Oooh yes.

[la_vie_noire]

Via laurus_nobilis:

What's Wrong With #FirstWorldProblems.

I don't like this expression "First World problems." It is false and it is condescending. Yes, Nigerians struggle with floods or infant mortality. But these same Nigerians also deal with mundane and seemingly luxurious hassles. Connectivity issues on your BlackBerry, cost of car repair, how to sync your iPad, what brand of noodles to buy: Third World problems. All the silly stuff of life doesn't disappear just because you're black and live in a poorer country. People in the richer nations need a more robust sense of the lives being lived in the darker nations. Here's a First World problem: the inability to see that others are as fully complex and as keen on technology and pleasure as you are.

One event that illustrated the gap between the Africa of conjecture and the real Africa was the BlackBerry outage of a few weeks ago. Who would have thought Research In Motion's technical issues would cause so much annoyance and inconvenience in a place like Lagos? But of course it did, because people don't wake up with "poor African" pasted on their foreheads. They live as citizens of the modern world. None of this is to deny the existence of social stratification and elite structures here. There are lifestyles of the rich and famous, sure. But the interesting thing about modern technology is how socially mobile it is--quite literally. Everyone in Lagos has a phone.

Comments

Yes...

[ysabetwordsmith]

I also don't like the way it trivializes other types of problems. If you work online, and the service goes out, you CAN'T WORK. Not being able to work is a very basic threat to human livelihood. If you don't have insurance in America, you can easily die of treatable health problems. Problems are problems, some bigger, some smaller, but all important to the people who face them. Where you live doesn't necessarily determine what they are.

Playing "my pain is bigger than yours" consistently leads to FAIL.

[laurus_nobilis]

Thanks for passing it on! ♥