I Studied Abroad in Africa!, Feeling Uncomfortable Yet?

Feeling Uncomfortable Yet?

Recent Responses to our blog show us that our readers have diverse opinions about the message Gurl Goes to Africa illustrates. As one of the creators of this blog, I’d like share my thoughts and would love to see your responses, reactions and comments.

1. Everybody is racist; it’s hard to acknowledge your own racism, but the mere use of race as a category that identifies a person, or people’s identification of race is a racist approach to constructing society. So, even if you think you’re not being racist, you are; everyone is. It’s mere existence prevents us from ever moving outside the discourse.

2. If you have a strong criticism about our blog - i.e. that we are being racist, ignorant, etc. - I’d like you to accept that immediate reaction. It’s okay to think that this blog is racist or ignorant just as it is okay to think that it’s funny, ridiculous or irrelevant to your life. Your comments have shown the range of emotions broached as a result of flipping through our pages. I, myself, promote debate and discourse about such topics because most often, they are not addressed in public spheres. As a subject of media, Africa is constructed in a certain, specific way by general media coverage - one that is easy to understand (Africa: poor, black, needs help). Moreover, such an approach is easily consumable by the public, and when alternative publications (like this one) expand that generalized concept and problematize it using satire and irony, negative reactions will logically occur. However, I would rather have this debate than not have it: because for too long, questioning the hegemonic discourse of Africa and development practices hasn’t occurred.

3. Continue to show us your love and support by sending photos, captions, positive or negative letters, criticisms and the like. The more we receive about our work, the more we see the diversity of reactions to it. And as this continues, I hope our readers will be able to approach the subject of Africa in new ways.

4. I’d like to thank whoever wrote the three paragraphs below. I think you made an excellent point, and I’d like to expand your discourse to the discourse of learning. Learning, like traveling, shows you that the more you read, study, write, etc. the less you actually know about the world. It is so similar to the experience of traveling. And wherever you shall decide to travel or whatever subject you shall decide to study, remember that as you deepen your conscience with new places and new texts, you realize how small you and your knowledge really are in face of the ever-expanding narrative of human life. Every step and every subject lead you to knew insights and more and more questions about everything that you had always thought was true. Learning is the process of un-learning your prejudices and preconceptions about what you thought was right, wrong, moral or immoral. It’s about accepting something as true, but then learning that it might not ever be true.

“Traveling is supposed to be finding out how truly insignificant you are. It’s supposed to be about discovering how little you know. In a foreign land, you are the ignorant one. And people will laugh at you for it. If you go as a tourist, do not be expected the same treatment as an invited guest, nor as a prodigal child. When you are the tourist, you are a visitor, uninvited, with no knowledge of the mores, and these people owe you no confidences. No matter how much you try to fit in.

If you want to make it about yourself, then make it about how you manage to love yourself despite knowing how worthless you are in the face of a very, very, large world, and how you manage to love others for making you see this truth.

Being a tourist, being able to visit countries abroad, being able to expand your horizons in this way… these are hallmarks of privilege. These are opportunities only certain people have, usually those with some power in the world that enables them to open these doors. And if you open these doors and breeze through them into rooms not your own, expecting everyone to simply accept you, then you really have a special flavour of ignorance that deserves to be mocked.”