^'Pendulum
OPINION
Thursday, October 13, 2005 •Page 9
It's The Little
Things
ho Would've thought.
p. 10
OPINIUN
Issues concerning the stu
dent body, your peers.
p. 11
Elon should be involved more with Africa
Phill
Co/i
!ig Crook
'umn/st
^ friend Lindsay says Elon is really big
frica, and I’m starting to believe her. It
as if every time I turn around I am
^i^^tering something that has to do with
began with Francis Bok’s “Escape
in >” the freshman common read-
t\\f ^ ^ extended to the author’s
visit and nHHr#acc at P.lnn. Thci
and yet I’ve never heard anyone casually say
“North America is so lovely this time of year
” etc In reference to someone’s hentap or
ethnicity for example, we say Afncan-
Ameriam, no.
might for a Chinese-Amencan or Insh
larg. facto, in -
person
African country he or
ine th- ^ freshman common reaa- r aje time the person in question ooes
tWcwi ^ extended to the author’s ^ ^ which African country he or
la« -n ^ address here at Elon. Then, °. p„j. hundreds of years count-
'^^^esday I watched “Hotel Rwanda.” f« ""^^fwertorn from their tribes and
FaJ'rr*"® at the football game over no record taken to individually
en>H Z a group of students gath- jg person. ThankfiiUy excep-
at the football game over *®"®^^^thTrrecord taken to individually
ered / a group of students gath- ’ {asingle person. Thankfully excep-
SunH ^ money for iAbolish. Finally, on where people have
Ch'lH ^ I went to see the African ^lons ^ ^ lineage all the way
_ ^en s Choir nprfnrm at Antioch
Ch iH * went to see tne Aincdii
r ® Choir perform at Antioch
.J!^“nity Church.
'tiuch I don’t really know that
I ®^ut Africa. Appalling to say the least.
hui
“onest, I don’t really know inai ^
> ”■ -..can. r-
”™Sd wc must ask ouiselves why this
™ ofA«caocc,i.s.And.fyou
• X7/^ll W1
Plet 1 ^ am, aimosi wi..- ^ the answer can be found in one,
‘gnomnt about an entire continent. word: ethnocentrism My text
how another thing: isn’t it interesting “Society in Focus,” defines ettaocen
tyoicT I ™ referring to the jg„dency to evaluate the cus-
» ^ Elon student: a white, upper-class ^ . tj^er groups according to one s own
commonly consider Africa to be toms of other P
^ ^ of a *1 r
'“v»re nf " • * cultunu awu.w
'VticaiK ^ “ continent. other cultures ai
'Peaks expenence, companson
P^ndenti ^hana, Zaire or Namibia inde- ^ is^ the ’
aently of th^ Wp are ine ^ ^
vvid—
If other groups according to one s own
toms of other ^ P ^^^ns
cultural standarfe_^^.^gj^Qj strange or
to your own.
^iic, ai leasi in my eApcn«^iiv.w, . pQj^panMjii
3hana, Zai„ or Namibia inde- ^ I the various custo™ ^
„ . the entit, continent. We a« eachrfusA*^
^ 6 o generalize Africa into one entity
even the term “American” is ethnocentric)
are so embedded into daily life that they have
become social norms. In fact, we hardly
even notice them. Yet, when we see the
Mangbetu people in Africa practicing head
elongation we call it abnormal, even when
here we are in America cutting women open
and inserting plastic into their bodies. Plastic
surgery is simply another norm of our culture
and we take it as completely acceptable, no
questions asked.
But the greatest tragedy, I think, is that our
ethnocentrism has blinded us so completely
that we hardly ever even think about Africa.
That’s why all the events of the past few
weeks have stood out so much in my mind:
I’ve never thought about Africa so much. It is
just as Joaquin Phoenix’s character in “Hotel
Rwanda,” Jack Daglish, says; we are content
to see the atrocities of Africa unfold on TV,
say “how terrible” and turn back to eating our
dinners.
I think part of the problem lies in the fact
that we see Africa as so greatly removed
from our own lives. Because the customs and
peoples of the various countries are so differ
ent from our own, we feel disconnected and
unable to understand; and who wants to
dwell upon that which they don’t
understand?
The answer to why we have ignored Africa
for so long is more complex than I am able to
fathom, but what I am certain of is that this is
a problem. Hello people! There is an entire
continent of this world that we are almost
completely ignoring. Through increasingly
ethnocentric eyes we see a continent, yes, an
entire continent, that is just too far away and
too different to be helped. I think it’s safe to
say that we are all horrified by the AIDS epi
demic and the severe shortage of drinkable
water and the lack of proper schools, but
what are we actually doing about it?
Really, we just don’t care, and if we care,
we simply don’t care enough.
But when I review my mental log of all the
“African” things that I have encountered over
the past month, I am most struck by the Elon
101 class that raised money for iAbolish.
They didn’t raise much money, but they were
at least doing something. All the talk in the
world isn’t going to change how we view and
treat Africa. In fact, I could write this column
six times over and still, no one would do a
thing.
I won’t end with typically cheesy lines like
“Find your own way to make a difference,
you can do it!” but I will say to you, why not
be more like our beloved Elon and choose to
be BIG on Afiica. Now wouldn’t that make a
nice T-shirt?
Contact Phillip Crook at
opinions@elon.edu or 278-7247.
X^-r^PFamily Guy’ and a free will
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(as others would believe)? As I go on about my
day, I go to class and sit in the same spot for an
hour and some odd minutes. Do I do this
because I like sitting and listening to someone
else talk for that long? Does it entertain me?
During the class period I feel a rumbling in my
stomach and realize that my body is telling me
to go to the bathroom. If we are in the middle
of a deep discussion that is appeasing, my free
will tells me I want to wait and not go to the
bathroom, but my body is directing me (divine
will?) to go. So in essence, I decide to go. Was
that because of free will or because it’s just the
way things are?
I could go on for hours with scenarios such as
this, the point is, how much of our daUy lives is
actually free wUI? While thinking about this
inevitably I thought of something crazy that is
the closest thing to free will as I have ever
seen. “Family Guy.” That’s right, “Family
Guy.” “Family Guy” is probably the most
random show I have ever watched or set eyes
on in my entire life. The fact is, there is no
reasoning for a lot of the things that happen
on that show. Meg gets hit in the face by
Stewie who gets laughed at by a father who is
taking a pee right in the middle of the floor for
no apparent reason. Thi,s ladies and gentle
man, is what I see as the closest thing to free
will in our world today. This is not to say we
don’t make our own decisions, but a lot of our
decisions are made due to our circumstances
and our needs rather than outright random-
ness. Think about it...
Contact Jeremy White at
opinions@elon.edu or 278-7247.