PITY IS NOT

PROSPERITY

ISSUE V.X.VII.

basi uhuru pete

WORLD

...IN THE END, THESE PEOPLE DO NOT NEED

OUR SHORT SPRINTS OF PASSION, BUT OUR
LUNGS AND LEGS OF ENDURANCE.

by meredith whitlock
design ann kennedy

photo evan schneider and

p . mugabane

Last year, I attended a lecture at the Memorial Union

as a part of World AIDS Awareness Week. The lecture
surrounded a discussion about ending AIDS and
malnutrition, and was presented by Ken Patterson, an
activist and former Peace Corps volunteer. I arrived
right on time and was surprised, yet pleased, to find the
room packed with students. From the very beginning,
Pattersons passion resonated. He told personal stories
of his volunteer experience, and it was difficult to not
feel heartbreak as he retold a story of an infant dying
in his arms due to lack of proper medical assistance.
Throughout the presentation, he flashed pictures of
African children stricken with poverty and crying on
the dusty streets from sickness and starvation, as well
as a YouTube video time line of a woman suffering from
HIV. The video was heartbreaking; watching a human life
deteriorate before your eyes from an illness that, if treated
with the right medication, could have been prevented
from having such extreme effects. He had the entire
room gasping in their seats, nodding their heads in
disbelief because they understood these extremes face
people in underdeveloped countries each and every day.
And he is right. There are people across the world
suffering from diseases, malnutrition, and severe poverty.
However, by presenting his images this way, the only
concept he is etching into peoples minds is pity.

UHURU | FALL 2014 | 19

THE ONLY CONCEPT HE

IS ETCHING INTO PEOPLES
MINDS IS PITY.

Western culture, especially within our generation,

believes we have the power for change, and we do but
what keeps us from exacting that change is our western
ideology of pity. This idea that underdeveloped countries
need to be pitied and saved by westerners is what needs
to fundamentally change. The pictures were meant to
portray the hardship and poverty, but those photos do
not represent the continent as a whole. There is also
happiness, hope, spirit, and love. We cannot deny that
they are faced with extreme hardships, but there are
people going through severe hardships within our own
country as well. And while they are pitied, we are coined
the land of opportunity and wealth. Who are we to
stamp an entire continent with the connotation as a
place deprived of hopefulness?
It is important to stress the hardship and extreme poverty
within African countries as a way to inform people and
to rally their support for change. However, we must take
off the mask of pity and look underneath to understand
the truth of why there is so much poverty, malnutrition,
and disease in those areas. Images of the extremes
without further explanation numb our society to the
truth that these are real people. They are more than
just their adversities.

Year after year, people

travel to Africa in hopes
of helping bring change
to communities, but that
does not always lead to
sustainable prosperity.
Sure, spending a few
weeks at a time building
schools and teaching
students provides
significant help, but once
you leave, so does that
help. If we were to invest
in the community instead
of just visit, we could hire
local workers to build up
and assist the community.
We could sponsor teachers
to help teach adults, as
well as children within
communities so that
education could be passed
down continuously from
generation to generation.
We could encourage
support from communities
in surrounding areas
because not every
African community
is impoverished.
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We need to facilitate
actual permanent change
within local communities
by understanding the
needs of the individual
places. The people deserve
to be helped with longlasting efforts and to
see change within their
community not brought
to them from westerners,
but brought on by
themselves with assistance
and generosity. We need
to educate communities
so that when we leave,
students will look at their
teachers as mentors.
We must invest time into
community development
so that the structure will
continuously improve.
This cycle will build trust

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and confidence so children will not grow up thinking

prosperity comes only from westerners, but from their
own dreams and hard work.
My goal is not to scold the efforts being done, but to
encourage an ideological change in our western culture.
We need to start educating ourselves beyond the surface
of global poverty and dig deeper into efforts that provide
real, lasting change. Africans do not need to be pitied;
they need you to understand that there is opportunity
within that can initiate change.
So, I challenge all of us to be more aware of longlasting, sustainable change that can help underdeveloped
countries prosper, because, in the end, these people do not
need our short sprints of passion, but our lungs and legs
of endurance.

IF WE WERE TO INVEST INTO THE

COMMUNITY INSTEAD OF JUST VISIT,
WE COULD HIRE LOCAL WORKERS TO
BUILD UP AND ASSIST THE COMMUNITY.