Look what I'm holding!
I.
Labour MP David Lammy isn't often right.
But he's fully justified in his recent criticisms of Comic Relief: Stacey Dooley and friends do perpetuate "unhelpful stereotypes" about Africa and the peoples thereof and they do irritate and embarrass many of us as they play the role of Great White Saviour for the cameras amidst a sea of smiling black faces.
No one questions the good intentions of those celebrities who participate in charitable projects such as Red Nose Day (although, in some cases, we could and probably should do just that).
But such projects can inadvertently descend into poverty porn and I agree with Lammy that Comic Relief has helped ingrain negative images of Africa into the popular imagination by blurring the fifty-four separate nations that make up the continent into "a single reservoir of poverty, grief and suffering", thereby reinforcing the Band Aid view of Africa as a place where nothing ever grows.
II.
Miss Dooley, MBE, is an English TV presenter, journalist, documentary filmmaker, and all-dancing media personality who has made a career out of the shit that goes on in the developing world. So you'd think she might know better than to ask, naively, whether the objection Lammy raises has anything to do with her being white.
But he's fully justified in his recent criticisms of Comic Relief: Stacey Dooley and friends do perpetuate "unhelpful stereotypes" about Africa and the peoples thereof and they do irritate and embarrass many of us as they play the role of Great White Saviour for the cameras amidst a sea of smiling black faces.
No one questions the good intentions of those celebrities who participate in charitable projects such as Red Nose Day (although, in some cases, we could and probably should do just that).
But such projects can inadvertently descend into poverty porn and I agree with Lammy that Comic Relief has helped ingrain negative images of Africa into the popular imagination by blurring the fifty-four separate nations that make up the continent into "a single reservoir of poverty, grief and suffering", thereby reinforcing the Band Aid view of Africa as a place where nothing ever grows.
II.
Miss Dooley, MBE, is an English TV presenter, journalist, documentary filmmaker, and all-dancing media personality who has made a career out of the shit that goes on in the developing world. So you'd think she might know better than to ask, naively, whether the objection Lammy raises has anything to do with her being white.
For the blindingly obvious answer is that, yes, of course it does - but it's also an issue to do with wealth, fame, class, power and privilege, which is why it's equally offensive when Meghan Markle turns up on the scene to distribute her empowering bananas, for example [click here].
No one is denying that Africa has problems and faces some huge challenges. But there's a lot of positive things happening there too and Comic Relief "should be helping to establish an image of African people as equals to be respected rather than helpless victims to be pitied".
More than this, it should also challenge its audience "not just to feel guilty, but angry" about the West's political and economic complicity in the war, poverty, and corruption that has plagued the continent in the postcolonial period.
In sum: whilst the fundraising (and international aid) is important and worthwhile, "the Red Nose Day formula is tired and patronising to Africans" and non-Africans alike.
See: David Lammy, 'Africa deserves better from Comic Relief', in The Guardian (24 March 2017): click here to read online.
See also the excellent article on this topic by Afua Hirsch, 'Ed Sheeran means well but this poverty porn has to stop', The Guardian (5 December 2017): click here.
