Impoverished Injustice

It has been quite some time since my last post; this partially due to lack of inspiration and, my recent transition into the real world. In my return to blogging I wanted to draw attention to a recent article I read, which highlights some of the injustices of the American caste system. This article is not alone in explaining the exorbitantly profitable business that is preying on the poor. A common example might be predatory loans, fine print fuck-yous, and of course, sub prime mortgages. Money-hungry financial institutions are not the only cuprits of this kind of injustice. If we look at the US penal system we understand that the poor are a very vulnerable sub population, who face a lifetime of lost opportunity, un payable fines, and criminal activity for an offense as minor as having a few flakes of cannabis.

I like to make note of this injustice because it is committed against people who lack any strong voice. Furthermore, in our society of pick-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps we can too easily pass unsuccessful people off as incompetent of inefficient Americans, people who don't try hard enough to succeed. I believe this to be one of the saddest realities that millions of Americans face. We live in a time where people are getting poorer, and opportunity is becoming less and less available. We are allowing for those least among us to vacillate between an impoverished life and complete destitution. Considering the complexity of this, there is no easy fix. What might present itself as a solution is a combination of  government programs, financial regulation, and general social awareness. 

Pardon the simplicity of this post. I am still working through some of these recent understandings and am overwhelmed at my own ignorance, complacency and participation in this problem. What needs to be taken from this is a renewed sense of understanding about how we treat the most vulnerable people in our society, especially at a time when that vulnerable population is growing everyday.

From Plastic Mammoths to Glass Smartphones

It is amazing to think how advanced our society has become concerning the use of basic consumer products. Twenty years ago, my dad bought his first Mac desktop computer for a few thousand dollars. This breakthrough device allowed him to send emails, albeit very slowly, to essentially anyone, anywhere in the world... assuming the recipient had an email address. Furthermore, this allowed for my dad to make a word processed document on his computer that he could subsequently print up on his Apple printer. At the time, the conveniences and advancements of this massive machine where quite impressive.

Fast forward just ten years, and the Wood family purchased another Mac computer, the eMac. This behemoth of a desktop computer was housed in a single unit, and was outfitted with built in speakers, a 15 inch screen, and the new Mac OS X. Not only did this device allow for word processing and internet use, but we could also play music and movies on our new computer, because this machine had a built in CD/DVD (woah). At around the same time as our new computer was installed at our home, cell phones were becoming an increasingly more common device. More and more we would see people talking into these large plastic devices as a means to talk on-the-go. No longer were you constrained to only talk to people on the phone, but now you could talk virtually anywhere. This worked especially well with our fancy new computer, as naturally it only ran on dialup internet. This meant that rather then picking up the home phone and being met with the unpleasant gargle of a lost internet connection, you could now simply make a phone call off the cell phone network.

Let's briefly review these advancements. Around the time I was born, the Wood home was crimsoned as a 'Mac household,' by the introduction of a desktop computer that could connect to the internet, print documents, pay mine sweep, and send email. Ten years later, our Mac identity was further defined with the eMac, which housed a whole new range of practical programs like iTunes and iMovie, and again, we could connect to the dialup internet at anytime to explore the ever growing "internet."

Now lets take it to the present day. Every member of the Wood family now has an iPhone, a laptop and a few other devices for use. These phones have capabilities that our ten year old eMac never dreamed of possessing. These phones can explore the far reaches of the internet, they can take 5MP (!!!) pictures and video, they can wirelessly download and play music from virtually anywhere, they can send and receive large email files, they can write and print documents, they can instantly translate any number of languages, they can compare prices with the scan of a barcode, they can display realtime news stories, they can stream video, they can send hundreds of text messages at once... and yes, they can make phone calls. In my short lifetime we advanced from a massive, noisy and slow computer, which hogged most of your desk space, to a small, sleek smartphone that fits in your pocket. Not only is this phone a fraction of the size but it is also exponentially more powerful and practical.

In just twenty years, we have invented two incredible and unfathomably powerful products, the cell phone and the desktop computer. We have taken these advancements to such a level of advancement that they have now been reconciled into just one device, the $150 smartphone.

Consider this. Thirty years ago, very few people would have predicted the depth and breadth of our technological advancements. Today, we have a difficulty imagining something that much more advanced than we already have, but history shows that myopic lens to be often wrong. Considering the advancements of the last twenty years, what kind of advancements will the next twenty years bring us?

JW

American Psycho... logy

I recently read an article that looked to understand how people judged a piece of art or their preference in expensive wine. The conclusion was that people's perceptions and opinions of things are complicated, and driven by a number of factors such as, the taste, aesthetic qualities, and monetary value of something. In experiments done on how people preferred expensive wine over cheaper wine and how people preferred a real Rembrandt over a fake Rembrandt, a common reaction was increased blood flow to the orbitofrontal cortex of the brain. The article describes this part of the brain as focusing on monetary gain, pleasure and perceptions of reward.

I found it to be extremely interesting that there was a small piece of our brain which helped us prefer something simply on the basis of its associated value. This sort of brain activity (I assume) extends far outside of wines and paintings, and can be applied to things like clothing labels, foods, cigars and the like.

Now that their is a scientific understanding to how we incorporate financial worth in judging something, I wonder how we can apply that knowledge outside of psychology. More specifically, I am curious of the differences in development in specific part of the brain between cultures, communities, genders, races, occupations, socio-economic classes, ages, nationalities, political understandings etc etc.

It would be interesting to discover that an American has a more defined and larger orbitofrontal cortex than a European might. Or that a middle class woman has a less pronounced orbitofrontal cortex than a upper class man does. The variables and circumstances to this kind of experimentation are endless.

Fascinating...

JW

Overcoming Cynicism

As you know, my past semester was spent in Ghana. Ghana is one of the more developed and stable countries in Africa, but it is certainly not without its problems. The country is riddled with poverty, a crumbling infrastructure, and corrupt politics. Amidst all these problems, people remain engaged in their communities and appear quite happy under their current circumstances.

Despite Ghanaians appearing content, us Americans still see a need to improve on the present situation. In doing so, this semester I worked with a water filtration organization that distributed and maintained simple bio-sand water filtration devices in villages around Accra. My opinion of this project as a noble and important one has not wavered, I do question however, it's effectiveness. In practice, it seemed that every week we would install a new filter while we discovered that last week's filter was going unused and breaking. I could not understand why this fantastic and free product would go unused, especially when it was providing a much needed service to these villagers who lacked access to clean water. I could not understand what would prompt someone to forego filtering deadly bacteria out of filthy drinking water. Finally, I could not understand what we as an organization could to fix this major problem.

After working with SafeWater for 4 months, I left the country having only partially answered some of these questions. I realized that the normative and cultural practices of the village proved to be an insurmountable obstacle for us. It wasn't as simple as explaining the biological findings on these water conditions, and expecting people to understand and adopt the practice of diligently filtering their water. If a Ghanaian family were to go through the past thirty years drinking this dirty water and lived to tell of their practices, why would they use the filter? Pouring water into a blue bucket was simply laborious and unnecessary. It wasn't that they didn't appreciate and understand the concept of what the filter was doing, but they just didn't see the need to use it. Having come to this somewhat haphazard understand of the lack of use problems, I moved on to tackle the final issue of how to fix the problem... A question that has proved nearly impossible for me to answer.

SafeWater was plagued by a lack of funding, which certainly contributed to our roadblocks along the way, but the organization was run by passionate and committed people (namely, the fantastic Josephus Hallie). Funding issues notwithstanding, I question whether this model of distributing these devices throughout these villages is effective or needed. I question whether it is our place to come into Africa and make this improvement, moreover whether it was our place to decide whether it indeed was an improvement at all. With this understanding I have come to the conclusion that maybe we don't need to move forward at all. Although the mission and intention of international aid organizations is noble, I question whether it can be completed. Are consistent and positive results from the the push model of development possible? I say no. It is this resounding 'no' which is discouraging to hear myself say, as it is in essence admitting defeat; nonetheless, I don't have answers. I can't see how this model can effectively work and I don't know where to move on from here... It is this jaded cynicism that I am challenged by and am working to overcome. But again, I am tempted to embrace cynicism and accept that although we have good intentions, we may not have all the answers to the world's problems; furthermore, our egregious amounts of funding to these aid projects can only do so much.

Hopefully I will realize that this seemingly pervasive reality of failed aid is not the norm, but the exception; currently however, I am far from convinced of that.

JW

PS.

I recently stumbled upon a TED video about this kind of problem and I believe it illustrates the issue quite accurately.

Odwira Festival: The Death of a Sheep

Friday was a day of celebration in the Odwira Festival and was the day of the durbar and the sacrificing of the sheep. The sacrifice of this animal began at about 8:50 in the morning, and was announced with loud drumming. Once these instruments caught our attention, the group walked over to the large tree in the middle of the square, a tree that is to be home to an important deity who protects the people in the village. As a crowd of about 40 people developed, a number of priest began to pour libation (in the form of schnapps) onto the tree, while reciting words appropriate for the occasion. From this point in the ceremony, it was clear that this particular event was not as revered or important as other events were, evident in the small attendance, and absence of many important priests and executioners. In any light, this seemed to be a sacred ceremony, and was believed to be an important part of the Odwira cleansing.

After a few minutes of schnapps pouring at the base of the tree, the clerics of this ceremony grabbed hold of the confused and quiet creature. With a swift movement of their knife, the lamb’s throat was spilled open. Once the bleeding process began, the priests picked up the feet of the lamb and began waving it in the direction of the tree and surrounding plants. It was their task to spread the blood as a sacrifice to the deity in the tree. As the thick, red blood oozed out of the animals neck, the priest decided that they were done with this process of the ceremony and, in a very undignified manor, they tossed the lamb to the center of the cement platform, adjacent to the tree.

The lamb lay on the ground for a few minutes, quietly and uncomfortably gasping for air. When it seemed as if the sacrificial animal had finally breathed its last breath, it, in a burst of terrified adrenaline, began to shake and kick on the ground, as if to regain its balance and run away from these men with knives. This short and pathetic attempt to save itself only resulted in the hurried death the sheep, as it began to seep out more blood from the gaping wound on its throat. This struggle had also attracted the attention of one priest who seemed to take notice of the animal’s plight, and commenced to further sever the head from the body, while keeping the two intact. It is difficult to say whether this final violent act against the animal was done to relieve it from further misery, or whether it was traditional procedure.

The group of priests performed a few more unrecognizable ceremonial rites to honor the tree, and then continued in closing the ceremony. By now, the entirety of any life left in the animal had been lost to some other realm of being; evident by the listless corpse laying still on the concrete. The clerics wasted no time in further mutilating this lifeless body, by promptly cutting off the gentiles for the ram and placing them under the tree. This act was to further honor the tree deity, and leave something of a reminder of the sacrifice that was performed. Once this final act was performed, the procession of priests, drummers and followers continued out of the compound.

It was unclear to us what the people did with this animal after a sacrifice had been performed on it. The animal was dead, that much was certain, but was it appropriate to eat such a sacred corpse? These questions sat with us only briefly, as a group of men skillfully began to skin the beast in order to more easily access the meat of the muscular legs and side. Something about this process was less repulsive than before, perhaps because the animal was distinctly dead now, and any suffering or pain it experienced was no longer felt. Shortly after the skinning process began, our interest and curiosity was lost with this monotonous form of food processing. We had had our fill of violence and gore for the day, and decided to head back to the institute, to enjoy a snack of soda and meat sandwiches.

Immigration: Really Alabama?

Recently Alabama passed an immigration law so harsh, that it caused an exodus of thousands of Hispanics from the southern state. This law contained provisions that allowed police officers to inquire about residency statuses in a routine traffic stop, and even went as far as confirming legal residency for children attending public schools. These two provisions (to name a few) are inherently racist, impractical, and unjust. The problem with police officers asking for legal papers to a select few people is that it will unavoidably facilitate legal racial profiling. The problem with asking the legal papers of children attending public schools is that it is taking away a universal right that everyone should be entitled to, especially when that right was paid for through property taxes that even illegal alien pays.

The problem I find with the passage of this sort of heinous legislation, is that it intrenches us in a mindset of fear, where it is us vs them. We begin to see those people crossing the boarder as enemies of the state, enemies that need to be rooted out by any and every means necessary, even if it means kicking a child out of school, deporting a parent, or racially profiling a Hispanic man.

The article I linked from the New York Times provides a beautiful example of this backwards thinking (accidently I’m sure) by citing a supporter of the bill, Mr. Orr. “Mr. Orr said there were already signs that the law was working, pointing out that the work-release center in Decatur, about 50 miles to the Northwest, was not so long ago unable to find jobs for inmates with poultry processors or home manufacturers. Since the law was enacted in June, he said, the center has been placing more and more inmates in these jobs, now more than 150 a day.”

What I find so appalling about this alleged evidence of the effectiveness of the bill, is that it is essentially arguing that prisoners are more obliged to have jobs than immigrants. There is something seriously wrong with our country when we use the argument that convicts have more of a right to jobs and a home in this country than those already living here, namely the undocumented. What is happening to us? How have we become such a xenophobic and bellicose melting pot? For a change, let us try to pass legislation that supports foreigners struggling to live in our society by providing them with residency and access to education; instead of legislation that kicks children out of school, encourages racism, and forces the evacuation of thousands of scared people from their home state.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/04/us/after-ruling-hispanics-flee-an-alabama-town.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=all

Fou Fou

Well the inevitable blog laziness has begun to set in. I find that a solution to this problem is the uploading of brief videos of my exciting life in Ghana; this video for example, capturing my first encounter with the traditional African dish, fou fou. Enjoy!