This is probably because over time I was socialized not to see it, much like for a middle class white American is taught not to see their privilege. I was taught to think of it as second nature, normal, a standard way of life. I remember the most striking moment so far in class was when we were discussing the destruction of African traditions and their way of life, hunting and roaming for their own food; that is when I had a disgusting revelation. Up until this point I saw African poverty as simply the product of geography, it never occurred to me that this was constructed by white settlement, that people didn’t always starve in Africa. It seems so incredibly ridiculous to articulate now, but it simply a by product of American exceptionalism. We as a country flourish because we deserve it, because we have earned it, and those countries who whither and starve do so because they are inept, undeserving, not
This is probably because over time I was socialized not to see it, much like for a middle class white American is taught not to see their privilege. I was taught to think of it as second nature, normal, a standard way of life. I remember the most striking moment so far in class was when we were discussing the destruction of African traditions and their way of life, hunting and roaming for their own food; that is when I had a disgusting revelation. Up until this point I saw African poverty as simply the product of geography, it never occurred to me that this was constructed by white settlement, that people didn’t always starve in Africa. It seems so incredibly ridiculous to articulate now, but it simply a by product of American exceptionalism. We as a country flourish because we deserve it, because we have earned it, and those countries who whither and starve do so because they are inept, undeserving, not