Pitfalls of volunteerism without activism
"OK. If you're so into 'helping the world', and all that garbage, why
don't you just go out to a soup kitchen and do some good ol'
volunteering. Why do you have to disrupt things?"
I've heard that before, and I have a perfectly good reason why not - it
doesn't do anything in the long term. Now, don't get me wrong, I think
volunteering is very important. However, I think that volunteering in
the absence of activism can be very dangerous.
Give someone a fish, and they'll eat for a day. Teach someone to
fish, and they'll eat for a lifetime. Volunteering is giving someone
a fish, sometimes quite literally. This is an important band-aid.
Teaching someone to fish takes time, and we must do something in between,
to improve the situation in the short term. We must get people to a
point where they are more able to demand their rights, and volunteering
can do this.
However, a band-aid is just that, a band-aid. It is not a cure. The
band-aid protects the wound so that it can be healed. Activism does the
healing. You can give out food every day, but until you force the system
to change so that these people do not need your help, you will need to
give out food every day. We must demand that our society, our
government, change, so that everyone has the the rights they deserve.
A homeless person is homeless because of some root cause, for example,
discriminatory hiring practices. You can help the homeless person daily,
or you can change the world so that you don't have to, and so that others
will not be hurt as this person was.
Volunteering and activism are not mutually exclusive. In fact, they
often work best when used together. Help the individual in the short
term, so that they can help you in the long term. This is what the
Civil Rights movement in the 60s did, and this is what we should do today.
Use volunteering as a band-aid, but work to change the system at the
same time. The short-term is important, but it is the long-term which
creates true change.
Related Pages
Humans have a moral obligation to help
other humans
If the system doesn't work, change it
Protest is an effective means of creating
change
The Perfect Standard and why it's bad
Don't wait for the ideal issue
So you're ready to get involved
Please mail any comment or suggestions to kerig@sas.upenn.edu
