--these are the ways we facilitate good, ground up development and positive change. So much beautiful
And yet, my head was spinning. The reason that I've always wanted to work in development is because in my mind it offers the littlest bit of atonement for all of the travesty, the exploitation, the detriment we as the US has caused other countries. Past tense and present.
Development work--even through the guise of the good organizations that boast sustainable development is case and point foreign hand and foreign interest, also an extension of the Federal Government, the funders, of the people with money making decisions to impact the lives of those we hold power over. We are the real voices determining what change will take place, determining what resources will be given. We create and plan projects, we choose how to implement them--and after a long horrible history of giving people what they don't need or want, failed seed and crop experiments, mono-cropping devastation, terrible influences of the IMF and World Bank, we watch the Global South fail over and over again. We are the ones who are failing our brothers and sisters across the globe. Yet, its profitable for us to do this, and so we continue to exploit under the guise of life-saving--we are the ones who get countries hooked on our aid without ever working towards real systemic change. We are the ones who should be deeply ashamed. Our foreign hand has caused more detriment than we can probably even fully understand.
I was part of a pretty amazing book club last year where we read The Revolution will not be Funded written about the Non-Profit Industrial Complex and while there were some really amazing/ revolutionary ideas in the book, I was pretty much alone in camp where I believed that non-profits though flawed, were doing what they were made to do (fill the gaps that the government can't as well as, provide resources to those who need them) and that they are generally forces of good!
The book, and the rest of my club argued that while that was the original intention for non-profits, they should now be geared towards more radical and revolutionary means--they should work to create active change at systematic levels. That non-profits have grown into organizations that instead of solving root issues of problems, they keep people trapped in cyclical problematic patterns of poverty etc. Non-profits are often so concerned with where their next funding comes from, they are unable to fully do their jobs and commit to their missions. They are always chasing funding.That non-profits are completely controlled by that very funding and often are an extension of the government or governmental issues when receiving grants (that most rely on), and restricted funding which leads to mission creep.
These points nagged at me continuously. My life has always followed a path that would take me straight to non-profit work, how could it really be so problematic?
The issues I've been struggling to come to terms with for 2 years all hit me at once. All those nagging thoughts that I'd wall-papered over with beautiful hope came crashing down during this interaction that was supposed to be an easygoing talk about a show I like.
Suddenly, in a moment of clarity during our conversation, I understood it all perfectly.
Development work is inherently tied to continuing the disempowerment of those already "less powerful," it is controlled by those in power, ie those with money--it is an extension of our federal government which has been a key player in the exploitation of the Global South and its people since..the rise of capitalism. I'm going into the Peace Corps in a little over a month and one major motivation was to learn how to "do development work right." I wanted to go to school for it. I wanted to dedicate my life to this piece of atonement--to create positive change in people's lives. Yet, development is completely controlled by self interest and money. I will never be able to work in an organization that is not controlled by or part of that system.
My world shattered around me. Everything I've wanted to dedicate my life too--every nagging element of these arguments I'd been fighting against suddenly fused together in a singular moment of understanding.
I've never felt so depressed, so helpless, or so full of emotion. It literally took me years to get it.. and took all of my willpower to resist tears in that moment.
And so, I've spent the last week or so trying to figure out where I go from here.
All I've come up with is gratitude. For my friends and our conversations, for the brilliant minds who I'm able to read every day, for articles that change and develop my understanding of the world, and for my nagging conscience and my constant desire to discover and challenge. I'm grateful for the growth I resisted for two years and for the possibilities that will arise from truly examining it.
Despite being heartbroken over this conversation and what it means for me and my future, I'm deeply grateful for understanding the world in a different way, for recognizing the harmful cycle of systemic injustice and maybe finding a way to live that doesn't play into it.
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