David Lammy is an obnoxious racist prick. However, he has a point here:
David Lammy today ramped up his war of words with Stacey Dooley over her Comic Relief trip to Africa and accused her of using Instagram to make herself look like a ‘heroine’ trying to save ‘victim’ black children.
The 31-year-old investigative reporter and Strictly star was involved in a Twitter spat with Mr Lammy over her charity documentary in Uganda and social media portraits of her hugging children being helped by the BBC-backed charity.
Miss Dooley hit back at Mr Lammy last night and said: ‘If the issue is that I’m white… you could always go’ – while Comic Relief revealed the politician had ignored their offer of a trip to Africa to support the charity.
The Labour MP for Tottenham said today that Stacey’s comments showed she had failed ‘to educate herself’, adding on BBC News’ Victoria Derbyshire show: ‘Her Instagram conveys the age-old trope that is her as the heroine and the black child as the victim and we have to stop it’.
He added: ‘The image is a perpetual image of people who are impoverished, who need white celebrities. It keeps the continent of Africa poor. It keeps people in their place’.
When asked if the row is because she is white, he added: ‘That suggests that she [Stacey] doesn’t understand the issues. That’s part of the problem. Despite the fact she has power and agency she’s not sought to educate herself about the issues’.
Setting aside the intersectional bullshit, there is a point here. Africa does not need constant aid. it does not need awareness to be raised and it does not need vacuous celebrities poncing about, posing with malnourished black babies for photo shoots. What Africa needs is trade. Trade that will enable African countries to drag themselves out of poverty.
So, yeah, he does have a point here.
But then:
Miss Dooley replied: ‘Is the issue with me being white? (Genuine question) …because if that’s the case, you could always go over there and try raise awareness [sic]?
She has a point, too. This is what happens when one intersectional idea collides with another. Me, I’ll order in more popcorn. Comic Relief can go fester in its own cesspit. If these vacuous overpaid celebrities want money to go to Africa, they can give their own money.
We seem to be in the Drop The Dead Donkey” zone of set-up heart string plucking.
“No, don’t want that child. Not skinny enough and he keeps smiling.”
“Get the air-con in that Land Cruiser set to max. NOW. My make up is running
So reading between the lines he’s saying “Check your privilege, Whitey!”
😐
Sorry, still identitarian cock rot.
Of course it is. However, the point about charities fuelling a culture of dependency and it being patronising is also true. So, popcorn time.
So, if only black ‘celebrities’ are shown with impoverished African children, will Lammy start complaining that that shows white people aren’t interested in, or bothered about, starving Africans. Although he does have a point in that photographing gurning media stars holding baffled, or even scared, children, does not project the right image, he would know that it’s the images of starving children that makes the public donate.
I seem to recall, quite some years ago, though can’t find the link, that St Bonio was wittering on about the public needing to donate more, when an elderly woman said that her only income was the State pension, yet she donated 5% of that pension. She then asked what percentage of his income did he donate, and he refused to answer. Apparently one of his assistants claimed that he ‘donated his time’. Perhaps these stars do donate cash or resources, but perhaps they should tell the public just how much they have donated, in an effort to increase public donations? Perhaps we could include politicians, especially black ones, in this?
Oh, yes, they so graciously donate their time. It is the little people who have to actually put their hands in their wallets. It’s why I eschew these sleb ridden yetanotherthons.
Almost 35 years after Live Aid there is still famine in Ethiopia. So what was the point of donating aid if the underlying causes have not been tackled?
The point? Larger numbers of starving Ethiopian wimin n kids to feelz bad about.
Post Live Aid Ethiopian population has increased from ~40million (1985) to ~120million (2019)
http://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/ethiopia-population/
I did not donate to or support Live Aid, I opposed it. Was harangued then, most I still know now admit I was correct.
The brilliant Titania McGrath on the matter:
https://mobile.twitter.com/TitaniaMcGrath/status/1101470657823428610
These charity events and also chugger ads on the telly are also giving a false and negative impression of the developing world. Life is certainly tougher in such places than here in the affluent west but is improving in many of them. The tourism industry is very much harmed by this kind of negative propaganda. I’m particularly suspicious of the ad that shows a culture that is apparently too stupid to keep livestock from pissing in their drinking water.
Trade
Yes. However, a pre-requisite is they must want to work to become richer instead of down-tools when enough to survive on earned.
Aid perpetuates and exacerbates this choice
Unfortunately for David Lammy, the inescapable truth about poverty in much of Africa is that African governments almost universally make the whole problem far worse through their own tribalism, corruption and utter ineptitude.
And even Lammy can’t blame whitey for that.
You wanna bet? Sixty years on, the fault is still colonialism, as it will be six hundred years on. It is my fault that aboriginal men are drunken slobs who physically and sexually abuse their children from a very young age. When an evil scumbag forces his diseased appendage into a three year old girl in Tennant Creek, it is not his fault, it is whitey’s fault. These people will never accept responsibility for their actions, it will always be the fault of ‘privileged’ white males.