GCD Reflection 3.12.09

Prior to doing these readings, I found myself struggling to understand how what we will be doing will be any different than traditional charitable volunteering. In truth, I am not certain of how GCD will exercise what we’ve been learning so far, but I’ve come to understand that not having an exact idea of what we will be doing is part of the process. The readings for this week were helpful in allowing me to understand that wanting to know exactly what our group will be doing and knowing the details of the community we’ll be visiting is part of my own oppressive thought processes on working in communities other than my own. It’s become clearer to me now that it is the role of Cape Charles to set the agenda of our visit and introduce their communities to us, rather than the role of our facilitators.
The reading, “Acompañar Obediciendo” by Simonelli was particularly instrumental in clarifying the objective and methods of community service learning. “We balance observation and participation; learning and helping; teaching and being taught; immediate results and sustainable activities; practice and research.” (p. 9). The journal entries of the college students who visited Ivanhoe reported on the experience of community service learning: “We came here to help them, to work hard, and instead they’re doing so much more for us. We came to give of ourselves but they’re giving us so much more.” (p. 285).
Prior to this week’s readings, I could only think of how we would be useful to Cape Charles as supports, but it hadn’t occurred to me that they would want us there to get to know us and spend time teaching us. I’ve been dreading experiencing resentment from our host community towards us, and being a representation of the oppressive forces that have created poverty through racism. The readings have helped me to open my mind to the possibility that perhaps Cape Charles might actually want us there for more than just manual labor.
In the chapter on Ministry in It Comes From the People, the authors touched upon what I was worried about representing to Cape Charles. “Some who had worked closely with the students began to feel uncomfortable, wondering if they were being taken advantage of, perhaps even being subject to ridicule… They made people feel inferior… Could they prevent the students’ presence from perpetuating the degradation and dependence that is all too often the lot of ‘charity’ recipients?” (p. 287-288). This was my big question about our own ASB trip. Could we enter a community such as Cape Charles or Ivanhoe and be more constructive than charities?
Balancing practice, method, and theory is critical. Without the content of the course, the insights of the readings, and the tools that we have acquired so far, I think the ASB trip would be unsuccessful. Coming to grips with my own privilege and the circumstances that have created my own social status and at what cost this status has been granted to me has been critical for me. Understanding agency and community service learning has allowed me to open myself up to what I might learn and gain from Cape Charles, rather than fearing how I will hurt the community. Simonelli’s article reminded me of how to use my academic training on myself. “Moving beyond feel-good resolutions to the inequitable distribution of wealth and privilege, anthropologically informed service-learning shows that we can be involved in the reconfirmation or ‘testing’ of critical theory… Anthropological models of learning and service are a gentle critique of other programs where a subtle, but deadly ethnocentrism still guides the provision of service.” (p. 14).
This has helped me to let go of guilt and fear, and rather approach the ASB trip with humility and to receive whatever it is that the Cape Charles community has to teach me. Quoting Gayatri Spivak, hooks provides sage advice for an individual in a social position of unearned privilege who is trying to learn how to an active anti-racist and ally: “She explains that ‘what we are asking for is that the hegemonic discourses, and the holders of hegemonic discourse, should dehegemonize their position and themselves learn how to occupy the subject position of the other.’ Generally, this process of repositioning has the power to deconstruct practices of racism and make possible the disassociation of whiteness with terror in the black imagination.” (p. 177).

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In the situation of being confronted by members of the community about our role of privilege and our intentions and motivations, it’s difficult to imagine the reality of the response I would be able to give, especially if I’m tired and dirty and under the impression that things have been going well. In reality, under these circumstances, it is quite probable that I would be shocked, my heart rate would accelerate, and I would become inarticulate and too anxious to really formulate a response. This is a problem I have with direct, hostile confrontations; I react by having a panic attack.
Ideally, however, in the event that I am able to work myself through the initial anxiety and panic of being confronted, I would hope to be able to engage in dialogue with the group, and hopefully do so with the support of my teammates. I would want to remind them that we were invited into the community, and that if the community feels that what we’re doing in their community is unwanted, then they should let us know. This to me feels like although it might be too defensive of a comment, it would be important to make it clear that the community is in control of the agneda and that we are simply guests who are here on their terms.
I would like to be able to ask the group of men if they would be willing to talk about this issue further, and if given consent, it would be a good opportunity to engage in a dialogue. I can’t predict what my teammates would do in this situation, but I would want to ask what gave them the impression that we were only here to assuage guilt and feel good about ourselves. If given the space to, I would hope to share with them that I’ve personally made a goal for myself to attempt to see everyone as sharing a common goal and common right: to be happy.
According to the Dalai Lama in his essay on Compassion and the Individual, “Because we all share an identical need for love, it is possible to feel that anybody we meet, in whatever circumstances, is a brother or sister. No matter how new the face or how different the dress and behavior, there is no significant division between us and other people. It is foolish to dwell on external differences, because our basic natures are the same.” This is different than wishing for a color-blind society. This mode of thinking asserts that we all share a common goal: to be happy. To be compassionate is to see people as having the right to be happy, and therefore respecting the cultural and individual perspectives of the pursuit of happiness. Equally important is to understand why people have become unhappy, filled with anger, or express hatred towards others.
If it became possible to engage in dialogue, I would want to know where these men were coming from when they made the comments, and under what circumstances they have been led to think this way. I would also want them to know my own perception and why I am here in this class. I’m not a spoiled rich kid, and I could share my own experience with being on the recipient end of charity. I remember very well my own feelings of resentment towards the college student volunteers who worked with Habitat for Humanity to build my family’s home.
I would want to stress that we are here on their terms, and we are here to learn from them so that we could go forward in our attempts to reconstruct the system that has granted unearned privileges at the expense of other equally deserving peoples. I would want them to know that we’re not here because we feel bad for people with a worse lot in life, but rather that we are sincerely invested in changing the power structure. Simonelli explains that “Theoretically, our work was guided by the notion of ‘agency’, and deriving from this, the act of giving agency to those to be ‘aided’, as a creative response to the colonial experience, of which anthropology was a part.” (p. 13).
It would be important to make it clear that we are not here to apologize and right the wrongs of our ancestors so that we can go to bed happy. We are here to work towards change. The aim of the group working with the Zapatistas is what we are hoping to achieve: “In the end, rather than a commitment between a place and a place, as is the usual notion of a sister city relationship, we developed an on-going relationship between an outcome and an outcome.” (p. 13). We are hoping to learn from them how we can change our own oppressive behaviors and help to liberate others from internalized oppressions. I would ask them how we could change this system and create social justice, and how we would be able to do it on their terms. I’m not sure of the reality of this conversation, but it’s a conversation I’d like to be able to have.