Remember that post I wrote a few days ago about giving and getting? About how the arrogance and superiority of some well-intended folks ends up alienating and insulting the group they are trying to help?
“30 Oregonians with a wealth of compassion, community service experience and technical expertise, will show the nation what the Gulf Coast disaster looks like from inside the Gulf. We will shine a sustained light on what our neighbors need to survive and what the environment needs to recover.”
Yes, a group of folks from Portland and it’s surrounding universe are headed to New Orleans! (No offense to beautiful Portland and our friends doing wonderful things out there, this just happens to be where this group is coming from.) In any case, these folks are coming here to do 6 days of visits to Gulf Coast communities which:
“…will culminate in the production of a graphic travelogue of what we saw, learned and felt. Our experiences will be represented through the arts of drawing, writing, filming and making music. The images and voices we capture will be engaging, powerful and influential. And, most importantly our final documentation will contain a roadmap for individual action to minimize a second occurrence of this type of catastrophe. The proceeds from the sale of our book, and any other money raised, will be contributed to Gulf Coast and national efforts to educate children about this catastrophe and how we can do the best possible job of cleaning up after ourselves, plus prevent this from ever happening again.“
Also, they are trying to raise $60,000. You can donate on their website. But no, the money isn’t for the Gulf… it’s to finance their trip.  So that they can come to the Gulf, visit as “caring neighbors arriving to help,” spend 6 days capturing images and voices, and then put them in their book.
Hmmm.
I showed this to my graduate students earlier today in class. In the words of one of the students: “I’m not even from the Gulf Coast and this insults ME.”
Check out their website. What do you think?
Here are are some lessons that these undoubtedly very nice, wealthy-with-compassion-Oregonians should have considered:
- The disaster is not about you! No, really. I’m not kidding.
- Please travel to share technical expertise where you are invited to share technical expertise.
- If you want to “show the nation” what is happening in the Gulf Coast, then work locally to build partnerships with Gulf Coast organizations, and find places within your communities to make those voices heard. There are plenty of organizations, plenty of stories, plenty experiences — all existing without your collection, reorganization, and authority.
- We also have artists. Many artists. Who have and can continue to creatively express the experiences of this region in a multitude of forms. We even have spaces to support them. They are very much able to “shine the light” on these communities, and would probably be interested in collaboration and partnership on projects.
- Taking other people’s stories to publish in your book takes advantage of people who are suffering in a very unique and powerful catastrophe. Particularly when mischievously veiled within the scope of a “local gathering to break bread.”
- Six days to “experience” the Gulf is tourism. You’re tourists. Good news — this is a fantastic place to be a tourist. Enjoy the area, tell your loved ones, friends, your contacts on your social networking sites about your experiences visiting this area. Just please don’t position yourself in a place of authority based on 6 days of tours.
- If you want to contribute to Gulf Coast communities through service, then contact organizations and let them find ways to use your skills.
These folks are coming here with an agenda that is their own, focused on their own needs, their own desires. This does not help a situation, it only makes it more difficult.
—
(Hat tip to local bloggers, who found and shared the website.)
nonlineargirl | 15-Jul-10 at 9:41 pm | Permalink
I am embarrassed for my fellow Oregonians.
I wish they’d donate their $60,000 instead of spending it on themselves. Then again, I am sure they got a really good deal on beachfront hotel rooms, so there’s that!
laloca | 16-Jul-10 at 5:55 am | Permalink
i grok your frustration and anger at these well-heeled, well-meaning interlopers. the only nuance i’d add, though, is that the disaster is actually about all of us. and it will as long as “drill, baby, drill” remains the mantra for a powerful segment of our politicians.
De | 16-Jul-10 at 6:50 am | Permalink
I’m speechless. You summed it up – this is a pet project for these people who do not seem particularly qualified in ANY way to help. They should know better.
Michelle | 16-Jul-10 at 7:46 am | Permalink
Exactly. Thanks for posting this.
holly | 16-Jul-10 at 9:29 am | Permalink
They seem to have a lot of talents… why they didn’t consider collaboration with locals, I just can’t figure out. Or, at least, I really don’t want to go there.
holly | 16-Jul-10 at 9:32 am | Permalink
Yeah, there is that “no man is an island” thing that does make this something we’re all taking part in… the environment is special to a lot of people (I’d say all, but… well… sigh) no matter where they live. But they aren’t here for the environment. They are coming for themselves, which is what I mean when I say that it’s not ‘all about them’.
holly | 16-Jul-10 at 9:34 am | Permalink
I’m often embarrassed by my fellow Louisianians (and New Orleanians) so no worries there. 🙂
Sue Rowland | 16-Jul-10 at 8:32 pm | Permalink
They might be more useful scooping oil blobs off the beaches east of here–for maybe 6 hours a day.
(Hope they brought sunscreen.)
Lisa Paul | 17-Jul-10 at 12:57 pm | Permalink
I wish the Oregon group had just been honest and said they were taking a vacation in New Orleans. On my last trip down there two years after Katrina, I asked a local what any of us from other areas could do to help. He said: “Just come down and spend your vacation dollars here.” He pointed out that much of New Orleans tourist related businesses — the restaurants, muffalata shops, small tour companies, etc. were locally owned by small business people. He said, “Just come and spread your money around. That will help as much as anything if you don’t have any special disaster expertise.”
shoreacres | 19-Jul-10 at 5:38 pm | Permalink
Believe it or not, during my time in Liberia I was a missionary – doing public health work with the Lutheran church in up-country Liberia. Bush clinics, maternal child health, immunization programs – all that.
We used to roll our eyes and sigh a good bit when the well-meaning church groups would show up – sometimes members of congregations, but more likely “officials” who were on “fact-finding” trips. We called them the six-day-in-depth-explorations-of-the-African-continent.
They took a lot of pictures, and just like your Oregonians would go home full of that strange combo of pity and self-congratulation: look at us. Ain’t we concerned?
Now, mind you – there was good that came out of it, too. Good-hearted people did want to help. But we saw Paulo Freire’s “banking theory” on the hoof – the assumption that the haves always have the answer for the have-nots. It isn’t true.
And Lisa’s exactly right re: the money. After Ike, a home-grown movement started here. It had no name and no charter, no headquarters and no publicity – but one by one more people joined together and began driving to Galveston to buy gas, get groceries, eat a meal. Yes, it cost more. Yes, it took more time. But it put money into the economy.
As one of the restaurant owners told me – don’t give me a handout. Just park out front and come in and have a meal. Someone else will see you car, and they’ll stop. And if we’re lucky, it will build.
The entire Gulf is going to need the same thing. That’s one of the reasons I’m so furious with the Obamas for going to Maine for their vacation. They should have been in Gulf Shores or Venice or Mobile. Somewhere other than where they were. If they were going to interfere with cleanup efforts in those places, pick somewhere else. But not Maine.
alejna | 20-Jul-10 at 11:55 am | Permalink
It boggles the mind, it does. I wonder if they even considered making contact with local organizations.
The July 2010 Just Posts | collecting tokens | 15-Aug-10 at 8:32 pm | Permalink
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subWOW | 16-Aug-10 at 6:41 am | Permalink
Seriously? People never cease to amaze me.
“The disaster is not about you! No, really. I’m not kidding.” So true. But the fact that you needed to spell it out is just saddening, if not maddening… (I am prone to rage. Sorry about that…)
What your graduate student said.