Uncomfortable issues

Yesterday I had a conversation with Spiwo on a topic that made me a bit uncomfortable, although it was important for me to know to develop a clearer assessment of the nature of poverty in South Africa. Spiwo had been in contact with a young man who is an aspiring volunteer, but who has a bad reputation around the community for being a loafer. There is a huge unemployment problem in the townships, in large part because people keep coming in from rural areas faster than housing can be built or jobs created. There is a need for 650,000 housing units in the Cape Flats alone. The government is currently building at a rate of 8,000 per annum in the whole country! Unemployment is a huge problem, but even so there are able-bodied young people who don't hold down a job even if given the chance. This lack of work ethic, Spiwo said, is a big problem everywhere.

Now I am a good liberal, not ashamed of my bleeding heart, and this touches a nerve because I have so often heard the argument in the States that "the poor are just lazy", which excuses the securely-employed and affluent from feeling any responsibility for the state poor people are in. Besides, I have met a lot of poor people who work very hard, and seen how their disempowerment by past and current political, social, and economic systems has so much to do with their failure. This notion of the lazy poor is a typical white stereotype in the States, and you can see it lurking implicitly beneath many arguments against welfare and other social programs. If you dig a little deeper, I think you will usually find that these "lazy poor" are also imagined to be people of color. So, to hear by black supervisor making an argument reminiscent of these stereotypes doesn't sit well with me at first.

So I ask Spiwo where this lack of work ethic comes from, especially what role the legacy of Apartheid may have played. It is not the whole story, Spiwo thinks, but Apartheid bears a great deal of the blame, since black South Africans have been exploited as cheap labor for over a century, and they have not been compensated for the back-breaking work that built the country's economy (especially in the mines, which remain the backbone of South Africa's economy). White owners always made the argument that paying the black workers more would kill the industry, and with it the economy. Yet the marginal revenue of the mines seems to have exceeded the marginal cost enough to make the owners very,very rich. Other examples abound. Combined with Bantu education that made sure blacks were unskilled and the purposeful unavailability of anything but dead-end jobs, it is understandable that people would conclude, after a certain point, that the system is set up to ensure their failure so they might as well not try too hard.

Spiwo was quick to point out that there are a lot of people in the townships who are very motivated, who find ways to acquire some of the skills the education system has failed to provide them, who find a way to get capital and start a business, etc. Spiwo is always saying there is so much talent and ability in the townships, but for the most part it hasn't been unlocked. People who have been disempowered by an oppressive system, like their parents and grandparents before them, can become mentally and spiritually disempowered. Not only are they excluded by lack of opportunity, but they learn not to believe in themselves. People who find a way out of such a situation are pretty extraordinary. They are like the middle-class kids who get into Yale, who achieve higher than peers who had the same opportunities, and go to a prestigious institution despite lacking the benefits of connections, legacy, great wealth. They are exceptional, and we should not reason that because a few succeed in this way that everyone in their situation should be able to do so as well. They may be more meritorious than the people who have the opportunities handed to them.

To use examples from US politics, both the current President and his rival in the last election went to Yale. Both were legacies, and both got mediocre grades while they were there. Yet both of them later got into Masters programs at Ivy League institutions. Was it because they were the most qualified and capable, or because they were connected? If I had gotten a C- average as an undergrad, I would not expect to hold national office later in life. Now, obviously both of these guys got their act together to some degree at a later point, but they had a safety net that others do not.

One of the most cherished assumptions in the United States is that we live in a meritocracy, yet merit requires opportunity to be realized, and many brilliant people never discover their ability because they have no one to help them see it and believe in themselves. A lot of poor people work very hard just to keep their heads above water. There is no denying that there are lazy poor people, any more than there are lazy rich people. What do year-round snowboarders living off a trust fund or Paris Hilton contribute to society? I grant that there was some level of opportunistic skill in Hilton's ability to use an amateur porn video to make her a true celebrity, i.e. someone who is famous just for being famous, but what has she ever done for anyone else? Not a very feminist example, I know, but she is not such a good example of feminism. I digress. The only difference between someone like Paris Hilton and an unmotivated poor person is that Paris has rich parents to leach off of, and doesn't have to experience consequences for any lack of work ethic. Meritocracy is a myth, and I mean that in the deeper sense of a cherished, almost metaphysical belief that founds the way a culture interprets reality. We don't talk about the Protestant work ethic for no reason. But it is also a myth in the more typical sense. Those who work hard do not always benefit, and those who reap the rewards are not always the hardest working or most creative. Opportunity and connections are the key to unlock the potential of skills and creativity. Americans believe in equality of opportunity, but we don't seem to believe in seriously making it happen.

So bringing things back to South Africa and my conversation with Spiwo (aka Dr. Xapile, aka umfundisi, aka my supervisor, in case anyone was confused), what is the response to the mentality that keeps people stuck just as much as the system does? For him personally, in his ministry, it is to encourage people to use their gifts and talents to contribute to the good of others in the community. He has worked to do this by forming a leadership team, with representatives from each of the eighteen "zones" the area around the congregation has been divided into. These zones are responsible for staying abreast of what is going on with people in the zone, who is sick, who has died, who has contracted HIV, who is hungry, etc. It is a gradual process to create a system where people take ownership of their community, take responsibility for thinking of ways to meet people's needs and maintain relationships, and a where there is accountability. It doesn't work perfectly, but there is a vision in place for how empower a core group of leaders, and to begin to empower the community through them. The ultimate goal of any social program (whether governmental, non-profit, or church based) should be to help people see the talents they have and give them opportunities to develop those talents and use them for the benefit of themselves and society. Spiwo said something I thought was very interesting in connection to this, "I find that people typically respond very positively to being trusted with responsibility. Especially here where many people have never been trusted. It can really change a person and the way she sees herself." There are huge limits on what JL Zwane can do, but Spiwo and the other staff are working to expand the ministry.

This is only a partial solution to an overwhelming problem, which obviously is a lot more complex than what I have portrayed above. I was reading a couple of articles about affirmative action programs here in South Africa, which are a facet of Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) programs in the country, but I think I will save those for another post. As in the States, there are no easy solutions to problems of poverty and racism, and there is not such consensus about how to address them. I am including a couple of pictures of the township and the lighthouse in Cape Town. Since my camera stopped working I have to rely on the pictures that are already on the memory card until the camera gets fixed.