An Open Letter to the Los Angeles Times regarding their Disaster Porn and the White Woman's Burden Paradigm at their Africa News Desk

Below is an open copy of a letter to the Editor of the Los Angeles Times, regarding this unintentionally racist article found on the front page, below the fold of the Aug. 1, 2016 edition. Please note that I write many L2E's to them on my phone (I'm an occasional commenter on their coverage, comments they have occasionally even had the grace to publish, for which I am appreciative), where I have the address conveniently saved. I am limited, however, as a result, in my expressive fonts. The majority of the all-caps comments here, therefore, would normally be set off with italics and I have not felt the inclination to go through and change them. Please be advised, therefore, that comments may read as angrier than actually intended, as with all cell phone text communication.

Also note that I am well aware of the character limit imposed on most commentary, however, the editors occasionally devote more space to the comments of an expert in the field. Being a Master of Arts in General History, with a thesis written on the subject of gender, power and traditional marriage in the only 'major' power ('Centralized State') to form in East Africa prior to its appropriation by Europeans, of course, makes me THE world expert in the history, at least, of this subject, so I made free to comment at length, and to respond to the article point by point.

I did NOT read this letter exhaustively for flow and balance, as most of the polished writing above is structured, because the letter is to a board of Editors, and the subject is of crucial importance. If they'd had the courage to publish it themselves, they'd have cut it and adjusted the language themselves, or, if they'd wanted an expert's length excerpt, would have contacted me with comments. As Editors, that is their jobs:

[text in brackets added at time of posting]



To the L.A. Times:

I wrote my M.A. thesis on the relative social and political power of women in the Great Zimbabwean societies a few hundred miles south of the Sudan. These societies fall under the same Eastern Bantu umbrella of pastoralist East Africans as discussed in the article.

It is reductionist beyond meaning to suggest that a COMPLETELY traditional version of these arrangements is 'singular' in purpose. While this does not stop the removal of a young woman, grown up in the slums of a city, being simple abduction, a young woman raised to farming and charcoal making and gold washing in the wet seasons is far MORE empowered as the second wife of a man wealthy enough to SELL cattle, and equivalently empowered as the sixth wife to that man, to any poor, city-woman ON EARTH.

As the Senior Wife to such a man, with, perhaps, a little training in 'magic,' the essentially, yet not exclusively female counterpart to, y'know, good old fashioned physical coercion (violence), she could easily succeed to the sovereignty of her clan, under the right circumstances. Being a witch is as good as being a warrior for the clan's dignity and intimidation factor.

Truly traditional Bantu contractual marriage is a, strike that, THE means of social mobility available to both a girl AND her family. Prices are up, by the way, since the Portuguese era, when fourteen head was the average, which, I should say, speaks positively for the value of 'the woman' in the traditional pastoralist Bantu domestic economy, perhaps because men are forced to monetize labor in order to pay taxes, only payable in cash since the colonial era.

Also, in an agriculture economy, to say nothing of the specific case of pastoralists, every year not spent producing children is MONEY STOLEN FROM THAT WOMAN'S POCKET. While for us, in the urbanized, industrialized West, it is second nature to limit the number of mouths we must earn wages to feed, in South Sudan, mouths produce the food to feed themselves, in an exponential fashion. More mouths, more food.

Traditional contractual marriage also includes a right to refuse a match for the bride, meaning that Mr. Keji has violated the laws of his clan and his ancestors in assaulting Ms. Agnes. If you want to do good in this world, tell HIM that. While sometimes quite heavy handed social pressure is considered in-bounds, his entire clan-lineage aches with shame over his dishonor.

Furthermore, love, in a manner reminiscent of the (hey! highly agronomic) French, is a concept divorced from marriage, such that a young and beautiful woman married as a junior wife to an old and wealthy man is EXPECTED to bear him only one blood descendant, the first[, the rest being economic assets to his entire clan, of which he IS a leading member, even if the babies are not, biologically, relatives].

Again, the 'obey their husbands or face violence' bit has NO PLACE in real traditional contractual marriage, it is an innovation of a post-Victorian society and can safely be made illegal without cultural resistance, though gender is a different matter. No society, anywhere on the planet, believes it is sustainable to SYSTEMATICALLY terrorize women into reproduction. In magnifying such cases to 'representative' sampling, based on anecdote, you, the L.A. Times are BEASTIALIZING undeveloped peoples. You are discussing them like orangutans.

Now, stipulated, all of this is true only and exclusively in the countryside.

What of the cities and how does the rural population get industrialized?

Your article ain't chasing those questions. Until those are the questions YOU, the L.A. Times are focusing on, you're still just publishing disaster porn and no one gets to test any of it.

Certainly it must be made wrong to take girls 'to village.' Neither you, nor your readers are doing anyone any favors, however, by disrupting the only economy in the country that works.

My suggestions? Advertise the value of an educated woman on a farm, teach women the difference between wage and farm economies, and empower 'tribal' courts, constituted with their traditional female members again (the Portuguese pushed them out, all those years ago). This would have helped your 19 year old source, as well, whose treatment at the hands of her senior wives would have been better regulated by a coeducational elder's council.

Notice that your own source who got the best result began with the system and adapted IT to HER needs, she did not try to reinvent African society from the ground up. Make smart women sell.

http://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/theses/1106/

Cheers,

George Levin
Simi Valley, CA