We Need More Tables

Navigating privilege in the face of poverty

Norma Young

• Publisher: Tracey McDonald Publishers
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781990931628
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Social Classes & Economic Disparity
• Index: Social Sciences

Poverty isn't always a jumble of appalling statistics. Sometimes there are names, faces and stories to the numbers. It's a cousin who's finished high school but doesn't have enough money to job hunt. It's a colleague whose hand to mouth living still only gets her through half the month because her salary is just not enough. It's a grandfather who worked for decades and got a retirement package so paltry he can't pay his monthly bills.

When people you know and love are behind the data of impoverishment, it can be hard to determine how to help. It can be even harder to settle on how much to help without compromising on your own quality of life.

In We Need More Tables, Norma Young provides guidance on how to find a balance between alleviating poverty and yet maintaining a measure of the privilege one may have been born with. By exploring assumptions such as the myth of hard work and the fallacy of meritocracy, as well as historical methodologies of philanthropy in Africa, and suggesting the practice of impactful altruism, such as paying a living wage, building a solidarity economy or choosing regenerative investing, she shares an outline of how those with privilege can play a role in social justice.

Drawing on indigenous knowledge – fables, proverbs and learnings from African academics – We Need More Tables presents a framework of what is required to bring more of our communities to participate at the tables where decisions are made.

Norma Young's insightful book provides us with realistic and practical ways of moving towards eradicating poverty in South Africa.

PART 1

THINKING
JUSTLY

‘Philanthropy is commendable but it must not cause the philanthropist to overlook the circumstances of economic injustice that make philanthropy necessary.’

– Martin Luther King Jr.

CHAPTER 1

UNDERSTANDING PRIVILEGE

These days it might be a voice note or video clip, but when sociologist and civil rights pioneer W.E.B. Du Bois wanted to impart parental wisdom and love to his daughter in boarding school, he relied on pen and paper.

It was 1914, and Yolande, aged 14, had recently enrolled at one of England’s most prestigious institutions.

Holding the distinction of being the first African American person to receive a doctorate from Harvard University, Du Bois was aware that in Britain his daughter would also not have peers who looked or sounded like her, least of all because she came from a different country.

Wanting to assure and ensure Yolande of her rightful place and worth to study at Bedales School, Du Bois wrote his daughter a letter.

In it, he shared enduring truths about her privilege and inalienable human rights:

Dear Little Daughter:

I have waited for you to get well settled before writing. By this time I hope some of the strangeness has worn off and that my little girl is working hard and regularly.

Of course, everything is new and unusual. You miss the newness and smartness of America. Gradually, however, you are going to sense the beauty of the old world: its calm and eternity and you will grow to love it.

Above all remember, dear, that you have a great opportunity. You are in one of the world’s best schools, in one of the world’s greatest modern empires. Millions of boys and girls all over this world would give almost anything they possess to be where you are. You are there by no desert or merit of yours, but only by lucky chance.

Deserve it, then. Study, do your work. Be honest, frank and fearless and get some grasp of the real values of life. You will meet, of course, curious little annoyances. People will wonder at your dear brown skin and the sweet crinkley hair. But that simply is of no importance and will soon be forgotten. Remember that most folk laugh at anything unusual, whether it is beautiful, fine or not. You, however, must not laugh at yourself. You must know that brown is as pretty as white or prettier and crinkley hair as straight even though it is harder to comb. The main thing is the YOU beneath the clothes and skin – the ability to do, the will to conquer, the determination to understand and know this great, wonderful, curious world. Don’t shrink from new experiences and custom. Take the cold bath bravely. Enter into the spirit of your big bed-room. Enjoy what is and not pine for what is not. Read some good, heavy, serious books just for discipline: Take yourself in hand and master yourself. Make yourself do unpleasant things, so as to gain the upper hand of your soul.

Above all remember: your father loves you and believes in you and expects you to be a wonderful woman.

I shall write each week and expect a weekly letter from you.

Lovingly yours,

Papa

This fatherly note is now considered to be part of the body of work that credits Du Bois as one of the first scholars to study privilege as a concept.

One of the first references made was published in 1903. In his book, The Souls of Black Folk, Du Bois recounted observations of racial discrimination. Over the years, he wrote extensively, including a seminal piece in 1935 in which he referenced how he saw white people being treated differently in society. His list of observations of preferential responses included: courtesy and deference, unimpeded admittance to all public functions, lenient treatment in court, and access to the best schools.

Though he was an author, historian and sociologist, Du Bois did not receive or experience many of these privileges. For all the ways in which being a black man came with preju­dices, he was also amongst the few to access some freedoms and opportunities traditionally reserved for whites.

Since Du Bois’ early writings, privilege has been studied further and expansively. Over the past few years it’s a term that has caused dissent and disillusionment. And a reality that is being increasingly challenged, interrogated and disrupted.

In South Africa, it’s most commonly referenced in the context of race: that there are privileges white people enjoy which are denied or withheld from black people. Privilege however comes in many different forms such as gender, age, religion and class.

As a term, it is contentious and layered; with many different interpretations and applications.

A LUCKY HOBBY

Chichewa is the most widely known language in Malawi. Adapted dialects are also spoken in Zambia, Mozambique and Zimbabwe. Though it hasn’t crossed over to the north or south of the continent, there is one word that would likely delight stomachs from Senegal to the Seychelles.

Malawians speak with reverence of nkhuli – a type of hunger that cannot be satisfied with steaming mounds of nsima, subdued by freshly chopped and fragrant kachumbari salad or appeased with gulps of thobwa.

When a nkhuli yearning strikes, it either needs to be completely ignored or indulged by the sole subject of its desire: meat. Nothing else will work.

Growing up in Kasungu district in central Malawi, William Kamkwamba and his friends would go hunting to feed bouts of nkhuli. Birds were their most accessible prey, and often the only meat their families would roast and then delightedly devour. On a normal day, the Kamkwambas ate whatever they’d farmed and harvested off the land.

Until 2002, when birds and crops and humans were nearly wiped out by a famine.

Communities did whatever they could to survive. For William’s family, this was to eliminate tuition fees from the household budget.

As subsistence farmers, the agricultural devastation meant they were at risk of starving to death.

Over a hundred people are reported to have died as a result of this famine. Many households would never again be the same, but the Kamkwambas survived.

William was no longer in school, but he decided he could still get an education. Visiting the library regularly, he was free to indulge intellectual curiosities at whim. Engineering was an ongoing interest and so he read about it voraciously.

Guided by a book on how to use energy, he taught himself to build wind turbines. Constant experimentation and improvements in iteration resulted in William eventually designing and building a windmill that began to power some of the electrical appliances in his family home.

Using bicycle parts, bluegum trees and material collected from the local scrapyard, he figured out how to harness the power of the wind. And it changed his life.

For five years, he was unable to continue with high school, but today William is a renowned innovator, engineer and author. He has a university degree, is the subject of a documentary film, William and the Windmill, and the subject of a 2019 Netflix film which is adapted from his book, The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind. He is also now working on developing technology curricula.

This radical change in the trajectory of his life has in many ways been powered by the wind. Wind power brought radical change to the lives of his family members when William built the windmill. They acquired easy and affordable access to electricity and, consequently, to a whole new world of food preservation, technological communication and even new entertainment options.

Wind power can change lives; and it’s this immutable fact that makes it an insightful illustration of privilege.

POWERED BY WIND

In 1988, American Professor and activist Peggy McIntosh published an essay, White Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal Account of Coming to See Correspondences Through Work in Women’s Studies.

In it she shared how career highlights such as becoming a Harvard professor and getting research grants could not be credited solely to her hard work.

McIntosh described that there had been ‘big institutional arbitrary circumstances that were putting wind at my back with regard to getting grants and getting credibility’.

While some aspects of her career journey are unique, for many people privilege is the gust of wind that blows away obstacles and makes it easier to move forward. Privilege elevates some voices above others, and can transform input into a powerful blast, instead of a mere billow.

It bolsters some efforts while blocking others.

Kamkwamba and McIntosh can both testify to the power and effect of the wind in their lives, but their experiences are vastly different.

For one, the wind was a tool; for the other, it was a secret and powerful ally.

MEETING OF THE MINDS

In his TEDx talk Recognising Privilege: Power to all People, educator Michae...