Friday's column: Why not the South Side?
I was that girl you knew in college who'd always buy lunch for the homeless guys.
How could a person, I wondered then, walk into Burger King, buy a meal and walk out again, right past the man begging for change on the corner? And so, even though my financial situation was pathetic enough that I knew the location of all the campus ATMs that dispensed money in $5 increments, I always got an extra sandwich to give to someone on the way out.
I don't remember the precise moment when I gave this up -- it probably overlapped with graduation and the end of parental subsidies -- but there are still moments when I think about it and wonder if I haven't somehow taken a wrong turn in life.
Back then, I knew exactly where I stood in the complicated moral hierarchy of the self-righteous: near the top, only a couple notches below the kids joining the Peace Corps and Teach for America. Now, my do-gooder credentials are tattered and torn, almost illegible.
This was painfully obvious Saturday night, when my husband, our good friend Katy and I headed down to The Grand Ballroom, an elegantly restored art deco hall at 63rd and Cottage Grove, to attend a gala fund-raising dinner. We'd all volunteered and raised money for the organization hosting the event, Global Alliance for Africa. We'd all visited the children's homes and foster care programs sponsored by the group in AIDS-ravaged sections of Kenya and Tanzania.
But we were hard-pressed to remember ever having set foot in Woodlawn, the South Side neighborhood where the ballroom is located.
I have spent more time in Mathare and Kibera, the worst slums of Nairobi, than I have in Englewood or Auburn Gresham. Which is, of course, appalling.
Reasons I can't explain
I first wrote about the plight of the millions of African children orphaned by AIDS in February 2003. It was an assignment.
Three years and four trips to Africa later, I've come to believe that the small amount of volunteer work I do there -- helping local community groups connect with resources to help them better manage their organizations -- is the most important thing I'll ever do with my life.
I've also come to see this work as an intensely personal choice about how I spend my time and money.
The hours I spent traveling could have been spent at a community center a few miles from home, helping out with reading programs or homework assistance. The dollars I spent on airfare could easily have bought school supplies for an under-resourced classroom in a Chicago school or funded a recreation program for local kids whose neighborhoods are sometimes too dangerous for outdoor play.
There are all sorts of sputtering explanations I can offer up to people who want to know why I'm more interested in vulnerable kids a half a world away than those in my own city. Children in Africa don't have access to clean water or decent health care, I tell them. Many of them are growing up without adult guidance and they're at risk of becoming child soldiers and future terrorists.
But playing that game of relativism is a bad idea. Do I really want to assert that one impoverished childhood is really "worse" than another? Aren't they all unacceptable?
I can say, too, that I was invited -- and welcomed -- to Africa. But that explanation gets into dangerous territory, too, revealing just how much of my own ego is wrapped up in feeling needed and useful.
Why not the South Side?
The question was hard to avoid on Saturday night, with a near-empty street, almost totally devoid of commercial activity or community life, just outside the beautifully lit windows of The Grand Ballroom. And it's been on my mind ever since.
David Weiner, the Chicago businessman and author whose new book Reality Check (Prometheus Books, 303 pages, $19) is a kind of layman's guide to the latest in brain research, was one of the few people I encountered who was willing to offer an explanation.
"Having a cause," he said, "especially a distant one, stimulates our dopamine response [the brain's 'feel good' mechanism.] When you have a cause, you can say things about it that other people don't know. That makes you feel good. With local things, there's something along the lines of familiarity breeding contempt. But overseas, it's less confusing. And those causes are in the papers -- you can read all about Darfur -- so there's a lot of status attached to them, too."
While I suspect that Weiner is overestimating the status-enhancing capacity of newspaper reports about Sudan, I do see his point. It's hard to come up with urban America's equivalent of, say, Bono or Angelina Jolie.
So maybe it is all, ultimately, just selfishness, a quest for a pure dopamine high.
I suppose there are worse things in life, though you could never tell that to the girl who bought all those extra sandwiches.
Comments
I don't think it is selfishness. There are real local needs, but even the poorest person on the South Side is infinitely better off than a poor person in Kenya. There is simply no comparison. What moral weight does proximity hold? Should we care more about people who are more like us, or people who are closer to us?
These questions aside, of course we should care about both global and local poverty, but I think the kind of response needed locally is different. Local poor communities do not so much need contributions from wealthy people as community organizing.
Posted by: Jen | May 5, 2006 09:57 AM
My comment
It's all good. We shouldn't worry about it but just get involved in something. Whatever gets us out doing something constructive beyond ourselves is the right thing to do.
There is also an obvious political involvement question. There is only one political party that actually wants to do something about poverty and disease at home and around the world. Donating money and participating in getting the right people in office has to be in the equation.
Posted by: Ed | May 5, 2006 12:00 PM
Debra, I agree with you 100%. Believe me, I hate to see poverty and anguish anywhere in the world, but I think that we (The United States of America) should take care of that problem in our own country FIRST!!!!!
Every freakin time there's a disaster somewhere in the world, it always seems like we have to send money and food and clothes and troops and Red Cross to the disaster site first before any other country does. Why? Why? Why?
It aggravates me so much!!! I am 56 years old and in all those years, I have yet to hear of any other country that has sent us money or food or ANYTHING when we have had a bad thing happen.
If our country was absolutely perfect, then I'd say go ahead, let's help somebody else. But it's not that way.We need money here in this country for so many things, it's not funny. Where is our tax money going? Is it being burn in some incinerator somewhere? ( Don't even get me started on taxes. That's a story for some other time.)
Thank you for letting me blow off some steam. I hope I did'nt get too far off base from your original story.
Posted by: Edward Becker Jr. | May 5, 2006 03:50 PM
One difference you might not have considered is in the U.S. , the guy you were giving food or money to most likely had a substance abuse problem. Which you were or are indirectly enabling. There are resources available for homeless and destitute poeople in the U.S. But most help requires the person to be 'clean'.I don't know how any homeless advocate could argue against such a stipulation but, hey , THEY DO.
On the other hand , donating to 'Africa' stands a good chance of being negated by corruption, political turmoil, etc.
I know its hard for do gooders to face the hard facts sometimes, but pretending or assuming that our deeds and money are always going in the right direction does more harm than good sometimes. In other words , if we think our actions are making a difference, then that's all that matters.
If we really cared , we would compel ourselves to confront ugly truths, much the way law enforcement is forced to do. But that isn't glamorous and takes too much thought for some of us.
Posted by: Michael McFadden | May 6, 2006 08:29 AM
East Africa vs. Englewoood? I do volunteer work in East Africa and the United States and I also don’t see an issue here. I feel judged at times for spending so much of my time on issues in East Africa and often yield my position on this debate because the audience is not up to it, or I just don’t feel the need to convince someone of my point of view. If I argued my point of view whenever someone disagreed with me, I would be an argumentative, judgmental, insecure annoyance. I’ve heard the argument about taking care of your own very often, but I don’t believe there is any logical or moral basis for the position; at least how I look at it. I hold that each life is of equal value. A person living with AIDS in a mud hut somewhere in Sub-Saharan Africa is equal to someone living with AIDS in Englewood. If I spend a weekend afternoon watching a baseball game, pursuing a hobby, helping a West side child with his homework, or loading a shipping container with books to start a library in Tanzania, who is to judge how I should spend my time. I fail to understand why the latitude and longitude of one’s birthplace and the health and personality traits of one’s parents in any way dictates whether he or she ‘deserves’ to benefit from my relative wealth and my desire to change the world for the better. Finally, I fail to see the logic of those who observe someone who spends her time helping those in need in Africa and are of the opinion that, because she is helping others in any capacity, she should be helping to resolve issues the observer finds pressing. Why not judge, even more harshly, the chap who goes about his life interested only in his immediate surroundings. That would be almost as crazy, but logically closer to sanity – if that phrase makes any sense. Keep up the good work, Debra.
Jeff S.
Chicago
Posted by: Jeff S. | May 6, 2006 01:33 PM
First, I totally agree that we cannot possibly compare two sad situations to see which is worse. What is really important is that you are making a positive difference in someone's life and it does not really matter where in the world you're doing it. I think making any child smile is better than not making any smile at all.
However, I always keep in mind that there are places that have more people with the knowledge/skill and resources needed to make a positive difference. Other places require a little assistance.
I agree with Edward that the US has been involved in a lot of humanitarian work but so has other nations.It would be interesting to note that Kenya actually donated some money during the Katrina hurricanes. Ofcourse this is nothing compared to US's involvement in world affairs,but it is surely a good gesture.
I believe that Debra is doing an amazing job. I also believe that there are more Debras still in the US who can make sure that poverty and anguish is eliminated in the US. Countries like Sudan currently lack the workforce that can make a significant difference in eradicating poverty.
Debra's work with a local community to better manage their resources is very beneficial to the community since these skills can then be passed on to more people in the community. The only way to eradicate poverty is by working at the grassroots-with the local community and that is exactly what Debra is doing!
Keep up the good job Debra.
One of Marian Wright Edelman quotes is that "We must not, in trying to think about how we can make a big difference, ignore the small daily differences we can make which, over time, add up to big differences that we often cannot foresee."
you're already making a difference in the south by raising this issue in this article. Another Debra might act on it!
Thanks.
Posted by: Flora Iyaya Lujana | May 6, 2006 08:10 PM
How can you pass by that person and not give them any money? Do you live in Chicago? Do you ride the train or the bus or walk around downtown? If I gave money to every person begging on the street I would have no way to make ends meet. I make so little money and I have two jobs, and because I'm middle class I don't get any tax breaks but yet I'm supposed to give the drug addict or alcoholic my hard earned money so he can go pollute his or her body. I hate it when people assume to know things they know nothing about.
Posted by: Colleen | May 10, 2006 12:07 PM