{"id":981,"date":"2010-01-25T21:25:45","date_gmt":"2010-01-26T05:25:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ethicsofisl\/?p=981"},"modified":"2010-01-25T22:52:33","modified_gmt":"2010-01-26T06:52:33","slug":"in-which-people-stand-up-and-sit-in-arm-chairs-and-yell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ethicsofisl\/2010\/01\/25\/in-which-people-stand-up-and-sit-in-arm-chairs-and-yell\/","title":{"rendered":"In which people stand up and sit in arm chairs and yell a lot"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Matt Whiteman<\/p>\n

One of our colleagues and occasional contributors, Tanja Bergen, was criticized in the Provice<\/a> today for a rant she wrote for us at 3 in the morning in which she criticizes ignorant (yet well-meaning) celebrities for oversimplifying something kind of important<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As the principal writer for this blog (and Tanja’s room mate), I want to state that I fully support 3am rants against overly-privileged people who exploit human guilt and encroach upon productive debate around something that’s already pretty awful such as mass rape in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.<\/p>\n

Never mind that the author of the article in the Province didn’t cite his sources (hint: us<\/span>), denying Tanja any sort of context for the single, cherry picked line… readers are further distracted from more pressing issues (for example, what the connections are between (trans)national corporations and conflict in the Global South, or what the United States’ real motivations for sending thousands of troops to Haiti might be<\/a>) and are reduced to squabbling over the questionable behaviour of celebrity figureheads.<\/p>\n

I do however, thank Ethan Baron for at least portraying the Africa-Canada Accountability Coalition<\/a> in a positive light, as it well deserves.<\/p>\n

Badvocacy needs to be squashed, no matter where it comes from, and that’s part of what Tanja and company do.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Here is the response I left:<\/p>\n

I love it. Armchair critics criticizing legitimate activists criticizing armchair celebrity activists criticizing rapists. I feel like I’m in a Beckett play. Or maybe Tom Stoppard.<\/p>\n

Attention all ye anonymous strangers who criticize Ms. Bergen for “blather[ing] about what other people are doing, do[ing] nothing themselves, then mov[ing] on to the next story they can critizise [sic]\u201d… pay a visit to the Africa Canada Accountability Coalition website: http:\/\/acacdrcongo.org\/ and actually look at the work being done by she and her colleagues before making accusations of armchair criticism.<\/p>\n

A question we should all ask ourselves \u2013 celebrities included – is “who is being served by my actions?\u201d We all have conflicting motivations for our behaviour, but what I do take issue with is that while lending your voice in solidarity is always well-intentioned, it is usually more harmful than helpful.<\/p>\n

It is so easy to homogenize incredible complexity, and most people do it when talking about something they don\u2019t understand. It is perfectly reasonable to criticize somebody such as Sienna Miller for perpetuating harmful stereotypes or for oversimplifying an issue as complex as rape in the DRC. Responsible advocates criticize anybody who exhibits ignorant, harmful behaviour – they don\u2019t discriminate.<\/p>\n

Of course you hear the criticism of celebrities more often. That\u2019s why they are celebrities. To accuse people of taking pot shots at celebrities is a bit of a sampling bias there folks, don\u2019tcha think?<\/p>\n

To pose the question of \u201cwho cares why anyone does charity work so long as it’s being done?\u201d is to incorrectly assume that the charity paradigm is inherently a good one. Why not focus on social justice or critical consciousness instead, which means respecting human dignity and valuing competence rather than paternalism.<\/p>\n

Or as a friend of mine rhetorically pondered: \u201cWho is served by the Make Poverty History Campaign? Why, I wonder, isn\u2019t there a campaign called Make Affluence History?”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Matt Whiteman One of our colleagues and occasional contributors, Tanja Bergen, was criticized in the Provice today for a rant she wrote for us at 3 in the morning in which she criticizes ignorant (yet well-meaning) celebrities for oversimplifying something kind of important. As the principal writer for this blog (and Tanja’s room mate), […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":720,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5916],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-debatables"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ethicsofisl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/981","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ethicsofisl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ethicsofisl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ethicsofisl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/720"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ethicsofisl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=981"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ethicsofisl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/981\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":984,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ethicsofisl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/981\/revisions\/984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ethicsofisl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ethicsofisl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ethicsofisl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}