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.

This happened here.

Now, save me from the assholery of the middle/high classed non-indigenous people I know and FB contacts (and non-contacts, there is this racist, UBER ANNOYING guy in my school who fancies himself an intellectual, believes is better than everyone, is SO ENTITLED that everyone has to heard him/ read him because he loves European culture and has an obsession with me reading every shit he writes, even when I already deleted him from my contacts, man, I just need to vent againts these kind of assholes because everybody in my rl LOVES THEM) who believe is THEIR RIGHT to have a park... without indigenous people. Because "indians make it dirty."

Of course, they don't care and won't move a finger about the racism, the classism, the awful conditions in which indigenous people live and how are abused in this country. But they want a park for themselves. And "Indians abuse of the park!" Even when most of these assholes won't even put a feet in that park in most of their lives. Mind you, they live in other cities and stuff.

Also. The Municipality PUT BARS in a public Park just to keep protesters away from it. Protesters who are indigenous people and Sin Techo who inhabit the park until someone from the government carry out their pledges. (Ans you imagine, middle classes are bothered that poor people are living in the park.)

First of all: The two essays linked in this post talk about rape and sexual abuse and are BIG TRIGGERS.

I’m Gonna Need You to Fight Me On This: How Violent Sex Helped Ease My PTSD is an essay Mac McClelland wrote talking about her PTSD. And mind you, I didn't want to trivialize it or say something that could led to the interpretation she had no right to experience PTSD so didn't want to talk about this in public.

The race and class privilege in her essay made me uneasy: her trauma was about being exposed to the trauma of Haitian people (which, of course, she has every right to feel); the way she wrote about that, specially about other woman whose experience was.... actually more traumatic than hers, was trivializing and insulting.

But then eccentricyoruba linked me to this:

Edwidge Danticat Speaks on Mac McClelland Essay.

The woman whom McClelland talked about said this:

The full text of the letter in K*'s own handwriting is attached and is written in Haitian Creole. It says:

You have no right to speak of my story.
You have no right to publish my story in the press
Because I did not give you authorization.
You have no right. I did not speak to you.
You have said things you should not have said.
Thank you

Which is just damn awful.

Danticat says this:

I have K*'s permission to publish this letter and to talk about K* because she is angry at the way Ms. McClelland has portrayed her in the tweets, has ignored the wishes of her letter and continues to make K* part of her story.

This week, K* wrote me an e-mail from Port-au-Prince saying, “I want victims in Haiti to know that they can be strong and stand up for their rights and have a voice. Our choices about when and how our story is told must be respected."

Everything I hate about middle-classed privileged feminists. (Trigger warning for talk about abusive relationships.) Seriously.

Dude. "People who don’t brush their teeth or change their clothes for days on end and reside in a place that reeks of cat piss..." (Homeless people? Poor people?)

"People who write to advice columnists whining about how their stay-at-home wives — who iron their shirts, make their lunch every day and care for the kids — sometimes leave shoes in the hallway." (I don't even know what she means with this.)

Also, people in abusive relationships? It's WAY more complicated than that. "Dump them" sometimes isn't even an option. Stupid, stupid naive rich feminists.

That's it. I stop following this shit.

Don’t Be Like Che.

Every time I see some privileged person protest touring, I think of Che. Every time I hear about some insurrectionists starting shit in other people’s neighborhoods, I think of Che. Every time some twenty-something white dudes audaciously roll into a room like they have all the answers – summarily dismissing the experience and knowledge of everyone else there – I think of Che. Every time I see some supposed radicals who can’t recognize how inappropriate it is to “lead” or “save” or “help” the poor people or black people or brown people, without bothering to ask their opinion about it, I think of Che.

I do admire Che’s willingness to give up so much of his privilege, to suffer and sacrifice for his beliefs. But a person can never give up all their privileges. And he certainly didn’t lose the false sense of superiority that comes with having been told all your life that you are at the top of the food chain. We don’t need more arrogance, racism, cultural insensitivity, machismo, violence, and sexism. That might get your mug on a t-shirt someday, but it isn’t going to make the world a better place.

Fukushima 50 battle radiation risks as Japan nuclear crisis deepens.

Between 50 and 70 employees – now known in English as the Fukushima 50 – all in protective gear, were left at the plant to battle myriad problems. Some are assessing the damage and radiation levels caused by the explosions, while others cool stricken reactors with seawater to try to avert a potentially catastrophic release of radiation.

The workers are the nuclear power industry's equivalent of frontline soldiers, exposing themselves to considerable risks while about 800 of their evacuated colleagues watch from a safe distance. Fifteen people on the site, including members of the self-defence force, have been injured in the blasts.

Zimbabwe’s blood diamonds.

Much has been written about conflict—or "blood”—resources such as coltan, a mineral used in the manufacture of electronics, and diamonds, from Zimbabwe to the Democratic Republic of Congo to Sierra Leone. Far less information, however, has been provided about the broader processes that facilitate and finance conflicts in these places. It is rare that the questions "In whose interest?" or "For whose benefit?" are posed.

Mako me mandó esta página de "Médicos Sin Fronteras" muy iluminante, si alguien tenía alguna duda: Pastillas Contra el Dolor Ajeno.

En el primer mundo, si te duele algo hay pastillas para mitigar casi cualquier dolor. Pero... ¿qué pasa si lo que te duele es el dolor ajeno, el dolor de los que no tienen pastillas para curar su sufrimiento?

¿No es genial, que nosotros que tenemos pastillas de casi todo, podamos tomarnos una para calmar el dolor de los que no tienen?

Uhm. Uuuuhm.

Si decides colaborar en esta causa, es porque seguramente sufres de dolor ajeno, una dolencia que afecta, de forma casi endémica, al mundo desarrollado. Si sientes molestias, irritabilidad, sensibilidad... ante el sufrimiento de los enfermos más desfavorecidos, puede que estés contagiado.

O sea que, déjenme ver esto. La metáfora de esta campaña es "curar" la "dolencia" de la gente primermundista rica que tiene que "soportar" vivir en el mismo mundo que esos pobres tercermundistas.

O, como Mako dijo:

Si, para, tan emocionales los primermundiastas que se compadecen ante sus inmigrantes, y sienten tanto dolor ajeno que se quejan cuando sus paises presionan y boicotean las industrias, economias y recursos de "los pobres paises sin desarrollo" XD
son tremendos -.-

Y ni tengo que decir cuan insultante son esta clase de cosas, en quién se centran y a quién deshumanizan y convierten en El Otro.

El video es sobre un rico director de cine y como "toma sus pastillas" para ayudar a disminuir el "dolor ajeno" y lo bien que le hacen. Con mucama y todo. Significa: debemos sentir inspiración, admiración y agradecimiento por la forma en que ayudan desde sus mansiones.

Y de verdad, forma de trivializar la estructura de la falta de medicamentos en los países en desarrollo.

Justo ahora Privilege Denying Dude no está disponible porque tumblr se ha caído.