There’s a reason for that, and it’s something you need to learn about this board, too. No one responding gives a crap about the posts she’s posted before. They care about the attitude she has portrayed since then. Bringing up the old shit is just their way of getting back at her, since she’s shown a complete indifference to trying to change her posting style to fit what people want. They are punishing her for being annoying. It won’t stop unless her posting habits change. This thread shows they haven’t.
The same exact thing happened to me for the time when I had a bit of a breakdown here over a Warning (as well as for a couple of other posts). The same thing will likely happen to you for the brouhaha you went through earlier. This board is very much about social justice. It’s very much about punishing people who don’t shape up. Particularly in the Pit. (In fact, I’d argue it was one of the Pit’s main purposes. Note how there’s no forum for peaceably working out your disagreements? This forum, the one of pileons, is the one you go to.)
And, note, I don’t say that she needs to change her posting habits, although it would behoove her to try and figure out which parts are annoying and seeing if she can stand to change them. I may still post annoying shit sometimes, but at least I’m now generally aware that I’m doing so. It’s a conscious decision to buck the system.
As the 'Raffers once revealed on their thread for snarking about this board: snark is only fun on people who are oblivious. And, unfortunately, even sven does seem to not get the pretentiousness that comes off in her posts. Not everyone is like you and inclined to disregard that and just discuss the overarching message. Especially in the Pit.
If social justice is a metaphorical Tonya Harding taking a verbal baseball bat to the imaginary knees of the injust, the call me Captain Social Justice.
Can you tell us what parts of Peace Corps are “poverty tourism masquerading as charity work,” and how you’ve drawn these conclusions? Or are you just shooting at the hip and making up broad assumptions to take shots at someone because they’ve spent their time in a way that doesn’t seem appealing to you personally?
On the one hand, I understand what everyone is saying about even sven’s posting style, and have found it eye-rolling myself at times. On the other hand, though, she seems to get taken to task even over completely innocuous posts, with people simply reading in their own prejudicially imagined subtexts. For example, she seemed to get a lot of shit here and at Giraffe Boards over post #5 in this thread, which seemed completely undeserved; that was a perfectly cromulent post, the sort of thing I might have written myself. Snarking indiscriminately over everything she writes seems just pointless cruelty.
I’m going to go out on a limb and say most people here probably had stereotypes of peacecorp workers that lead them to believe they would probably actually LIKE such people and look foward to their posts. So, I don’t think you can blame some boggyman stereotypes that most likely would have helped you for the fact some people don’t like you. Though, for many, I doubt it’s so much dislike but more “oh, gawd, not more of this smug, holier, better, more experienced, wiser, I make a bigger difference crap again”.
I won’t say you do such things all the time, but it’s regular enough that when it happens its not a surprise. And when it does I often turn to my SO and say “you member that younger lady we meet at that party once?” and she will reply “oh gawd…THAT lady?” and I’ll go “yeah THAT lady…well her dopleganger is at it again on the dope”.
It’s what some people here do - they find a weakness or something they don’t like about a poster, and then every single time they post those people pop up with their tiresome crap.
Speaking of which, and knowing that some of the regulars will jump on me for this - is there any work in any of these countries with all of these extra kids to cut down on the birth rate? Like in Chad (I think it was) where parents drop off kids they can’t afford at orphanages and take the chance they will be adopted out overseas. Is it a religious problem or do they just not have access to birth control? Hmm, not that it is working here - never mind…
I read an article recently about Melinda Gates extending the work of the Gates Foundation to include birth control of women in poor or underserved countries. There’s a bunch of articles avaliable via google, if you like.
You know what? I wasn’t being fair with the masquerading remark. I do think that poverty tourism is an element of the peace corps, but that doesn’t mean they don’t help people or even that they don’t also have ultimately good intentions.
Jesus Christ, people. Only here could a statement such as the OP, slightly misworded as it was, be taken to task for being too snooty to agree with.
I get that even sven’s posts occasionally suffer from, um, singularity and narrowness of perspective, but in this thread it’s most of the other posters who come off as raging assholes.
Wow, the attitude in this thread is out of control. Middle school let out early today and leave y’all with time to play on the SDMB?
The entire adoption industry needs an overhaul, and we as a culture need to take a long hard look at why it’s geared toward finding healthy babies for wealthy families, instead of good homes for needy children.
Several decades ago, the Tennessee Children’s Home Society was caught stealing babies from poor families and selling them. They targeted poor families, widows, unmarried mothers, and the mentally ill – telling some that their child had died at birth, or seizing children from their parents via a corrupt judge’s order, or even sending welfare workers to snatch them from their classrooms at school. Some of the stolen children were not sold, and left to die of malnutrition and neglect.
The victimized families, among the most helpless members of society, were ignored. Maybe the people who bought the babies rationalized it by telling themselves they were doing “what’s best” for the child. Or maybe they just didn’t care if ‘poor white trash’ were robbed of their children, as long as that meant a baby for THEM. Regardless, a great wrong was done. And it’s still being done. Closing our eyes won’t make the problem go away – has it ever?
Most people here have some kind of schtick - a subject or two they really can go on about. Bricker and anything legal, BrianGlutton and the Middle East, FinnAgain and Jewish culture, etc. even sven seems to be a pretty bright and sincere lady who has a pretty solid belief system about equal-opportunity-cultures.
So what I’ve taken away from this thread is this:
When even sven talks about brown people (and the browner the better!), the snark sharks will start circling. Too bad, because even sven is no idiot and really does contribute to the boards. The Nonnies can go back to their regularly scheduled He-Raffe Durp Haterz Club meeting.
I’m not trying to be confrontational with you personally, but I’d like to propose a friendly shift in looking at things, for the sake of discussion.
If I got an internship with the EU doing economic reconstruction in Greece, because I enjoy Greek food, love the language, and really think Greek guys are hot, would that make me a poverty tourist? Or would it make me someone trying to get a job in a place they happen to click with?
How about the Indian doctor who comes to the US because he’d enjoy a better standard of living for his skillset, has a chance to get away from his parents, and always thought it’d be cool to visit Nashville? Is he being arrogant in thinking he is “helping” the poor needy Americans who apparently can’t manage their medical care themselves?
Africa is not “poverty,” and living in Africa (or whatever area you are interested in) is not solely about your relationship to poverty and power dynamics. Some people click with the South of France because they love the way of life in French villages, some people really click with South Sudan because they love the way of life in Sudanese villages. There are plenty of reasons to fall in love with Zambia or Mongolia or Nepal- pretty much as many rasons as people fall in love with England or Japan or Australia.
If you do enjoy living and working in Africa, outside of South Africa and maybe Nairobi, there aren’t a ton of jobs for foreigners. Its not like moving to Germany where you might be able to transfer your career as a book publisher or a yoga instructor. For foreigners, working in aid is the name of the game- and it’s not like it’s a terrible thing to do, but for plenty of people it’s a not-unpleasant means to an end. It’s a lot like English instructors in Asia- I doubt many of them came in with a burning desire to teach TEFL, but it’s not a bad thing to do and it gets you where you want to be.