Ferguson and today's racism

I grew up sustained on the delightful layer cake of privilege that is life as a white, middle class American. As I have grown older, through a variety of experiences, I have come to recognize more and more what that means: all the things that are made easier for me, all the things I don't have to worry about, all the places of influence I can find people who look like me.

Now I sit here stewing over the Ferguson grand jury decision not to indict Darren Wilson for shooting Michael Brown. I have so many things to say about it, but instead of just using the hashtags #blacklivesmatter and #blackvoicesmatter, I want to honor the intention of these statements and share the voices of some people of color who are beautifully expressing what this moment represents to them about race/racism in America today.

First, from friend and soon-to-be fellow Peace Corps Volunteer, Geoff Hutchinson:

A scenario runs through my mind from time to time, where I'm having a bad day. I'm in a bad mood and something happens that makes me visibly, audibly, and publicly angry. In this scenario, my frustration makes someone with a gun uneasy and I get shot and killed for it, without ever having the chance to defend my character. 24, almost 25 years ended over the course of a few minutes, with so many potential years ahead. I wish I could laugh it off, but then I think about the statistics and remember that this is a realistic scenario for me in the US, and I don't have the luxury of being able to shrug it off and say "I don't like politics or debates", because it concerns me, and truthfully, it concerns all of us.

What bothers me most about my scenario is that when similar scenarios happen in real life, they are only challenged on case-by-case basis. Sometimes the result is justice and other times it's not, but rarely does anyone address the nature of the disease. Cyclical and systemic in nature, the problems are too big to be answered by media and politicians in a few months, so when the immediate reactions subside, so too does the attention to the problem. Our society is missing the forest for the trees.

As a society, we shouldn't be asking "what happened?". What we should be asking is "why did this happen?" and "how can we fix it?". No scenario is as simple as Black & White, but can we at least agree that their is some underlying problem that needs to be addressed that reaches beyond any one young man? I don't know about everyone else, but I'm getting tired of reading the news about teenagers being killed because of something that happened over the course of a few minutes, without any concern given to the long-term causes of the circumstances. It doesn't make me angry. It doesn't make me want to break anything or hurt anyone. It just makes me sad, worried, and a little scared for the effects and implications of the society.

 Next from civil rights advocate Michelle Alexander:

As we await the grand jury's decision, I want to take this opportunity to say thank you -- a deep, heart-wrenching thank you -- to all the organizers and activists who took to the streets following Michael Brown's killing and who refused to stop marching, raising their voices, and crying out for justice. It is because of them -- their courage, boldness, vision and stamina -- that the world is paying attention to what is happening in a suburb called Ferguson. The world is not watching because an unarmed black man was killed by the police. That's not news. What made this police killing different was that the people in Ferguson -- particularly the young people -- rose up and said We Will Not Take It Any More. Our Lives Matter. Black Lives Matter. And their cry has been heard around the world. No matter what the grand jury does, let us remember that true justice will come only when our criminal injustice system is radically transformed: when we no longer have militarized police forces, wars on our communities, a school-to-prison pipeline, and police departments that shoot first and ask questions later. True justice will be rendered not when when a single "guilty" verdict is rendered in one man's case, but when the system as a whole has been found guilty and we, as a nation, have committed ourselves to repairing, as best we can, the immeasurable harm that has been done.

And lastly, I am excerpting from a long piece from my friend Epi Arias about Mike Brown and other RMPKs or "racially motivated killings by police." In the full piece he offers a detailed discussion of whether or not these racially motivated killings are reactionary or intentional and where racism comes from. I strongly urge you to go read the whole thing here.

So was it racially motivated? Is anything? The many unarmed black persons gunned down by police this year alone should tell you something. It’s a disgusting pattern that implies one of two things: either there is a racist problem in America, or black people are just simply dangerous. Ask the question now: Was it racially motivated?

I think we can see that both answers imply racial motivations. Here’s why: If a police officer guns down, say, an unarmed black man, and it’s not racially motivated, then it is presumably because that person posed a legitimate threat. And if an unarmed person posed a legitimate threat, one has to consider what kind of threat this might’ve been, given that a police officer has a gun while an unarmed person—well, an unarmed person is unarmed. There is no gun, no knife, no wrench, no candlestick, no rope—I think you can see where I’m going with this...

The problem is that we’re not asking the right questions. We already know that these killings are racially motivated regardless of who wants to split hairs. The two questions we should actually be asking are: Is the racially motivated murder of unarmed black persons intentional or reactionary? Second—and perhaps most importantly—what is racism? Although it might seem like an elementary question, our situation warrants the indulgence. I want to start this dialogue afresh, right now... The sad truth is many people do consider black people dangerous. It is actually such an established fact that we make light of it in movies, TV shows, and comedy skits. In proximity to a black person, many of you clutch your purse, lock your car door, increase your pace, tense up, and assume that there are drugs and/or weapons in the car. It’s ugly, but it’s reality—our reality.

We all know the story about the black guy shot by police after pulling a dark object from his pocket (i.e., wallet, candy bar, cellphone, hand). We know this happens all the time. And though it’s common knowledge, it keeps on happening due to the reactionary impulse that so often informs our decision-making: the good ole “Shit, he’s drawing a gun!” routine. We assume a threat from a black person with much more rapidity than we would otherwise; conditioned, as we are, to do so. And no, this does not excuse anyone from his or her actions, whether intentional or reactionary...

Police officers who kill/have killed/will kill unarmed black persons have a large ready-made network of apologists—civilians and law enforcement personnel alike—who are ready to defend them in the name of some unpronounced “principle,” whether or not said police officers may be guilty. This tells us that it is not about justice, that it is not about morality, and that—shockingly—it is almost only incidentally about race in the traditionally defined sense. It is mostly about a shameless pandering for validation, recognition, and acceptance. And this doesn’t make it any more excusable. It makes it worse, because if you identify with any conceptualization that is based on the disparaging or aversion of anyone because of race, you are not only ignorant, but also mindless. You are cult material. And should you ever find yourself, at any point, thinking for yourself, I guarantee that you will find your racist ideas completely ridiculous, empty, and devastatingly unfounded. You will be forced to change, to actually become human and think for yourself. And the next time an RMKP takes place (and it will, sadly, it will), you’ll be in a better position to reconsider the question: Was it racially motivated?

You’ll soon find that we’re all in this together, haunted by these names: Washington, Jones, Ashley, Allen, Carey, Brown, Gray, Garner, McDade, Russell, Diallo, Jefferson, Wilson, Zongo, Dorismond, Stansbury, Williams, Francis, Campbell, Bell, Davis, Edwards, Boyd, Miller, Barlow, Steen, Madison, Brissette, McGill, Smith, Grant, and Graham…to name enough.

Quick Election Update #2

Here is another very quick update on how the elections seem to have gone.

In the days immediately following the election, many observing bodies reported a free and fair process, including the African Union, European Union, and the Southern African Development Community.

However, it may turn out that the declaration was made prematurely. There were a few irregularities reported the day of the elections, but apparently not enough for the observers to call foul. Since election day, however, more and more fishy information has been coming out. Or information has not been coming out when it should.

One of the biggest complains has been a loooooong delay in results being released. In a country where there is a lot of suspicion of corruption, when the results aren't released in a timely manner, it makes people trust the results even less when they are finally made available. District counts should have been finished last Friday, October 17 and provincial by the 21st, but many of these deadlines aren't being met. The EU mission released a statement expressing "its concerns with the delays in the tabulation of results at district and provincial levels in some provinces, and considers that such mishaps in the tabulation process, added to the absence of official public explanations about these difficulties, hinders what has been an orderly start on election day," and stating that it "regrets the obstacles posed to the access of EU observers to information on the provincial tabulation in Cabo Delgado and Zambezia, when transparency and integrity should preside over the entire electoral process according to the law."

There have been a number of incidents that point to extreme disorganization in a best case scenario, if not serious fraud. For example, from the Mozambique Political Process Bulletin Published by the Center for Public Integrity:

On Sunday (Bulletin 65) we reported that the Tete city count stopped because there were 234 editais [official document stating the voting result from a polling station] and only 178 polling stations. The official STAE explanation yesterday was that some polling stations had more than one register book. Even if a polling station has two books, it is supposed to issue a single edital. But STAE says that in Tete staff erroneously wrote separate editais for each book.

We are now receiving reports of some polling stations, in Maputo and elsewhere, that had extra register books, sometimes called a “transfer list” (Lista de Transferidos) or simply an “extra voters list" (lista dos agregado). We are also seeing reports of polling stations where the number of voters is more than double the number of people on the register book as published in the lists of polling stations before the elections, which suggests they had an extra register book.

Or reports of unusually (nearly impossibly) high turnout in some areas that point to a high likelihood of ballot-box stuffing.

Reports of impossibly high turnouts are providing more evidence of ballot box stuffing. Turnouts of more than 80% of registered voters are highly unlikely in Mozambique, especially in rural areas where people have to walk long distances. It is much more likely that there has been ballot box stuffing, either putting unused ballot papers into the ballot box, or simply changing the results sheet (edital) at the end of the day. This occurs more easily in polling station where opposition parties have not been able to place delegates or polling station staff to watch the process.

Most extreme is Gaza, where five districts report very high turnouts: Chicualacuala 89%, Chigubo 82%, Mabalane 80%, Massangena 96% and Massingir 92%. These results are especially suspect when compared to equally loyal Frelimo areas of Gaza, such as Mandlakazi where the turnout was a more average 56%.

These five are small rural districts, but they have probably added 20,000 false votes for Frelimo candidate Filipe Nyussi.

The Electoral Observatory (EO) also points to suspiciously high turnouts in Guija, Gaza, where we do not have a district result yet.

Another suspect district is Ka Nanyaka in Maputo city, which reported a turnout of 79% compared to a city-wide turnout of 60%. Again the EO finds suspiciously high turnouts in the sample polling stations in that district.

Mabote district, Inhambane, with 81% turnout, was also reported by EO observers to have an impossibly high turnout.

EO data also point to ballot box stuffing in these districts:
Cabo Delgado: Muidumbe
Inhambane: Inhassoro, and Panda
Nampula: Ilha de Mocambique and Nacala-a-Velha
Niassa: Mecula
Tete: Cahora Bassa, Changara, and Zumbo

Most of these districts are strongly pro-Frelimo. The Tete districts are majority Frelimo with a significant Renamo vote. The Nampula districts are divided and hard fought. Ilha de Mocambique and Changara have a long history of ballot box stuffing in favour of Frelimo.

Historically, nearly all ballot box stuffing has been in favour of Frelimo and its presidential candidate.

The results that have been released indicate a victory by the incumbent party, with 57% of the vote. Although the Center for Public Integrity estimates that ballot-box stuffing increased votes for Filipe Nyusi by 100,000 votes. Using the Electoral Observatory sample count, we also estimate that there were problems such as very late opening or changed location for about 130 polling stations. Observers and party delegates reported cases of polling stations having an additional register book which was not on the official list of polling stations and register books. We suggest this happened in up to 250 polling stations. The full report and analysis is in the attached pdf version of this bulletin. However, the opposition parties are not prepared to accept this result. Afonso Dhlakama, the presidential candidate of the oldest, most established opposition party, responded to early results indicating a FRELIMO victory by asking for negotiations that could lead to a sharing of power by the two parties. He claimed that he did not want to negotiate because he wants to be president, but because he wants democracy in Mozambique. He has cited the unity governments in Kenya and Zimbabwe as examples.I am no fan of the violent tactics RENAMO has taken over the last year+, but this man does sometimes make sense when he talks. From Joseph Hanlon:

He is stressing that this is not about winning or losing elections. He says this was not a real election, and that diplomats should not accept in Africa an election which would not be acceptable in Europe. Thus he wants support for a unity government that would finally bring democracy to Mozambique.

I  was a little surprised that observers were so quick to declare the elections "free and fair" when there had been a number of irregularities. In fact, on October 21, the US Department of State finally issued a press release stating "important concerns about unequal access to the media, abuse of state resources, missing materials and registration books in polling stations, and the late opening of some polling stations. There were failures in the electoral administration, particularly with respect to the timely accreditation of national observers and party delegates."(Quoted here in English, or the original here in Portuguese). Interestingly, these problems of unequal access and abuse of state resources were happening all through the campaign process, but the statement didn't come until this delay in the release of results.

I will keep posting some updates as the post-election process continues.

The social and economic costs of fear

I wrote a post a few days ago in reaction to a line in a New York Times editorial on the US response to the Ebola outbreak that categorized many West African officials and workers as "incompetent and in some cases unable to use the temperature devices they have been given." This didn't sit well with me for many reasons and I find myself reacting similarly to much of the coverage of the Ebola epidemic. The tone is (understandably) fearful, but touching on xenophobic, including the many calls to stop all flights coming from affected countries. While this might seem reasonable at first glance, it ignores the effect it would have on those countries, both economically and in terms of stopping the travel of very necessary health workers.

But in response to my blog post, a friend sent along an article about Nigeria's successful containment of Ebola. The government devised a "war-like approach" to dealing with the disease when it appeared, putting in place a command center with the Nigerian Government in charge, but in cooperation with international organizations from the World Health Organization to the US CDC: "Together with these organizations, we sit in one place, co-location in a designated facility, and we do joint planning, agree on strategies to be used, and implement these strategies based on a clear understanding that people are comfortable to deliver on specific tasks." They put four teams into action to inform the population, screen people crossing borders, manage potential cases and to hunt down anyone who may have had contact with an infected person in "a way that ensured ruthless efficiency."

The doctor in charge of the effort is Faisal Shuaib, a Nigerian physician who completed his medical training in Nigeria and a doctorate in Public Health from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He stepped away from his position heading the Nigerian Health Ministry's Polio eradication program to oversee the response to Ebola. He has been managing a team of over 500 public health workers and volunteers to monitor and contain the disease. As of October 9, more than a month had passed since the last Nigerian case had been discharged. 

I loved reading this story for a couple of reasons. First, as the person sending the link commented, "no incompetence noted..." It is a great example of the good work being done by affected nations to protect their people. But it also shows why the isolation response of "Quick, cancel all the flights!!" is so dangerous. Nigeria was so successful because of the competence of the doctor leading the charge, but also because of the coordination and cooperation among various international organizations and governments in the effort to stop the disease. 

Nigeria is wealthier than other West African countries and ranked higher on the UN's Human Development Index, so it may have been better positioned to respond to Ebola. But even so, they didn't respond alone. The government oversaw the campaign in cooperation with organizations that could supply expertise and with the funding support of the Gates Foundation that shifted $50 million to fighting Ebola. When asked what more must be done to protect people, Dr. Shuaib responded, "One thing that can change the outbreak is for nations to come together and deploy resources... Wealthier countries have to mobilize resources in a concerted manner, and they need to act now." 

Although it is mainly three countries that are being hit the hardest by Ebola, the response needs to come from the whole world. This is a humanitarian crisis that will have lasting economic and social effects, and it's not a Scylla-and-Charybdis rock-and-a-hard-place situation like Syria or the Ukraine. This is a tragedy killing thousands of people and gutting economies that were struggling to develop. The World Bank recently released a forecast that projects a loss of $1.6 billion in West Africa region if Ebola is contained but up to $25.2 billion if it continues to spread. I can't even begin to imagine what kind of long-term damage this would do to lives there even once the disease has been contained.

I don't live in a country affected by Ebola, but there is real fear that the outbreak will cause an economic contagion that spread beyond where the virus appears. As not everyone knows exactly how large and diverse Africa is, or how the disease spreads, there have been various panic responses. Planes have been quarantined because they were carrying passenger who got airsick and had been to "Africa," even if it was nowhere near the affected region. A friend who runs a non-profit selling crafts made in Uganda recently had a customer try to cancel an order for fear she could catch Ebola from the beaded necklaces. This kind of irrational fear could damage all African economies and create more prejudice against the continent as a whole, which does affect Mozambique. Addressing this possibility, the New York Times' recently quoted IMF managing director Christine Lagarde as saying, “We should be very careful not to terrify the planet in respect of the whole of Africa.”

So while it is very important for every country to screen very carefully anyone traveling from an affected area - Dr. Shuaib also emphasized this as a crucial step in stopping the spread of the disease - responding to the crisis by trying to pull away will have serious long term effects and won't help stop the disease, only coming together to fight it can do that. 

First very quick election update

Wednesday was the big day here in Mozambique: national elections. After last year's municipal elections, yesterday was the day to vote for a new president, as well as members of the Assembleia da Republica and provincial assemblies. Following a year and half of political unrest that finally cooled with the signing of a new Peace Deal between the ruling FRELIMO party and the main opposition party RENAMO, no one knew how the elections would go.

And it is still hard to say. It appears that although the days leading up to the election were calmer than the final days of last year's campaign, the election itself had more incidents. All online sources that tracked information supplied by citizens reported numerous instances of attempted fraud, problems encountered by election observers and officials coming from opposition parties, some violence and irregularities in the lists of registered voters. From J. Hanlon's election news bulletin:

There are a growing number of reports of the discovery of ballot papers already marked for Frelimo and which involve polling station staff or other officials.

In Angonia, Tete, Jeremias Atanasio, the president of a polling station in Domue primary school, was arrested when he was found with ballot papers already marked for Frelimo.

In Chidenguele, Gaza, observers caught a new form of ballot box stuffing. They saw a member of an unknown observer group pick up ballot papers from the main table (with the obvious agreement of the polling station staff), and put them into a slot under the booth where voters mark their ballot paper. When an observer went there and took out the ballot papers, he found them marked for Frelimo (see photos in the attached pdf). The idea appears to be that when a Frelimo member who had been warned in advance went to that booth and marked and folded up their ballot papers, they would take extra ballot papers from the slot and fold in extra ones as well, thus putting more than one ballot paper in each box.

In Beira spare ballot boxes have been found.

Meanwhile, there have been several other reports of pre-marked ballot papers being found. In Dondo a reporter for the newspaper Zambeze was attacked and had his camera confiscated after he took pictures showing polling station staff marking ballot papers for Frelimo, and of a teacher putting the extra votes in the ballot boxes. He also filmed a discussion between polling station staff and party members, but has now had his pictures taken away. This was at Eduardo Mondlane primary school.

In Coalane in Quelimane an observer caught a person with 17 pre-marked ballot papers.

And the Youth Parliament (Parlamento Juvenil, PJ), community radios (o Forum das Radios Comunitarias de Mocambique, FORCOM), the Human Rights League (a Liga Mocambicana dos Direitos Humanos, LDH), the Women's Forum (o Forum Mulher) and the Public Integrity Centre (o Centro de Integridade Publica, CIP) have issued a joint statement in which they say that that "in Quelimane city 4 clandestine ballot boxes were found in a police car registration PRM 00313. Local people say that the ballot boxes were given to two people who left in cars with registrations ACU 173 MC e ADJ 481 MC".

Based on supporters during the campaign and initial results, it appears that RENAMO made a better showing than some expected and MDM, the newer, up-and-coming opposition party that saw a fair amount of success in last year's mayoral elections, may have struggled. It will be very interesting to see the official results and how people respond to them. As of this morning, RENAMO is not accepting the initial projections of a FRELIMO victory.

Many are seeing a FRELIMO victory as a foregone conclusion, but people are also upset about the widespread fraud. The fraud appears in so many different flavors, beyond the ballot box stuffing cited above. O Partido can stack the polling station staff with party sympathizers, since they run the Election Commission. Supposedly, here in Chimoio, all of the voting table presidents were called in for a meeting with FRELIMO the night before elections. This is after the commission went against the recommendations of trainers for who to place as president, presumably in order to have their own people in charge. During the campaign, they repeatedly used state resources - from cars and trucks to police and military - to support their cause. Never mind the fact that they run all the major news outlets and could slant coverage to favor their own party. Even Mcel (Moçambique Celular the cell provider with government backing) was sending "news" items via text such as, "Nyusi's campaign is running strong!"or "MDM backers in Nampula leave campaign to back Nyusi." (Nyusi being the FRELIMO candidate).

On the other side, some men from RENAMO attacked a polling station and burned ballot boxes they believed to contain fraudulent ballots. There were reports of other violent acts perpetrated by RENAMO leading up to the election, too. Hear in Manica, I heard about MDM appointed polling staff being shut out of training sessions either because of terrible disorganization on the part of the party, or because their spots had been sold. No one came out of these elections looking squeaky clean.

My only hope is that any post-election conflicts are resolved peacefully and Mozambique is left in a better position to continue along its path to a better life for all citizens. I will continue to post quick updates as the news comes in.

Choose Your Words Carefully

I finally wrote my first Letter to the Editor (finally showing that I am my father's daughter!) It hasn’t been published, but it felt good. It was in response to an editorial I read on the New York Times' website, "Stopping Ebola in America, " about steps the US needs to take to keep Ebola in check. I had no problem with most of the points made in the piece, but then I came to a line that just made me cringe: "There is room to improve the screening in West Africa, where government officials and workers are often incompetent and in some cases unable to use the temperature devices they have been given." I had to respond.

It has been interesting following the coverage of the Ebola epidemic from here in Mozambique. This part of Africa is far from the outbreak and I would guess there is less transit between the affected area and Mozambique than there is with the US. The Mozambican government put plenty of preventative measures in place: checking passengers traveling from affected areas, setting up a unit in the Maputo hospital to deal with any potential cases, but I wasn't surprised to hear that the infection appeared in the US before here. Despite being on the same continent as the outbreak, Mozambique is very far from Liberia and travel between the countries is difficult. So where I live, we aren't directly affected by Ebola, but the coverage in the news has touched on many things that feel relevant to me, particularly because "Africa" is often treated as a single entity in US and Western media.

It may not be surprising to hear that living in Africa for two years has changed the way I read news and commentary about the continent; how the people and cultures here are portrayed feels much more personal when applied to my friends, colleagues, students and neighbors. I can't say that I have anything particularly original to say on the subject; most of these things have been said repeatedly by all sorts of commentators, but here goes anyways. If nothing else, I need the catharsis of getting my feelings on the page.  

Africa isn't homogeneous. Which is not just to say that it is up of different countries, cultures and ethnicities with varied histories, traditions, and current ways of life. It also means that it is home to millions of individuals with personalities and stories and temperaments. And feelings. Feelings which can get hurt when people say insensitive things about them. Many of these individuals are not poor, incompetent people living in the bush, as the statement in the Times piece seems to want to portray. Some are intelligent, motivated, educated, and engaged. And this population knows how Western media talks about Africa as a whole. I will never forget the acute embarrassment at the beginning of my second semester teaching English here.

I like to start out my first class with a new group by opening the floor to questions. They are allowed to ask whatever they want, as long as it is in English. The vast majority are similar: "How old are you?" "Are you married?" "How long have you been in Mozambique?" "What do you think of Mozambique?" But one of my students threw out: "What do people in America think of Africa?" Caught off guard,  I stumbled over a response that basically amounted to: "Well, different people think different things, depending on their experience and knowledge, some people don't know a lot, but others have been here..." He listened to my awkward rambling and then hit me with, "It's just that I saw this American movie once and there was a kid who was being bad and his mom told him, 'If you don't stop, I'm going to send you to Africa!' So, people must think it's a bad place to be, right?"

How to respond to this?! I took a deep breath and tried to explain that Americans tend to focus on bad news in general, not just about Africa, and since there are places with wars and hunger and negative things, sometimes this gets in the news more than the good things and that shapes people's ideas. Partly wanting to save a little face, partly just not wanting him to think that all Americans believe Africa is where you get sent when you misbehave.

When the New York Times makes the statement that government officials and workers in West Africa are "often incompetent," it does damage in so many ways.

• It bunches together an entire region consisting of many countries (17, according to the UN) as though they are one. Nigeria is not Mali, and Mauritania is not Sierra Leone. There may be cultural similarities among some of the countries, but to make a sweeping statement about their governments and capacities as though they can all be equated is like making a statement about the management of American companies as though Walmart is the same as a Manhattan bodega is the same as LL Bean.
• It reinforces a damaging stereotype regarding the abilities of Africans to take care of themselves, which supports the idea that they need us to come in and save them. The editorial was signed by the New York Times’ editorial board. I am very curious to know who on that board is an expert in West African governance. On what are they basing their assertion? Their own extensive personal experience? Long-term study of the region? Or is anecdotal and based on prejudice? We have no way of knowing. The fact that an anonymous group can dismiss the abilities of an entire region without any claim to expertise is unfair; but Western intellectuals rarely hesitate to opine on what’s wrong in Africa and propose solutions without necessarily having a lot of experience living in the region and we accept it. "Experts" who have studied one country can be called on to solve problems on the other side of the continent.
• It oversimplifies a complex problem. It stands to reason that an outbreak like the one happening now is exacerbated by inadequately trained medical personnel who don’t have access to decent equipment and facilities. Look at the whole statement: "There is room to improve the screening in West Africa, where government officials and workers are often incompetent and in some cases unable to use the temperature devices they have been given." It starts out okay: sure, there is room to improve screening. Then comes that word, “incompetent.” I have already made clear my feelings on that. But it is followed by, “…in some cases unable to use the temperature devices they have been given." So, if someone gives medical workers a new piece of technology without the proper training on how to use it, who is incompetent? 

To me, if someone wants to get involved in development work, they need to be committed to first understanding the context of the problem they are addressing. Next, they need to work with local actors to identify possible solutions. But most importantly, that solution can’t be new equipment or technology without the necessary training. There needs to be real capacity building in order for any difference to be made. The classic example is the use of mosquito nets in the fight against malaria. American organizations collect money, buy bed-nets and ship them to rural Mozambique. Then they are surprised to find that people, never having seen a bed net before and receiving no instruction on how to use one, use them to fish or o protect their crops from bugs.

All this is to say, the statement made by the Times’ editorial board is only one instance in a pattern of how West Africa, Africa as a whole, and African people are portrayed in Western media: as homogeneously incompetent. The fact that it is okay for this statement to be made by an anonymous group not claiming to have any expertise in the region reflects the attitude that most Americans are well-educated and competent enough to give advice regarding development (a problem I have with my own presence here). It also shows the laziness of people wanting to solve complex social issues with technological interventions alone, not a long-term commitment to building the capacity of the local populations. This is bad on its own, but made worse by the fact that the subjects of such a statement can read it and this will inform all of their interactions with Westerners.

As I concluded my letter to the editor: In summary, such a casual assertion of ineptitude that paints an entire region as "less than," only serves to reinforce a simplistic version of a historically fraught power relationship between Africa and the West. It sells short everyone involved.

The Opportunity Cost of Miss America

I have mostly (or completely) used this blog to write about my life here in Mozambique and I am halfway through a new post about working with some Dutch journalists on a story about illegal logging, but I need to take a quick detour.

I need to talk about women for a moment. It’s not a total detour from my life here in Moz, because the situation of girls and women here is always on my mind, and it frequently makes me reflect on the state of women back in the US and around the world. Almost every week in our discussions in English Club the topic ends up coming back around to gender equality. Maybe because it is a subject that I hold near and dear, or maybe because all other social or human rights-related issues are inextricably linked to the status of women in society. I’m biased, but I’m pretty sure it’s the latter.

Anyway, to detour from Moz for the moment I need to talk about Facebook. For the last couple of days, my newsfeed has been completely full of Emma Watson’s speech at the UN as the Goodwill Ambassador for UN Women. Actually, there has been a lot about women’s rights in my newsfeed lately. All together, they have been making me think a lot about the issue in new and different ways and I need to react to a few of them.

First, Emma Watson. For those who haven’t seen it, she gave a wonderful 12-minute speech to launch “He for She,” a campaign that emphasizes the need for men to also take up the cause of gender equality.  She starts out talking about her own experiences: “My life is a sheer privilege because my parents didn’t love me less because I was born a daughter. My school did not limit me because I was a girl. My mentors didn’t assume I would go less far because I might give birth to a child one day.” And goes on to hit a number of crucial points about the current state of women and girls in the world: “the reality is that if we do nothing it will take 75 years, or for me to be nearly a hundred before women can expect to be paid the same as men for the same work. 15.5 million girls will be married in the next 16 years as children. And at current rates it won’t be until 2086 before all rural African girls will be able to receive a secondary education.”

But a major focus of the speech is men:

I’ve seen my father’s role as a parent being valued less by society despite my needing his presence as a child as much as my mother’s. I’ve seen a young man suffering from mental illness unable to ask for help for fear it would make him less of a man – in fact in the UK suicide is the biggest killer of men between 20-49…I’ve seen men made fragile and insecure by a distorted sense of what constitutes male success…

If men don’t have to be aggressive in order to be accepted women won’t feel compelled to be submissive. If men don’t have to control, women won’t have to be controlled. Both men and women should feel free to be sensitive. Both men and women should feel free to be strong. It is time that we all perceive gender on a spectrum instead two opposing sets of ideals. If we stop defining each other by what we are not and start defining ourselves by what we just are - we can all be freer.

Amen. Seriously. The binary definitions of gender we frequently establish leave a lot of people feeling insecure when they don’t fit neatly into the accepted box. I’m not even talking about transgender people, but those men who identify as male, but don’t necessarily agree that this should be equated with always being strong, never crying, not cleaning or cooking or doing other “women’s work.” Or those women who identify as female, but don’t agree that this means they need to be soft-spoken, deferent, pretty, nurturing, etc. These people end up clinging to stereotypes of what they think they should be because they don’t feel like they can be themselves without running the risk of being called gay or girly or a pussy or a bitch or bossy or shrill or a dyke or a fairy or any number of other put-downs based on living outside the gender-norm box. They end up being hyper-aggressive or spend all their time persecuting people who live freely as themselves. They fathers who won‘t allow their daughters to go to school or play sports for fear they won’t be able to “get a husband.” Etc.

I could go on about this for a number of pages, but that’s not the point. My friends on Facebook are generally a pretty progressive bunch. It isn’t unusual to see plenty of posting about women’s issues, but this speech just took over. I love the speech. I don’t want to criticize anything she said. But there was something just bugging me about the fact that it was getting shared SO MUCH and I couldn’t figure out why. Part of it was that most of what she said was nothing new. Then one FB friend shared a TED talk from a few years ago by Chimamanda Adichie about being a feminist. She pointed out that many women of color have already made similar speeches and appeals without the same attention. Emma Watson is more “palatable,” she said, as a pretty, white woman with a manner of speaking acceptable to “the social elite.”

True. No doubt. But this helped me realize what else bothered me about the virality of the speech. While Emma Watson begins by talking about being “confused at being called ‘bossy’ because I wanted to direct the plays we would put on for our parents” at age 8. But she could never be confused for bossy while speaking at the UN. Her affect for the full 12 minutes is nervous (understandably when addressing the UN), meek, deferential and entirely feminine, in the traditional sense of word. She uses strong words: “think it is right that I should be able to make decisions about my own body. I think it is right that women be involved on my behalf in the policies and decision making that affect my life. I think it is right that socially I am afforded the same respect as men. But sadly I can say that there is no one country in the world where all women can expect to receive these rights.” But she never seems angry.

In fact, the reality that only when a pretty white woman can say these things without stepping outside of the socially-acceptable female manner of speaking does it go viral, supports everything she said in the speech. As does the fact that following the release of the video, she has been threatened with the release of nude photos in retaliation.

While the content of her speech was empowering, the delivery was not. This might not seem fair to Emma, who generally does project a beautifully bossy image. Just do a Google search for pictures of her and all the top results are of her staring directly into the camera, very clearly letting you know that you had better get out of her way. My reaction is not based on her, but on the internet’s reaction to her as compared with others. I support anything that gets people talking in a constructive way about women’s rights, but I am left feeling sad that the message has to come wrapped in this package in order to be “palatable.”

Another example that showed up on Facebook today came from John Oliver. He recently produced a fantastic piece of investigative journalism regarding the Miss America Pageant and its claim to be the world’s largest provider of scholarships for women. It is an example of what the media should be doing in terms of fact-checking and holding people accountable for the truth of their claims. Here is the video for those of you who want the whole story:

For those of you who want the short version, Miss America claims to provide $45 million in scholarship funds for women each year. Oliver and his team went and got the tax filings that are public record because Miss America is a non-profit foundation (!!) and found that the actual amount given directly by Miss America as scholarship money last year was $482,000 – a decent amount, but $44.5 million off the figure claimed on television. They looked deeper into what “provide” might mean and found that the total included all scholarships made theoretically available by all state and local competitions that lead up to the final pageant.

My favorite example of the creative accounting they employed to reach the $45 million came from Miss Alabama. This organization “provides” $2,592,000 in scholarships to Troy University, although not a single person has attended Troy University on a Miss Alabama scholarship. The “provision” comes from the value of one scholarship offered as a prize, $54,000, multiplied by the number of contestants. Another state includes the total value of four scholarships that the first place winner can choose between, even though it would be impossible for her to accept all four.

Unfortunately, even with the lower real numbers, it turns out that Miss America is in fact the largest provider of scholarships exclusively for women. Oliver takes the time to give a shout-out to three other organizations that provide scholarships for women, including the Society of Women Engineers, the Rankin Foundation and the Patsy Mink Foundation, in hopes that people will make some donations so that one of these orgs can surpass Miss America.

The reporting by Oliver is wonderful and he goes beyond attacking this claim to question the very existence of Miss America in this day and age, mocking the pageant host by saying, “It is the year 2014 and I am a fully clothed man standing in front of a line of women in swimsuits awaiting judgment.” He criticizes the fact that the scholarships are only available to women who know how to use butt-glue to keep a swimsuit in place, who are willing to swear to the fact that they have never been married or pregnant and who are judged on a 20-second response to an incredibly difficult question on a news-related topic. And he calls Donald Trump,"a clown made of mummified foreskin and cotton candy."

The piece is well researched and really funny. And to drive his point home, he closes with the Miss Last Week Tonight Pageant. "I’m proud to say we are the world’s largest provider of scholarships for women because tonight 400 million one-dollar scholarships will be made available to the winner, of which she may choose just one." Still funny. Then he brings out a “contestant,” who is young, beautiful and dressed in an evening gown. She takes her 20 seconds to explain that the fact that she has only 20 seconds to talk proves that Miss America is still all about beauty. The second contestant is Kathy Griffin, who takes her time to say it’s totally fine to award scholarships to women based on looks, as long as we do the same for men. Another beautiful woman in an evening gown comes out to crown Giuseppe, John Oliver’s new, more attractive replacement, as the winner.  Haha.

It’s not that this last segment was offensive, but I was left feeling that it was a missed opportunity. He wrapped up a whole segment about the objectification of women by bringing out two more nameless beautiful faces in full pageant gear, plus Kathy Griffin, who has made her fortune on the E! Network, home to all that is wrong with American culture in terms of insipid, depthless glamorization of image. Why not bring out Madeleine Albright or Rachel Maddow in an evening gown (or bikini!) and limit her to 20 seconds to make a well-reasoned argument? Why not invite on the leader of one of the scholarship orgs he plugged and give her the chance to talk about the importance of supporting girls who want to be engineers?

He produced a segment condemning the objectification of women in which the only women appearing were beautiful, well-dressed, well-made-up and generally fit the Miss America mold, instead of giving voice to women who break that mold and want to be valued by society for their contributions as thinkers, leaders and creators.

Because here is the thing about Miss America: opportunity cost. When we teach little girls that heir value lies in their appearance, we direct them to put their time, energy and attention into how they look, diverting time, energy and attention from other activities. Every minute a girl spends on her hair, makeup and clothes is another minute not spent studying math, learning to play an instrument, writing poetry, practicing free-throws, memorizing the periodic table of elements, or reading. Every ounce of energy spent worrying about her weight or her outfit is energy not put towards dreaming about being an astronaut. All the attention put on how successful women dress, do their makeup and carry themselves is attention not put on what they studied, who their mentors were, and how they overcame challenges.

These little girls grow up to be women who face the same trade-offs. I shudder to think about the cumulative time the average American woman spends doing her hair and makeup, let alone reading about fashion trends, shopping for the right clothing, getting waxed and peeled and plucked. What about money? Every dollar spent on Cosmo isn’t available to invest in their own businesses. All the money spent on anti-wrinkle cream isn’t spent on their daughter’s education. And this ties back to Emma Watson’s point about gender norms. For girls and women who don’t feel they fit neatly in the box of femininity, it takes that much more time and energy to get them there.

What would happen if women suddenly put the same amount of time, energy and money into their appearance as men and put the remainder into professional success and personal fulfillment? Would we see more women running companies? Inventing life saving drugs? Designing skyscrapers? As professional athletes? Guitar virtuosos?

This blog post itself is an example. Every moment I spend writing about Emma Watson and Miss America, I am not finishing my other post about illegal logging by foreign companies in Mozambique. I am not reviewing my class notes and improving the lesson I will teach later today. But until all the injustices that Ms. Watson mention in her speech have been resolved, I still think this is a good use of my time and energy.

Jam!

I have been lucky enough to spend my Peace Corps service in a quintal that is home to a small Garden of Eden. The previous owner was Brazilian and planted a variety of fruit trees and vines. We have mangoes, guavas, grapes, ata, papaya, even passionfruit. I arrived at the height of mango season and in the middle of Christmas break. The yard was littered with fruit and I had nothing to do, so I began experimenting with jam-making. The first few batches went so well, it became a bit of an obsession over the last two years. Making jam is a great way to preserve seasonal fruit, is low-tech and low-cost, quick to learn and delicious; therefore, I figured I could share my methods so that others can use them at home, with their REDES groups or anywhere the opportunity arises. Instead of using specific recipes, I have collected up general techniques and adapted them to different kinds of fruits. 

My little house under the shade of mango, ata and guava trees.

The basis of every jam is the same: fruit, sugar and some kind of acid, cooked down into a delicious, spreadable, shelf-stable mush. The rule of thumb for jams that will be kept outside the refrigerator is to use equal parts fruit and sugar; less sugar will not preserve the fruit and the jam will ferment and/or mold much more quickly. Outside of this rule, making jam is not an exact science – you can taste, adjust and experiment as you go. For jam that will be kept in the fridge, you can pretty much use sugar to taste. I will first outline the basic process and then add details for specific fruits.

Jam is different from jelly in that it is made with fruit pulp, not just juice. Boiling chunks of whole fruit with sugar generally leads to a thick, but not jelly-like consistency. To thicken jam more, you can use pectin. This is commercially available in liquid or powder form in the US, but I haven’t seen it here in Moz. Some fruits (or parts of fruits) are naturally high in pectin, including lemon or lime seeds. When I use a limão, I rinse the seeds and keep them in the fridge until the next time I make jam. I tie them up in a little bit of cloth and boil them with the fruit. You can put them directly in the jam and fish them out before you put it in jars, but this is a lot of work.    

This is Nelson picking oranges in Maxixe, but I use the same technique to pick fruit in my yard.

The basic jam-ing process is as follows:

1. Prep your fruit: Clean it, remove the skin, and cut it into chunks.
2. Prep glass jars: Clean them and remove the labels. As you are making the jam, boil the jars to sterilize them. If you don’t sterilize the jars, the jam will go bad no matter the proportion of sugar you use!
3. Put the fruit and sugar in a pan, adding some water for firmer fruits and bring to a boil. Again, if conservation outside the fridge is your goal, start with 1:1 fruit and sugar. If not, start with less sugar and adjust to taste as you cook. I generally keep it on medium-high heat on the stove. Adjust as necessary for carvão. Heavier or non-stick pans are better as the fruit is less likely to stick or burn.
4. Add a bit of lemon juice, or another acidic juice (I love using a mix of passionfruit and limão). This is to taste: start with the juice of one lemon and see how it tastes! Add other flavorings if you want at this point: ginger, cinnamon or other spices.
5. Boil, boil, boil until it thickens, stirring frequently to make sure it isn’t burning on the bottom. If you have a freezer, put a small plate in and use this to test for readiness. When the jam is done, a bit dabbed onto the cold plate won’t run. If you don’t have a freezer, you will have to use your judgment (which gets easier with more practice).  You can test by pouring some slowly from a spoon – it should thicken up enough that it no longer runs in a thin, watery stream. It will get thicker as it cools, so it does not need to be the finished consistency before you take it off the heat.
6. Take your boiled jars out of the water and fill them with hot jam. Clean the edges and place the lids on top, but wait until the jam has cooled a little before you give the final tightening.

Tips for specific fruits:

Mango Jam

Mangoes are pretty simple. You can generally just peel the fruit, cut it off the stone and dice it up. For the small yellow mangoes that can be stringy, I cook the fruit down with some water and strain it before adding sugar and boiling it for real. Mangoes are pretty sweet, so I usually use more lemon juice in mango jam than with some other fruits.

Ideas for variations:
   - Grating in some fresh ginger adds depth of flavor with a mild kick.
   - Passionfruit pulp or juice is a great complementary flavor.
   - Dice a less-ripe mango and add the pieces halfway through the cooking process for a chunkier texture.
   - Thin strips of lime rind will candy as they cook, adding flavor and texture.

Mango-ginger jam made with passionfruit juice.

Guava Jam

Guavas are a lot of work, but the final product is one of my favorites. Start by peeling the fruit and cutting it in chunks. Be careful of bichos! About a third of the guavas from our trees tend to have little worm-y fly larvae in them. You can use your judgment to determine what proportion of each piece of fruit is usable. Unripe guava isn’t as sweet, but is high in pectin, so I generally include at least a few less ripe ones along with the fully mature ones.

After cutting up the fruit, put it in the pan and add enough water to cover the fruit. Boil it until the fruit begins to break apart. I happen to have a potato masher (incredibly useful for so many things in a kitchen without a food processor!), but use whatever you have to stir and mash the fruit as it cooks. Once it is a pretty, pink soup, take the mixture off the stove and strain out the seeds. I use a mesh strainer. Use the back of a spoon or a spatula to press the mixture through, so that you get more than the juice. You want to include the pulp, just not the tooth-cracking seeds. Once you have the seedless pulp, follow the directions above.

I LOVE making guava jam with the juice of a few passionfruits (strained to remove the seeds) in addition to the juice of one or two limões.

Papaya Jam

Papayas are soooo simple. Just peel it remove the seeds and cut it into chunks. Put the chunks in the pan, add water to cover and sugar. It breaks down quickly with heat and stirring – no other tricks necessary!

Papaya blends really well with other fruits and flavors:

-        Add orange juice and grate in a little orange rind.

-        Chopped pineapple and/or mango.

-        Add some cinnamon, ginger and allspice.

Fresh papaya; the jam cooking.

Banana Jam

Banana is also very simple. Just peel, chop and cover with water in the pan. I generally chop it pretty finely as it doesn’t always break down completely. Sugar, lemon juice, cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg result in something very close to apple butter. Delicious.

Passionfruit Jam

Passionfruit is one of the most labor-intensive jams, but the result is completely different from other jams and deeeeelicious.

1. Start with maybe 6-8 ripe passionfruit. Wash them well. Cut them in half, putting the pulp aside in a bowl.
2. Put the shells in a pan, cover with water and bring to a boil. Let them boil until the white inside has turned translucent and purple-ish. Pull the shells out of the water and let them cool. Scrape the translucent inside part onto a cutting board and discard the hard purple outer shell. The inner part should have a firm-ish jelly-like texture. Chop this finely and mix in the reserved pulp.
3.  In a pan add the pulp mixture and an equal amount of sugar. You can start with less sugar, but taste as you are cooking as too little sugar produces a bitter jam. Add water until it is soupy and stir-able.
4. Add lemon juice to taste. I also like to add the pulp of a couple more passionfruits.
5. Finish cooking as instructed above.

Passionfruit/maracujá; the jam as it cooks; the finished product.

Grape Jam

Grapes are also work, but the jam vale a pena. The grapes we have at our house are like small concord grapes, so I don’t know the exact process for the thinner-skinned red or green grapes you would find in a grocery store.

1.  Pull the grapes off their stems and wash them well. Pop the inner pulp out of the skin, putting the skins aside for later. Again, this process takes a while, but is easy for the little dark purple ones that grow here. Put on a movie and just get it done.
2. Similar to the process with guavas, put the light green inner pulp in a pan with some water. Boil and stir it until the fruit breaks down and you can strain out the seeds.
3.  Return the seedless pulp to the pan and add the skins, sugar and some lemon juice. I cook this mixture for a while over medium heat before bringing it to a boil in order to be sure that the skins break down some. Once they are nice and soft, I crank the heat up higher and follow the process explained above.

Grapes fresh off the vine; the pulp cooking down before the skins are added.

Lychee Jam

We don’t have lychees at our house, but last year I was given a few kilos by a friend who has trees and gave jam a try. You need a lot of fruit, so it would be pretty pricey if you have to buy lychees, but it was fantastic.

1. Peel the lychees and pop out the pits.
2. Chop the fruit very finely as it didn’t break down very much when cooked (although I really liked the chunky texture).
3. Add the chopped fruit, water to cover, sugar and lemon/lime/limão. I made it with a healthy dose of lime juice (we happened to have legit limes in the market at the time) and really liked the flavor combination. 
4. Follow the process outlined above.

The more jam I have made, the more comfortable I am improvising. I have gotten better at recognizing how flavors and consistencies change as the jam cools. BUT even in my early batches, I have yet to make one that didn’t taste great as long as I stuck to the same basic process. So, don’t be afraid to experiment and trust your own judgment. Have fun! 

If you have made jam and want to share tips or recipes, please add them in the comments!