Take Your Cell Phone, But Leave the Goat!

When I heard that Oprah was working to educate poor African children by setting up state of the art schools, complete with technology, staff, and uniforms, my immediate reaction was, "Good for Oprah! Way to help the less fortunate." That reaction quickly morphed into the question Oprah apparently did not consider: Why? How is that going to help poor African villagers? What does a millet farmer do with his daughter's new spreadsheet skills?

Frankly, the entire idea is a cruel tease. Wave the United States flag in the faces of the world's poor, hug a few kids, and you're loved. But think about the consequences. Here in the Land of Plenty, we're fond of our slogans. We're so fond of them, in fact, that we usually end up in the rut of believing they are true. One slogan in particular comes to mind: KNOWLEDGE IS POWER.

Sure, here in the states, people with more education are likely to get better-paying, less labor-intensive jobs than those with little education. By "education," of course, I'm talking about what we refer to as the basics: reading, writing, and math. In our country, those skills are absolutely necessary to make a living, keep your home, and live a healthy life, full of food, friends, family, and fun. However, in 3rd world countries, knowing how to read, write a letter to the government, or balance a checkbook isn't going to harvest the millet, stop the spread of disease and famine, put a halt to the genital mutilation of girls, or keep your animals alive and fed so you can eat.

Here's a metaphor. You go to the hospital to visit your friend's 13 year-old son, who has had both his legs amputated. You work with his doctors to install a flat-screen television and kick-ass sound system in his hospital room. The catch is, the only thing he is allowed to watch is a video entitled, "See what you could do if you had your legs? Wouldn't it be great if you had legs?" The content of the video is comprised of a series of in-depth lessons of how to do the sweetest tricks on a skateboard, how to stand up on a surf board and ride through the green room, which is when you're riding in the tube of a monster wave. Other lessons include upbeat lessons on how to perform magic tricks using only your toes.

You can teach these kids the basic skills, and show them what life could be like if only they hadn't had the misfortune of being born into an extremely poor area of the world. You hand them the keys to succeeding in a Western economy. But if you don't give them a way to use this knowledge, you're just sort of jerking off.

Some might respond and say, "But what if they just changed the way their village works? Let's open a 7-11 and a McDonald's and see if we can't give these people jobs.

Really? Is that why Oprah opened schools for poor African children? So they'd be able to work a cash machine? Wouldn't it be better to set up villages with viable irrigation, healthy livestock, nutrient-rich soil to grow food to feed themselves and their animals? Doesn't that sound like something the extremely poor could really enjoy and appreciate?

Give a man a fish, and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he will eat forever.
Give a town a school with computers, they learn how to live. SOMEWHERE ELSE!!! Teach a town to farm and support itself, and they will eat forever.

It just makes more sense to re-think our "generocity" than to completely colonize people who have lived with famine, disease, political persecution, prejudice, genocide, and all sorts of good stuff.

It is arrogant, ignorant, and entirely inappropriate to head into a place you can't begin to understand, impose your values, and call yourself charitable. True charity isn't done out of a person's need to feel better about themselves by doing something they think is a really, really nice gesture.

True charity is seeing a genuine need and fulfilling it.

If you see a need, want to help, for crying out loud, ask the person or people if they want the kind of help you want to give. Think it through to the next step. Ask yourself, "If I do this thing for these people, how will their lives improve? Will they, in fact, improve, or am I imposing my social mores and institutions on people who live in a way I don't understand?"

Again, ignorance expressed as so-called "generocity," is still ignorance. And in this case, it is also cruel, racist (I'm not talking about skin color. I'm talking about society and nationality and geopolitical and religious differences).

It may take a village to raise a child, but it only takes a couple of goats to feed an entire village and everyone in it for weeks at a time.

If I was a student at one of those schools, as soon as I learned to write, I'd send a letter to Oprah and say, "Take your iMacs, send goats and goat food. I'd like to eat some time this month!"