Non-Superficial Engagement

America is loosely called an advanced democracy, the oldest democracy in the world. It seems that one of the by-products of living in an advanced democratic society is that social “issues” are what we would call sub-issues of sub-issues and the real issues are tackled superficially. To give an example, a couple of us SAWIP students were privileged to attend the Campus National Progress Conference during week 4 of our DC experience, a day of seminars for American students living across the country. One of the speeches, at the high profile event hosted by President Bill Clinton, was on race. The speaker was unfortunately more concerned with shouting out her frustrations with an ill-described study than addressing the real issues of socio-economic prejudice and voting rights limitations that indirectly discriminate against African Americans. The conference turned out to be more like a democrat propaganda machine than an academic or even passionate discussion of American social and economic issues.

Fortunately, our evening SAWIP discussions and leadership day provided the insight that was lacking at the CNPC and also allowed for discussion among the team of many different issues including affirmative action, reconciliation and other topical controversies. We were able to draw comparisons between the American Civil Rights Movement and post- Movement as well as the South African struggle and democracy in the past 17 years. Of particular interest was our visit to Anacostia and a discussion of black envy in America and oppositely the South African “Begging to be Black” issue.